Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Asia

We got up today at 6am, had some breakfast, and got a tuk-tuk at 7:15am to go to the Royal Palace. We were told that it opened at 7:30am, but they were wrong. We showed up only to find out that the Palace didn’t open till 8am. The tuk-tuk driver dropped us off at the National Museum just down the road, and said that was open from 7:30am, so we could go there first and then walk over to the Royal Palace and he would pick us at 9:45am. He was wrong. The National Museum didn’t open till 8am either, so we just decided to walk over to the Palace and wait for it to open.

It was a little disappointing when we walked in to find that you aren’t allowed to visit about 75% of the Palace grounds. We saw a few nice temples, and saw some nice statues, but according to the maps, there was a lot more that we didn’t get to see. I wasn’t feeling 100% this morning, and with the heat from the sun I was pretty miserable. I don’t know if it was something I ate, but my stomach just doesn’t feel right. Hopefully it won’t last long, my stomach is pretty tough.

We finished up at the Palace and came outside to find our tuk-tuk driver waiting for us. We got back to the hotel, finished packing up our things and waited downstairs for our taxi to the bus station. The guys that work at Me Mates Place were really nice, especially the guy known as Tony Mantana. The place wasn’t the greatest, but the people working there really helped make the stay enjoyable.

The bus left promptly at 11:30am, and luckily this one had some good air conditioning. We also had a couple of rows of empty seats near the back of the bus, so Dad and I got to stretch out a bit. I watched a couple of movies and just relaxed for most of the ride, which was a very easy one. About three hours into the ride we made a stop just before the border to have a bite to eat, but we decided we were going to wait until we got to Ho Chi Minh City to eat. The next stop was the Cambodian border for exit immigration, then we crossed a bridge, and arrived at the Vietnam border for entrance immigration. This part is always a pain because you have to pack up anything you were using on the bus and take all your belongings inside with you to go through customs. We got through in about 15 minutes without as much as a hiccup, and we were in Vietnam!

It took another three hours to get to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), but you could tell you were in the city as soon we entered. I have never seen so many motorbikes in my life! There were literally tens of thousands of bikes going every direction like a swarm of confused bees. Amazingly we never saw any accidents, but they must happen. It just looked like chaos on the roads, and not even organized chaos. I don’t know how they do it, but I definitely won’t be renting a scooter while I’m in town!

We arrived at the bus station at about 6:30pm and we were only a five minute walk to the Bich Duyen Hotel that we’d booked online. We found it no problem, and were pretty happy to see that it’s in a nice part of the city. The staff at the hotel are very friendly and one of the guys even grabbed Dad’s big backpack and carried it up the five sets of stairs to our room and didn’t want a tip. You don’t find that too often. Our room is very nice, just like a normal hotel. We have A/C, LCD TV, private bathroom, and wifi, not bad for $8 per person.

My stomach still isn’t 100% so I thought it was a good idea to stick to a familiar food for dinner. We found a very good Thai restaurant around the corner from the hotel and we both got some chicken pad thai for dinner. It is probably the best one I’ve had in SE Asia. I also didn’t feel any worse after eating dinner, so I was very happy about that. We got out of the restaurant and the rain started in the city, so we decided to just come back to the hotel. We’re flying out of here tomorrow (it’s a VERY rushed trip we’re doing!), and we’re going to try and see the War Museum before we go. Should be interesting…