xin chào SAIGON 2014 - Day 1
xin chào, pronounced as sing chow, means "hello" in Vietnamese.
Back on 1st April 2014, when Jetstar was having a one-for-one offer this year and no jokes, LY and I decided to book our flights to... Ho Chi Minh!!! It wasn't pre-planned that we would visit a city such as this and it was also our first times and we were really excited to see what was installed for us!
LY and I first met back in Secondary school, so we have known each other for about 11 years now and this would be the first trip we would be making together!
Honestly, I am one who can't geographically differentiate between where Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam is, so I decided to do a quick search on GOOGLE and the image below shows the direction from Singapore to Vietnam.
Well according to Google maps, it would take 2 hours to fly there but in actual fact, it only took us less than 1.5hrs to fly from Singapore to Ho Chi Minh! After a comfortable ride, we arrived safely into the Tan Son Nhat International Airport.
After a quick wash-up, we headed off for food at Paris Baguette cafe, which was nicely situated just two streets away from our hotel at the basement 3 of Vincom Center.
They even had nice benches where you can sit and write your loved ones postcards/letters. And that's exactly what we did, sending off the post-card from Ho Chi Minh to a mutual friend of ours. The postage fee was 15000VND (~SGD$0.90).
It took about a week for the postcard to land into her hands. She was surprised to receive our card. Surprise your friend with nice postcard as a souvenir for them.
After sending out our love letter, we headed off to check out the M2C cafe. It was not difficult to find and once again, it was just a few streets away from our hotel.
Back on 1st April 2014, when Jetstar was having a one-for-one offer this year and no jokes, LY and I decided to book our flights to... Ho Chi Minh!!! It wasn't pre-planned that we would visit a city such as this and it was also our first times and we were really excited to see what was installed for us!
LY and I first met back in Secondary school, so we have known each other for about 11 years now and this would be the first trip we would be making together!
Honestly, I am one who can't geographically differentiate between where Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam is, so I decided to do a quick search on GOOGLE and the image below shows the direction from Singapore to Vietnam.
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| Flight path from Singapore to Ho Chi Minh! |
There was a long queue at the customs but we were very blessed that a new custom lane opened beside the lane we were queuing and we were able to change queue lines and cleared customs much quicker. We were asked for our flight number and how long we would be staying in Ho Chi Minh so it would be a good idea to prepare your flight details for the customs officer.
Then comes the challenge, how to get from the airport to our hotel?
When you get out of the airport terminal, turn left and you'll spot a POPEYES restaurant and in front of which are where the taxis would queue. Taxis are the ideal transport means but do be aware of the taxis you get into. If you do enough research, you would probably know that there are two licensed taxi companies that are metered in Ho Chi Minh and they are VINASUN and MAILINH but still beware of the imitators and they are usually almost exactly the same except for certain nitty-gritty details such as their hotline number, logos etc.
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| How a MAILINH cab would look like |
The ride to our hotel situated in District 1 cost us about 170,000 dong (sgd$10) which should be somewhat the amount to get you from airport to pretty much most places in District 1 of the city.
We had chosen to stay in Huong Sen Hotel, a three-star hotel conveniently located on Dong Khoi street (which according to my friend working in HCM is their version of ORCHARD ROAD).
The 3 night stay at Huong Sen Hotel cost us SG$237.24 in total, meaning about $80 per night stay.
The 3 night stay at Huong Sen Hotel cost us SG$237.24 in total, meaning about $80 per night stay.
Arriving in the hotel way before their check-in time so we were pleasantly surprised to learn that our room was ready for check-in.
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| A panoramic view of the hotel room |
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| Complimentary from the hotel |
Wonder why we even bother to check out a franchised cafe such as this all the way in Ho Chi Minh? You'll see why when you see our bill.
The Korean Kimchi Fried Rice (which I had expected to be a sloppy dish) turned out to be authentically delicious and the Royal Pudding is a MUST-TRY!!! The fruits shaved ice was a little disappointing though. And we only paid SGD $10.75 for all of the above and the Royal Pudding which would usually cost you SGD$4 in Singapore only costs us ~SGD$1.80!!!
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| Royal Pudding |
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Fruit Shaved Ice |
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| Korean Kimchi Fried Rice |
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| the BILL |
Paris Baguette Café
72 Lê Thánh Tôn,
Bến Nghé, 1,
Hồ Chí Minh,
Vietnam
Opening Hours: 07:00 AM - 11:00 PM
Wifi available? Yes, simply ask for the password.
After a yummy meal, we moved on to visit the icons of Ho Chi Minh, the Notre Dame Cathedral and the Saigon Central Post Office, which was just a few streets away from Vincom Center.
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| Notre Dame Cathedral |
And we even spotted couples taking their wedding photos at this legendary spot. Then we headed opposite to the Central Post Office.
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| Saigon Central Post Office |
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| Nice benches where you can write your letters |
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| The card our friend received |
After sending out our love letter, we headed off to check out the M2C cafe. It was not difficult to find and once again, it was just a few streets away from our hotel.
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| Iced Coffee with Milk |
To be honest, we simply went there for their Iced Coffee, and for a non-coffee lover like me, I found it too sweet. Later on during the trip, we learn the trick to drinking their Iced Coffee, and that is to wait for the ice to melt bit by bit as this would dilute the coffee, making the coffee less sweet for the taste buds. The interior was unique, though we found the music played didn't really suit the interior of the cafe.
