Singing, Dancing, War guns & Tunnels HO CHI MINH CITY
DAY 19 – HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM – NOV 2
I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City last night. Sandy booked the wrong fight over here, so she is coming over this morning. Gave me a chance to work for a night. Here, we each have our own mini apartment room, it is heaven! Quiet and comfortable. A bed, TV with Netflix and Prime, etc!!!, huge washroom. I watched a show while working, it was glorious. At one point, I walked a few blocks to find take-out Pho for dinner. Fell asleep past 2am, slept great.
I am sitting in a super trendy coffee shop waiting for Sandy to arrive. I can see already Ho Chi Minh City is much more business-like / city than Hanoi. Will be an interesting day, but I already think I will prefer Hanoi. I wish I had visited Da Nang – unfortunately not.
DAY 20 – Ho Chi Minh City – Nov 3
Sandy flew in this morning, met me at Highlands Coffee. We had a chill morning, took a Grab to the downtown river area to get tickets to the Saigon River cruise for tonight. We started walking around and ended up in I believe it was called Hamlin Market. Wow. Totally filthy dirty with animal juices flowing in the streets. Definitely not a tourist market but very interesting to see. We came back to our neighborhood and had a long lunch w a glass of wine next to our hotel, high end beautiful restaurant called MZ Wine Bar and Dining Restaurant. Super hard to find wine in these countries it seems. We had a great chat while sharing a few smaller plates – and I had a glass of cab sav, my fave.
We headed to Ben Thanh Market. Again, wow. Spent a couple of hours there, each bought a couple of small things. Sandy bought another carry on so I can send some things home with her yay!
We went home to get ready, headed to the Saigon River Cruise. It was so very cool!! The music, the dancing, the food, the people, all of it was fantastic! When the music show was over, Sandy told our server that Jen is a singer, she should sing here. haha.. lo and behold (as my friend Caroline always says) – I ended up on stage, thinking what could they play here?? I sang “Girl Crush”. Such a fun night!
Then after we left the cruise, I noticed I was missing my new gold necklace with a pearl that I had purchased at Halong Bay. We thought the friends we met stole it from me because she was so touchy feely. Super depressing, my new Halong Bay purchase ugh.
We hired 2 grab drivers who took us all around the city shopping. My driver was hysterical!! His name was Sean. He kept stopping at shops and going in to ask the owners if they have anything for us. Literally bringing us dresses but not in an annoying way. He was just a super cool guy – we had such a great night riding all through the streets. Great memory night!
Came back to MZ Restaurant for French fries and salad haha..
We had separate rooms in this place since I had booked a long time ago and it was more an individual room, great rooms!! Super quiet and even came with Netflix so I watched 2 documentaries during my time in Ho Chi Minh City. A soccer story and the Martha Stewart one.
DAY 21 – HO CHI MINH CITY – NOV 4
We had made an appointment for a hair wash (anyone who knows me knows I have not washed my own hair for years – and it saves me money! ;) At home I pay $20 plus $5 tip per wash and I do this once per week = $100 per month and I buy no product so it costs less and I don’t have to stye my own hair… so worth it!! and my girl is amazing too.
We went for our wash, they took us upstairs to BEDS. Hair washing beds. A-HEM America / Canada – can we get this service?? So, the hair wash took 45 minutes… came with a head massage, arms, shoulders, neck massage. We had no idea when we booked it. Then they styled our hair. All of this for $48 Canadian.
One of their main stylists told me my hair is super dry (didn’t tell Sandy this lol). I know I have super dry hair so told him I might be back for a full treatment in the morning.
We got picked up by our CU CHI TUNNELS TOUR. This tour was both incredible and hard to take. No wonder this tour had over 11K – 5-star ***** reviews on Trip Advisor. We learned much about the Vietnam side of the story of their 20-year war against the U.S.
