Previous Day (Half Day in HCMC)
Destination: Ho Chi Minh City,
Vietnam
Duration: 4 Days 3 Night (Oct 26~Oct
29, 2018)
Day 2: Of Beers & Museums
The ‘small window’ in our room seemed to be a hindrance in the morning as I was shocked and
jumped up once I saw the bright light shining through the window. When I took a
look at the time – it was 6.30am! Darn! I didn’t even wake up so early at home!
What a tragedy!!! Breakfast was served at 9th floor of the hotel
building with an outdoor roof overlooking the street. The breakfast choice was
quite limited and I noticed some of the breads serving there actually had
molds. Yucks!
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| A View from Hotel Rooftop Breakfast Area |
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| Simple Fried Egg |
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| Pho & Passion Fruits |
We had a light breakfast before bracing the deadly sunlight
to walk to the Independence Palace. Google Maps apparently failed us by leading
us to the ‘exit gate’ of the palace! It seemed like we were not the only one
getting fooled as many tourists were turned away as well. We needed to walk
around the gated compound to get to the real ‘entrance’ and it was a long walk!
I guess Google Maps wanted to help on my excess calories.
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| It's a long long U-turn to get to the Entrance Gate! |
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| Finally we are here!!! |
The “Palace” had more of an office building & basic feel
– definitely not the extravaganza type of European palace or museum. There was
no air condition indoor thus it was quite hot & stuffy in there. We were
also quite confused with the route as the arrow sometimes just disappeared and
people was walking in different directions from the arrow.
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| Sammy & the Water Fountain from 2nd Floor of the Palace |
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| Bedroom of the President |
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| With lots of Stairs!!! |
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| The Office |
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| Lost!!! |
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| At Yet another Floor looking out to the Water Fountain |
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| The Helicopter Pad... |
The most interesting part of the building was definitely the
bunker – it was underground with the nostalgic tele-communication instruments.
It was as if we were in an old style spy war drama where the agents were
clicking away on Morse code.
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| Going down to the Bunker |
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| All the Old Style Instruments |
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| Kind of Spooky.. |
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| What Else? More Stairs! |
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| And more Spooky Corridor |
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| The Jeep |
After leaving the palace, we continued our walk to War
Remnants Museum with the sun grilling us alive. We took some pictures outdoor
with the tanks, planes & helicopters before having a look at part of the
‘prison’. There were also some ‘torture cage’ & Guillotine there to show
the visitors on the terrible living condition of POW.
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| Tank & Chopper. |
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| A Plane |
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| Fighter Jet! |
We went into the indoor building to take a look at the
exhibition halls (which were air-conditioned!!!) and I must say it was
definitely not for the faint hearted. There were a total of 8 exhibition halls
and each exhibition hall had their own purpose such as introducing the
background of the war, the massacre, the poisonous gas and the aftermath. The atmosphere
was really somber and depressing.
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| Bombs! |
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| Guns! |
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| Aftermath... |
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| Lots of Tanks here... |
Our legs were killing us after walking nonstop since
yesterday but we tried to walk as fast as possible to Banh Xeo 46A for lunch as
it would be closed at 2pm. We managed to reach at 1.15pm and the restaurant was
full. Thankfully a couple left few minutes after we arrived thus we got our
table and ordered their famous benh xeo, deep fried spring roll & fresh
spring roll. Did I mention that the beer was cheaper than water there? It was
only VND15K per bottle!!! Having cold beer after the long walk under scorching
sun was absolutely heavenly!!!
