Travelogues

Ho Chi Minh city or Saigon was really a place to explore the Vietnamese heritage when I was there in November 2010.

There was no hassle when I arrived in the evening at Tan Son Nhat airport. No need to fill in an immigration card to enter Vietnam. The airport is not far from the city center. You can take a taxi to reach your destination. Choose wisely which taxi that you will take. Traffic is on the right side of the roads while in my country where I came from is on the left. I don't recall any traffic jam when I was there.

On language barrier; I have no difficulties in speaking english as most people understand or at least they try to. At the university where I’ve been visiting, I met students who speak english very well. They do speak in pure english accent, I am still amazed of this ability. Well, english is not my mother tongue either.

On food, there are specialty of Vietnamese dishes available only in Saigon. Most of them are well tasted to my likings.

Saigon is home of sandwich called banh mi. Banh mi consists of baguette bread filled with slices of meat, sometime egg, tofu mix, vegetables and sauce. Baguette is French style bread, smaller but sweeter to adapt the taste of locals.

During my days in Saigon, one US dollar is exchangeable to 20,000 dong more or less. Therefore a banh mi that cost 15,000 dong is about 0,75 US dollar.

The next in the menu is rice noodle called pho, a regular meal in Vietnam. Always cooked in delicious meat broth, pho is widely avail throughout Vietnam, not only in Saigon. Always served with fresh leaves like basil, cilantro, mint and lot of bean sprouts.

Another dish that I have encountered is the broken rice style called Com tam. A mix up of cooked rice combined with slices of meat and others. Again this is a specialty from Saigon where rice is abundant.

Places of interest are all over the city like the Notre dame cathedral church, adjacent to the famous central post office, war remnants museum, city hall, temples, Ben Thanh market and the river side. There are several churches in Saigon, something derived from the French colonial past.

I stayed in district 1 where there are lot of small hotels (hostels) at budget range or even smaller backpackers hotels that you may find in the alleys of Pham Ngu Lao wards.

Saigon is also a good start to visit the surrounding area in South Vietnam by boat through the Mekong river to towns like Ben Tre, My Tho, Can Tho, or as far as to Chao Doc near the Cambodian border. Indeed you can go to Phnom Penh in Cambodia by boat from Saigon. They do organize such tours. Ask for their brochures at first when you arrive in Saigon so you can have a very good plan on your journey.