It was "fall" break at school; a week off at the end of October, so we decided to travel to Vietnam for the week. We left Bangkok at about 9 pm (one hour late) and had a 90 minutes flight to Ho Chi Minh City (formely Saigon). It was about midnight by the time we got to our hotel, in District 1 (downtown area of the city). On Saturday morning, we took a "Back of the bike" tour, where you visit the touristic sites of downtown Ho Chi Minh City on a scooter. It was pretty cool. Scooters make up about 90% of the transportation mode of the city; they are everywhere, and there are tons of them! We have never seen so many scooters on the streets at once! On our tour, we visited the old Post Office, the Notre Dame cathedral (modeled on the one in Paris), the wet market - where we were practically the only non-locals, and a chinese temple. It was quite interesting, and a lot of fun to be on a scooter without having to drive it!
On Sunday, we took a boat ride to visit the Cu Chi tunnels. These are tunnels that were used by the VietCong soldiers during the American war, or Vietnam war, depending on which side of the ocean you're from. It was quite amazing to see the complexity of the tunnel system that they had. It was also amazing to see how narrow they were, imagining that soldiers would move through those in total darkness.
We flew to Phu Quoc Island on Sunday night (see next post) to return to Ho Chi MInh City the next Friday night. We had a nice dinner at the rooftop restaurant of the hotel on Friday night and checked out the Ben Thanh Market on Saturday morning. There was some very nice stuff (furniture, clothing, art, ...) in many shops along the way; would need another suitcase or a good deal to ship to Canada!!
We got back to Bangkok on Saturday night, giving us a day to relax before school started again.
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| Jacqui preparing vietnamese coffee. Supposedly very good! |
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| At the Old Post Office |
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| Cathedral of Notre Dame |
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| At the market |
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| Any takers??? |
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| Rice anyone? There are multiple kinds!! And yes, they know the difference between each one of them! |
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| They sell EVERY part of the animal (in this case, a pig) |
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| Chinese temple |
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| Our mode of transportation - we are not driving!! |
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| Construction workers stretching before their shift. Brilliant! |
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| Parts of District 1 of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam |
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| Parts of downtown, along the Saigon River |
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| Thirsty?? |
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| Scooters are parked on the sidewalk |
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| It's still rainy season. When it rains, it pours! |
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| Technology in Vietnam is amazing; that is the top of a restaurant table, where you can keep your food warm or cook it. |
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| And that is the underside of the table, where you can get all your utentensils, napkins, toothpicks, ... |
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| We're at the rooftop of Novotel - Ho Chi Minh City. Very nice place! |
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| Notice all the scooters compared to the number of cars |
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| Major mode of transportation in Ho Chi Minh City |
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| I guess they do celebrate Hallow'een! |
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| This narrow tall building just didn't fit in the neighbourhood! |
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