City tour of Ho Chi Minh

Day 1
Nov 12, 2013
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

After 12 months of waiting, our 4-city 9-day tour finally started with our late night flight to Vietnam. Upon arrival in Ho Chi Minh city, we hired a van for 600,000 VND to bring us to the Dragon Palace hostel lodging where we had booked 2 rooms. Our accommodations included free internet access, free buffet breakfast and a highly unpleasant but still free peek of your friends in their birthday suits made possible by the misplaced frosted glasses of the bathroom (good thing the girls were in a separate room).

Dragon Palace Hostel Lodging
The gang during breakfast - Grace, Susanne, Migs, Jojo, Marianne
Migs at the bathroom

After a hearty breakfast the following morning, we proceeded with touring Ho Chi Minh city. We walked for about 30 minutes before reaching Reunification Palace which was the home and workplace of the President of South Vietnam during the Vietnam war.

Reunification Palace

The many conference rooms of the Reunification Palace

We then took a 30-minute taxi ride to reach Giac Lam Pagoda, a Buddhist temple built in the 18th century. One good thing about Ho Chi Minh was that they have plenty of big taxi cabs that can accommodate all 6 of us.

Giac Lam Pagoda

Afterwards, we went back to Ho Chi Minh Square via another taxicab ride and ate lunch at Nha Hang Ngon. We tried several local cuisines and I particularly enjoyed the fried vegetable spring roll (and hated the raw vegetable salad rolls) and the steamed banana cake with coco milk for dessert.

Nga Hang Ngon
(from L to R, T to B) fried vegetable spring roll, beef noodle soup with well done flank,
grilled chicken on skewer, grilled beef on skewer, vegetable salad rolls,
vermicelli soup with seafood, steamed banana cake with coco milk 

After lunch, we visited Notre Dame Cathedral, a popular landmark in the city. The basilica was built in the 19th century with the red bricks imported from France.

Notre Dame Cathedral

We spent the rest of the afternoon in Vincom Center from some window shopping and then at Ho Chi Minh square for more sightseeing.

Ho Chi Minh Square

We also had a quick stop  at Vietnam's local coffee shop chain - Trung Nguyen - for some Vietnamese gourmet coffee.

We spent the rest of the night looking for cheap bargains at Saigon Square. We looked for and found really cheap North Face backpacks but could not determine if they were really authentic or not - the seller said they were, of course, but the really cheap price made it suspect. We also passed by Ben Thanh Market and found only few stalls left open at 8 pm.

Saigon Square