M2C Cafe
44B Lý Tự Trọng,
Bến Nghé, Quận 1,
Hồ Chí Minh 70100,
Vietnam
Opening hours: 7.30am - 11pm
Wifi available? Yes, simply ask for the password
Clean toilet? Available
After a nice morning of cafe hopping, we decided to head towards the iconic BEN THANH MARKET!!! And I was quite proud of myself of being able to navigate our way from the cafe to the market.
It is not difficult to locate Ben Thanh, they have a lot of exits which you can enter in by, so just beware of where you go in by. They have super a lot of things for sale, mainly souvenirs and they are tourist-targeted so trust me when I say the prices are super marked up!!! There are both food and goods available, and honestly, one of the store where we ate the PHO from, was actually quite nice.
Get yourself familiarized with the Vietnamese currency, and pretty much you can simply bargain by inserting amount into the calculator. And many times (from experience), when you walk away, they will probably give you the price you want. They can be quite pushy, so be ready for that, and if you really don't want, just keep walking on.
After some good buys, we headed back to our hotel, dropping by the Circle K (convenience store) along the way to get water supply and some sweets.
What attracted me about the Circle K convenience store is the amount of Korean products they carried and it was too difficult to give my favourite Binggrae Melona Ice-Cream a miss. And moreover, they even had wifi in the convenience store so we sat in a chilled for a bit before proceeding back to our hotel.
And just right when we reached our hotel, the downpour came. We were very blessed to not be caught in the rain.
We napped for a bit before heading up to level 8 of the hotel for a nice foot massage, costing VND 199,990 (~SGD$12).
After a relieving massage, we headed to PHO 24 for dinner. Even though it is a franchise PHO restaurant, but honestly, we were quite pleased with the quality of PHO provided.
The good thing was this branch was just around the corner from our hotel. The waiters don't really speak good English, but you can point to the picture to place your order. They were really friendly, and they even chased after us when we left our itinerary in the restaurant to return it to us.
PHO 24 (many branches around)
Wifi available? Yes, simply ask for the password
Clean Toilet? Yes
After a satisfying dinner, which cost us about 100,000VND (~SGD$6), we headed to the Korean cafe, Caffe Bene (which also became my favourite place), opposite our hotel.
The waffle wasn't the most heavenly, it was just doable, and I have had better ones in Singapore so we pretty much gave it a miss in our subsequent visits to Caffe Bene.
I fell so in love with the Sweet Potato Latte that everyday of our stay in Vietnam, I would have to get at least one cup of this sweet delight.
Caffe Bene
58 Đồng Khởi,
Quận 1,
TP. HCM
Opening hours: 6.30am - 11pm
Wifi available? Yes, password on receipt
Clean Toilet? Yes
The very nice cafe was where we had heart-to-heart-talk and spent time getting to know one another better.
That pretty much sums up our first day in Saigon!!!
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| M2C Cafe |
44B Lý Tự Trọng,
Bến Nghé, Quận 1,
Hồ Chí Minh 70100,
Vietnam
Opening hours: 7.30am - 11pm
Wifi available? Yes, simply ask for the password
Clean toilet? Available
After a nice morning of cafe hopping, we decided to head towards the iconic BEN THANH MARKET!!! And I was quite proud of myself of being able to navigate our way from the cafe to the market.
 |
| Roundabout in front of Ben Thanh |
It is not difficult to locate Ben Thanh, they have a lot of exits which you can enter in by, so just beware of where you go in by. They have super a lot of things for sale, mainly souvenirs and they are tourist-targeted so trust me when I say the prices are super marked up!!! There are both food and goods available, and honestly, one of the store where we ate the PHO from, was actually quite nice.
Get yourself familiarized with the Vietnamese currency, and pretty much you can simply bargain by inserting amount into the calculator. And many times (from experience), when you walk away, they will probably give you the price you want. They can be quite pushy, so be ready for that, and if you really don't want, just keep walking on.
After some good buys, we headed back to our hotel, dropping by the Circle K (convenience store) along the way to get water supply and some sweets.
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| Apple Mint Chewing Gum |
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| Melona Ice-Cream |
What attracted me about the Circle K convenience store is the amount of Korean products they carried and it was too difficult to give my favourite Binggrae Melona Ice-Cream a miss. And moreover, they even had wifi in the convenience store so we sat in a chilled for a bit before proceeding back to our hotel.
And just right when we reached our hotel, the downpour came. We were very blessed to not be caught in the rain.
We napped for a bit before heading up to level 8 of the hotel for a nice foot massage, costing VND 199,990 (~SGD$12).
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| Soaking our feet before the foot massage |
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| PHO 24 |
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| Our dinner!!! |
The good thing was this branch was just around the corner from our hotel. The waiters don't really speak good English, but you can point to the picture to place your order. They were really friendly, and they even chased after us when we left our itinerary in the restaurant to return it to us.
PHO 24 (many branches around)
Wifi available? Yes, simply ask for the password
Clean Toilet? Yes
After a satisfying dinner, which cost us about 100,000VND (~SGD$6), we headed to the Korean cafe, Caffe Bene (which also became my favourite place), opposite our hotel.
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| Caffe Bene |
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| Our dessert |
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| Caramel Banana Waffle |
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| Sweet Potato Latte (~SGD$4.60) |
Caffe Bene
58 Đồng Khởi,
Quận 1,
TP. HCM
Opening hours: 6.30am - 11pm
Wifi available? Yes, password on receipt
Clean Toilet? Yes
The very nice cafe was where we had heart-to-heart-talk and spent time getting to know one another better.
That pretty much sums up our first day in Saigon!!!
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