So, yesterday afternoon we caught our short flight from Con Dao Island back to the mainland of Vietnam into Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon. We had pre booked the hotel on a recommendation from another traveller we had spoken to a while ago, so we could get a taxi straight there which saved a bit of hassle. I was glad we were inside the taxi and that I wasn't driving - it was madness on the roads, crazy busy and not really much order.
We arrived at the hotel and were 'upgraded' to a balcony room - which sounded great, so we were pleased to accept. On the 6th floor we stepped out onto our balcony (only big enough for 2 of us) and looked down onto our crazy, noisy street - in district 1, which is where most of the interests are.
We had a quick read of our lonely planet to sync ourselves with the map we were given and find somewhere for dinner. It was dark by the time we braved the streets and made our way crossing these crazy roads - whereby, basically you just have to start stepping out into the road with full on traffic - cars and mainly mopeds and motorbikes weaving in and out beeping their horns. We would say 'Ok?, ready?, go' followed by quite a bit of swearing!! Anyway, we had some dinner at a veggie place which was ok (Emma enjoyed it anyway!) and safely made our way back. The noise from our room was like we were in the middle of the street, pubs, bars and clubs were all turning up the volume, this mixed in with people noise and traffic - so, needless to say we didn't sleep much!!
Today we asked for another room and were kindly moved to the back of the hotel which seems much quieter so hopefully we'll get some sleep tonight. This is our only full day in the city, we had prioritized our time with other hot spots further north and cities aren't really our thing, also, there doesn't seem to be a huge amount to see here. So, we had a walk around and hopped, skipped and jumped our way through the traffic finding another veggie restaurant for food - over the last few months there has been very little choice for Emma on menus so I was quite happy to find veggie places in the city, luckily this restaurant was very nice - I just had to pick the tofu out 😛
Back to our quieter room now, alarm is set for 05:20. We have an early flight to Danang then transfer to Hoi An which we're both looking forward to 😊
