Eva's tips - Ho Chi Minh city in 3 days. It leaves you wanting more!

As you know if you read 2 posts ago, we planned a sort of last minute-ish long weekend trip to Ho Chi Minh City.  It was a great getaway, and in this post I will share with you what we did and some tips for anyone planning a similar trip.  Summary of the trip is that Ho Chi Minh is a chaotic, frenetic city that somehow leaves you wanting more.  At least it did me.

The visa-on-arrival-letter-thing worked like a charm.  We did the letter online, received it within a couple of days for the family.  Then we had to get pix taken (not smiling, which was funny), and arrive at the airport with US$45 each person in dollars or Vietnamese currency.  We waited about 10 minutes and that was that.  Visa in passport.

Our hotel was the Signature Saigon hotel.  It was a perfectly good 3 star experience.  Not superduper fancy but the buffet breakfast (included) was good, everything was clean and fine.  The room had 2 big beds and one pull-out big couch/bed.  The shower was a big rain shower with a radio in it which was fun for the kids especially, and the wifi was ok in the room and good in the lobby.  I would recommend the hotel.  US$110/night for the room.

Now what did we do?  Arrived late Friday night - flew jetstar, a budget airline, which was great.  We had arranged for a driver from the hotel.  At first we didn't see him and I had that thought 'uh-oh'.... then we realized we had to exit the terminal where there were a lot of people. Our guy was front and center with a sign.  so far so good.

Day 1 we were picked up for our pre-arranged day trip to the Mekong delta.  Any web surfing will reveal the name of the tour guide operator Jason Superstar.  He was unavailable but we used his guide  Mr. Vu.  Great day.  The driver came to get us in a new SUV and we drove the 2 hours to Cai Be where 'Mr. Vu.', an energetic 25-year-old from the Mekong area who studied tourism, met us at the car with a cheerful "hello my family!!"  We went on a longboat complete with hammocks, saw the floating market, disembarked and walked through a real market complete with live poultry, and ended up having lunch at Mr. Vu's family home where they have lived for generations.  The food was amazing, the experience was personalized and fabulous.  The driver brought us home by about 5 pm. Had a great dinner that night at the Temple Club, a restaurant that could be in NY but for a fraction of the price.  Highly recommended.

Mekong delta

my banh mi place... how I miss that sandwich!!!

details from the place we got banh mi every
day - one day twice!  a dollar for pure bliss.

Day 2 - Saturday we were happy to be able to take our time in the morning - went down for the breakfast buffet.  We went to check out the cathedral.  It was closed but still nice to see from the outside - then checked out the post office building next door.  The goal of the day was to see a water puppet show - - so we went to the theater and bought tickets for that - an adventure to find the place - all walking - once we had the tickets, we had plenty of time so we went to the reunification palace nearby.  Now this is not exactly a 'palace' a la Versailles, but rather it was the government building back when South Vietnam had its own government, and it has been kept frozen in time.  Very cool, at least to me, and had a vibe kind of like the UN HQ in NYC.  Must have been the time when it was built.  The furniture is all still there and the signs tell you where meetings were held, what happened, etc.

After that, we let the kids play in the playground for a while and took a cab back to the hotel for a little rest/freshen up before the puppet show.  The show did not disappoint!! Water puppets are an old Vietnamese tradition.  The routine we saw has been performed for hundreds of years.  Great experience.  After that, dinner in a less impressive restaurant and then went to the night market to scope souvenirs

Day 3 - Another popular day trip from Ho Chi Minh is to see these tunnels called the Cu Chi tunnels, from the war.  At first I was reluctant to consider this trip since the thought of going in a tunnel does not appeal to me.  However, we met so many people who had been and as it turns out you don't have to go in the tunnel.  So we considered going on Sunday, our last day, but after deliberation we decided that we would rather spend our last day wandering around the city and not in a van for several hours.

So... we decided to go check out 2 things - a pagoda and the war remnants museum.  Took a cab to a pagoda which was nice but, as it turns out, closed until 2:30 pm.  I guess it was not our weekend to go inside places of worship.  We looked around, took some pix, and decided to walk to the war remnants museum.  Along the way we stopped for a drink and had amazing spring rolls.  We got to the museum and, you guessed it, closed for lunch.  Took that opportunity to eat lunch at a great vegetarian restaurant named Hum.  The museum was, as the reviews had said, strong for kids.  We took turns going inside with our 11-year-old.  The little ones stayed outside looking at the helicopters and tanks and playing with the yo-yos that the waitress had given them.  The museum is worth seeing.  It does have some strong pictures, especially the babies born to agent orange victims.  It is not a pro-American slant.    But I'm glad we went and I'm glad my son saw it.

After the museum, the little kids only wanted to find a playground so find one - make that 3 - we did. The simple pleasures, right?  Turns out we found a beautiful park right in the middle of the charming chaos that is Saigon.  Tao Dan park is a great break for kids and adults.  We negotiated for souvenirs at the  Ben Thanh market - even taught my son how to bargain - and then found another playground meandering back to the hotel.  We didn't have the room anymore, but we got our final banh mi and watched the world go by for our last hour in Vietnam.

All in all it was a terrific weekend and a fascinating glimpse into this country of 90 million people.  I for one am looking forward to my next trip to Vietnam.

Street vendor

Water puppets

spring rolls

crossing the street is not easy - motorcycles never stop.  Look at the masks they wear to protect from the pollution.