We were up early morning this morning as we head off back to Saigon or as it is now referred to – Ho Chi Min City. For the one-hour flight we travelled for the first time in my life Business Class, yes I made it to the big time! Or was it more the fact that these were the only two seats left and we need to be in Ho Chi Min tonight to join our tour group for the rest of our journey.

I thought it funny; we were sitting in the business departure lounge drinking some sort of melon drink as we were ushered onto a bus to take us to the plane. For goodness sake the plane was the only one there and the distance was two hundred meters! Surly we could have walked to the plane and given ourselves a little exercise. I kept thinking, use you feet and save the planet. See it’s the little things…

Downtown Saigon

Saigon – Home of the American’s during the Vietnam War. We only had today to explore. So after checking our luggage into our hotel we set off to the markets. Crowed little avenues under one huge tin roof – no air conditioning here! HOT was an understatement! We jostled our way through the crowds stopping to buy a small bowl for a friend. Reaching the far side of the market we set off with map in hand and in the right direction for a change toward the Notre Dam Cathedral. Situated right across the road is the central post office – A couple of grand old buildings looking slightly out of place surrounded by Asian culture and architecture. WE found an ATM machine opposite the Cathedral and with Money and bottled water we set off in the search for lunch. We walked back past the markets, as we didn’t want to risk walking too far from our hotel. So many shops, but there were no food places on our side of the road. We could have gone back into the markets, but the smell of the meats with no refrigeration put me off eating there for obvious reasons. At last we spied a noodle house, yes beef and noodles sounded great. It wasn’t until the dishes came out that we realized that in fact this restaurant was a soup kitchen! I was already hot; the last thing I wanted was soup! Oh well at $1.00 a bowl we ate as we were hungry and just wanted to get back to the hotel.
We had to meet our tour at 6pm in the lobby so we had a coupe of hours to kill. This was a good time to just relax and watch some TV. I know I’m on holiday and TV should be the last thing I should do but the last couple of days have been fairly busy and it was good to have a little down time.
There were twelve of us on our little group and to be honest this was enough as this was our first time travelling on any group tour we were not sure what to expect. Mara our Guide was of Cambodian decent and was very eager to get everyone acquainted. Two couples and a single young lass from England, a lady from Norway, two young single guys from New Zealand, A mum and her adult daughter from Australia and us.
For our first time together Mara had organised a farewell dinner for some of the people that she has just guided through the northern part of Vietnam, and invited our newly joined group to accompany her. Our road side dinner was exactly that ROADSIDE! The meal was great, our first experience of many to come. These are places that most westerners would just walk past, not sure whether to eat here or not. From here on Elena and I made a pact, no eating western food, we must eat what the locals eat. Unknown to me, this trip was going to change my way of thinking about Asia, the culture, food and people.
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Dinner was over, farewells were said and our newly formed little group headed back through the streets, past the markets and splintered off in different directions, some to shop and some to get a good night sleep before the start of out trip tomorrow. As for us this was our last night prior to embarking on our tour we thought it prudent to do a little shopping and as the night markets were now in full swing Elena and I found ourselves wandering the streets looking for bargains. We needed shoes and for the cost of $10.00 each we both bought a pair of Puma Sand-shoes.