Ho Chi Minh City

2nd October 2014,  travelled all the way from Krabi to Ho Chi Minh, a city that is also known as Saigon.  I arrived late in the evening and got a picked up from the airport arranged by the hotel. It was my first trip here and I was surprised to see modern buildings with lots of motorbikes and a terrible heavy trafic. I tried creating a conversation with the driver to know how long it takes to reach the hotel but he seems unhappy whenever I talk. Not to sure whether he doesn't speak English or he simply dislikes me. After 25 minutes, I finally reach and had a smooth check in at New World Saigon. 

After checked in, I walked out from the hotel to find many unique street eats and finally opted for a local restaurant to dine. I was pretty shocked to see many of their local foods here have lots of exotic meats like snake, crocodile and frog on their menu. They even have a snake blood shots on their beverage list. If only I have taken a picture of the menu to prove you people. I had already lost my appetite but I have no choice to force myself to eat due to my poor weight. Finally, I ended up ordering a claypot frog ginger rice and a coke, yes you heard me right. I'm eating a frog for the first time. We'll, it doesn't taste that bad after all, pretty tasty...

3rd October 2014, I had the hotel to arranged for me a whole day trip tour to the famous Mekong River which cost me approximately 300 000 VND. There will be a mini bus that will pick up from the hotel lobby and the ride took about an hour and half. Through out the journey, we did a short stop at Mekong Tram Dung and than continued all the way to My Tho. 

From My Tho, we hop onto a long tail boat and start cruising to the island of Con Phuong. According to my tour guide, Lionel, this island is to basically show us the Vietnamese culture. 

We than headed to a place where local sweets were processed and made. 

Later, we were all seated on a table to try out local fruits like longan, pineapple, dragon fruit and ciku which one basically can get at any other Asian countries. 

Then comes a group of Vietnamese dressed in traditional costumes playing their traditional music instrument and singing their local traditional songs. After the musics are done and tourist are happy watching their performance, each of them came with a small basket on the table asking for tips.

After that, we were led to rowboats (sampans) . It was a fun experience for us tourist to get to know about the Mekong River (known as the worlds 12th largest river and the 7th longest in Asia) with beautiful scenery throughout the waterways thou it was a tight squeeze when often the rowboats bump into each other. Next, we were headed back to the same longtail boat that we were in previously, then back to the mini bus again and straight to the hotel. The entire trip took almost a whole day but it's worth an experience.

4th October 2014, the next day after lunch, I headed to a nearby salon. A professional haircut and hair wash cost me a total of SGD$9.

Next, I headed to The War Remnants Museum which is located at District 3, containing exhibits that documents the Vietnam War related to the Americans. The entree fee is by far the cheapest I have paid for a musuem ticket, 15 000 VND. Towards the entrance of the museum, displayed planes, helicopters, tanks, etc and to the left, you would see a very disturbing old prison. 

Inside the musuem, it was a devastating  sight when some of the images displayed are about victims of the agent orange and napalm.

Towards evening, I than headed to Ben Thanh market which is located at District 1, a 5 minutes walk from the hotel. This is a place for tourist seeking for souvenirs, local handicrafts, local foods and many more. Just name it and you can definitely find it here. I'm pretty surprised that some locals here do speak Bahasa to converse with Malaysian tourist when exchanging bargains.

5th October 2014, time to packed and head straight to Tan Son Nhat International Airport for my next destination. If only I had another extra day at Ho Chi Minh, I would love to pay a visit at the Notre Dame Basilica and the Chu Chi tunnels. Overall, I do find this place interesting especially of its history and local foods. On the other side, I realize the locals here aren't as friendly as you think, most of them are very loud and rude and at times you will not gets smile or even a thank you even being a good tipper. But not all of them are like that. I did encounter a few nice people here especially the hairdresser who cut my hair, friendly yet professional.