February 22 and 23, 2017

Ralf had a plan. He set the alarm for 6:00 a.m., went downstairs and bought the bikes up the stairs and into the room. The night security man was still asleep on the sofa and the other night security man was asleep at the desk.

The bikes are safely in the room. I was expecting to come back from our exploration of the City and be told to leave, but no, what they don’t know doesn’t hurt them.

After Ralf came back to bed we slept until the school band woke us up at 8:55 a.m. Did I mention we are next to a school, it can get quite noisy, but we were away for most of the day.

As we left the hotel the receptionist called us back and asked us if we were going to stay the two nights, we could leave without being charged any cancellation fee. We said no everything was o.k. now.

We headed out towards the river and then to the Bitexco Financial Tower which has an observation deck. The cost was 400,000 VND for two ($23.50), it was well worth the price for an excellent view of the City.

The Tower stands 262 metres tall, with a total of 68 floors. The Saigon skydeck is located on the 49^th floor which is 178 metres tall. The Financial Bitexco Tower has notable companies renting the office space – Ernst & Young, etc.

As you stepped out of the elevator the views of the City were amazing.  We really enjoy being able to go up towers and view the City\’s from this vantage point.

After, the Tower we headed up the “Walking Street” to the City Hall. The walking street is a wide boulevard, that does not have motor-scooters, motor bikes or any other motorized vehicle allowed on it.

The City hall is at the top of this street, and is a building that was built by the French, it was a very nice looking building.

We went into the Independence Palace, this was built in 1955 on the same site of the Norodom Palace built in 1858, which was built by the French.

As we left the Palace we were stopped by two young girls and asked if we knew where we were. They were misplaced. They showed me their map, it was all in Chinese characters! I showed them my map and we eventually worked out that where we were was not even on their map. I pointed them in the right direction heading towards the Vincom Shopping Centre, a large modern shopping centre.

We stopped for lunch at a “Food Court” near the Ben Thanh Market, we had a little wander around before deciding on some very good spring rolls and a draught beer.  As we sat there enjoying our spring rolls, the heavens opened and it poured with rain for about 15 minutes. It stopped raining and the sun came out again, making it an even hotter and humid day.

We then headed into the Ben Than Market, it was amazing how quickly the prices went down when you hesitated on something you might be looking at.

It was a very nice day, wandering around and taking in some of the sights and sounds of Ho Chi Minh.

The choice of food in Ho Chi Minh City ranges from American fast food restaurants (Kentucky Fried Chicken, Burger King, McDonalds), lots of pizza/Italian places, pub food, Thai, Indian restaurants and Vietnamese. You can also find the cheap food stalls all over the place. You will definitely not go hungry in Ho Chi Minh.

Thursday (our second rest day) in Ho Chi Minh City. We had a nice lie-in- no school band to wake us up this morning.

We headed out at about 9:30 for the second day of exploration. Ho Chi Minh has two sides to it the modern upscale side and the old busy quarter. The old quarter is not as old as Hanoi, the streets are a little wider and not as congested.  Although we did see our first fender-bender.

A lot of the architecture is still very much French style – the City Hall, the Cathedral, the Post Office and the Opera House are all remnants of the French colonialism.

Added to the history is the modern side to Ho Chi Minh, the buildings are glass and modern. The Tower we visited yesterday represents the up and coming Vietnam. Big shopping malls and a new transit system are all part of the new Ho Chi Min and Vietnam.

Ralf spotted this old motorbike and side car and thinks it would be a good idea if we did our next tour with one of these.  We could stuff our gear at the front of the side car and I could sit in the side car.  The owner was getting quite a lot of attention, he had been a Colonel in the army and the vehicle was Russian.

On the opposite end of the scale was this rather nice Bentley.  I think I would rather do our  next tour in one of these, with a chauffeur of course.

Today we bought Ralf a new camera! His Olympus stopped working a few days ago (again) it stopped working on our first Adventure as well. We stopped in at a big electronic store and checked out cameras. After enjoying a wander around the city again we headed back to the hotel to check out the specs on the camera and the prices in Canada. Vietnam is not known for its great deals on electronics. However, if we want to get some good photos of Angkor Wat we need a good camera. We go to Angkor Wat before we go to Bangkok, where we could get a good deal on the camera. Oh Well, we found a good camera that was on sale, and about $100.00 cheaper than in Canada. When we went to pay, they knocked of another $23.00, and gave us a very large camera/laptop bag and a 16mb card.

I think we did pretty well out of it. However, we now have extra baggage to carry around with us.