They were incredibly creative with hardly a chance against the U.S., yet they won the war. There were 4 tunnels we could visit. This was a most unbelievable experience. The one I went through last was so tiny we had to crawl through. The stories about soldiers in these tunnels was almost too much. I am glad we did this tour, to understand at a visceral level the fear that war brings. This was another eye-opening moment for me.
Sandy had booked a few flights that did not correlate with mine, so we had to rush her to the airport. One of the guys we met on the tour had told us about a really great steakhouse and texted me that if I go, he will go. So we went together, great young man from London, England. He is top cyberspace security in England. Great conversation, great food, fun night!
In the morning, I had emailed the river cruise to ask if by chance they had found my necklace. Amazingly, they found it on the stage, I guess from when I was singing. After we ate, I took my own grab to go get my necklace, I was so happy. Came home – chatted with Jorg for an hour. Nite Nite!!
Day 21 – Ho Chi Minh City – Nov 5
I had a great sleep, loving this room! I made a 9:30 appointment to get a full Kerastase Recover treatment on my hair. Back to the bed hair washing treatment. This whole treatment took 2 ½ hours. (though they said it would take 1 hour thankfully I booked early)
The treatment was great. I have to leave it in my hair for minimum 2 days.
Came back to MZ Restaurant for the 3rd time. Sat there from noon till 2pm with a glass of red wine, pumpkin soup and baguette with butter while catching up on blog.
I’m meeting Sandy at the airport in a couple of hours to fly to Cambodia.
RECAP - HO CHI MINH CITY
Overall, I would admit I somewhat regret coming to this city. We had a great time, and I did sing on the Saigon River so that’s something I’ll never forget. Since being here, I have learned about Da Nang and Nha Trang which I would have chosen over this city.
The one reason I am happy we came here is, this is the business district of Vietnam. It is certainly much more upscale with high-end restaurants and great shopping… well better than the smaller cities in Vietnam. I am glad I did see this city – I am happy to have crawled a war tunnel literally on my hands and knees, no other way to get out it was that small we had to crawl out. We were all drenched, wet with sweat when we got out. Really a terrifying thought to be in there in the pitch dark during the war, hearing the bombs above.
The tunnels are 10-15 meters deep and 250km long. 160 species of snakes, 63 of those are not friendly. They have one that is called a 2-step snake because if it bites you, you will die 2 steps later.
I got 2 amazing hair treatments in this city. Sandy and I had a great time here.
I would give this city a 7/10.
Preparing now for the airport
PICS BELOW:
Bên Thanh market
Boarding the Saigon River Cruise
Our new local friends who bought us this fruit platter
Sandy & I on the Saigon River Cruise yay!!
Our boat
This Communist Flag was loud and proud everywhere we looked, most of the people we talked to love being Communist
Night shopping with size below ZERO clothes, these people are tiiii-nnyyyyyy
Sean, my hysterical grab motorcycle driver omg so funny
This guy sleeping on his motorbike outside our hotel wow
Our ‘surprise’ hair wash treatment when we thought we were getting a simple wash… a full head, shoulder, arm massage later and this thing on our heads, we walked out new women
The hair salon I would revisit the next morning for a full treatment
Yes, we are at a shooting range in Vietnam!
War plane with me and Sandy
Illustration of the Vietnam tunnels and wow they are something else!
A reference to show the size of my feet to the size of their real life hidden tunnels of the Vietnam war.. how did they get their shoulders through? These were covered in grass and leaves, the soldier would put his legs in, cover the lid with grass and leaves and go down with arms straight above to fit shoulders in and place the lid back. A soldier demonstrated for us.. they are small people!
On example of a trap for U.S. ‘rats’ who were spying on the Vietnamese. There were many traps, if they came into their tunnel and fell through a trap, they landed on these spikes which would torture them until the died on these spikes
They made sandals, one forward, one backward when they took steps to confuse U.S. soldiers as to which direction they were going, made of old rubber tires
A selection of traps for U.S. soldiers .. torturous
My lunch before I meet Sandy (we had to split for one night) and fly to Cambodia together
Pic out of order, this woman grabbed me and danced with me, so fun!