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| Welcome to Banh Xeo 46A |
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| I need a Beer!!! |
We were served with the fresh spring roll 1st and
I must say it was really refreshing with the shrimp & fatty pork. However, I
still preferred the deep fried spring rolls as it was really crispy with soft
rice noodles and other busting ingredients inside. The Benh Xeo was served with
tons of bean sprouts with shelled shrimp. The size was gigantic and I was
thinking we should skip dinner after finishing off all the foods. *Burp*
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| Beautiful Color Coordination huh? |
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| So-called "Appetizer"!!!! |
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| Deep Fried Spring Rolls |
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| Giant Banh Xeo!!! |
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| We ate until the stall closes! |
We continued on to the nearby Tan Dinh Church (Pink Church)
and took tons of pictures since the pink was really pretty. We were not the
only one as everyone was snapping away nonstop. We tried the paranormal trick
from internet on snapping a tall building but failed as the inconsistent
movement made my head shrank! *facepalm*
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| Burning off Calories again! |
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| Lady & Church in Pink! |
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| More Pink! |
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| The Locals must be rolling their eyes at us.. =P |
After camwhoring, we took the local bus 93 to Ngã Ba Hàng
Xanh (VND6k/pax) before taking bus 44 to Binh Quoi (VND5k/pax). One thing as
precaution though – the bus driver/conductor on local bus generally did not understand
English so we showed him the “Ngã Ba Hàng Xanh” shown on our google map bus
stop. He ended up stopping at a station further away from our intended stop. We
had to look for another stop to catch Bus 44 and we couldn’t find the bus
station sign eventhough Google told us we were standing at the right place. At the
end Bus 44 came and it stopped for us (not knowing whether it really was a bus
stop).
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| On a Local Bus getting lost! |
We showed Binh Quoi on the phone to the conductor and this
time the conductor reminded us to leave at the correct stop. The Binh Quoi
village was just a 5minutes walk away from the bus station. The best thing was the entrance was absolutely free! It was supposed to
be a Mekong River Replica for those wanting to have a look at Mekong. I did not
include Mekong in the itinerary after reading lots of bad comments about it
thus Binh Quoi Village would be the substitute.
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| Managed to get on Bus 44! |
We took lots of pictures of the rivers & old style
wooden bridge. There was even some guesthouses for guest to stay overnight
there. There was also a weekend buffet there but we were not interested in
that. Mosquito repellent was definitely needed especially once the sky was
getting dark. We saw HK tourists pouring in when we were leaving – I guess they
came for the weekend buffet.
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| Finally arrived in Binh Quoi Village! |
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| The Wooden Bridge was scary! The wood actually moved! |
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| Beautiful Scenery though... |
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| Another Old Style Buildings |
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| More Bridge! |
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| Sun is going down... |
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| There is a small 'jetty' there as well |
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| The Waterwheel |
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| Where is the Paddy? |
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| Goodbye Binh Quoi! |
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| Not before bidding farewell to the scarecrow! |
We waited at the bus station right outside a resident house
(which has no sign again!) for >30minutes before bus 44 finally showed up. Long
after the old lady staying at the said house saying goodbye to us hitching a
motorcycle ride after waiting together with us for bus. As usual, the bus
conductor did not understand English so we showed him the bus stop name on our
phone. Little did we know that bus stop name is identical to “Nguyen Hue
Walking Street” thus the kind-hearted conductor insisted us to get off the bus
at city hall – 2 stops before our intended stop. *facepalm*
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| I think the only sign is the fading word on the road |
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| OMG! Same name! No wonder the conductor insisted us to get off the bus! |
Since we were back at the city hall again, we scrapped our
plan for the famous Banh mi since it was too far and we were already crippled. Hubby
insisted to go back to Pasteur Street Brewing Company again to sample other
beers since it was near. We ordered the ‘sampling flight’ again with more
fruity beers – dragonfruit, watermelon & passion fruit. We were even given
free chips with our beer this time – guess it was happy hour?
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| Sammy with all the beers! |
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| Less patrons today since it was still early... |
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| Sammy manages to finish all the beers! Well done! |
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| The Alley |
After beer, we went to Journeys Sandwich Bistro (link)
to try out their sandwiches. Thank goodness we only ordered one as the size was
humongous! We ordered the Chivito (Uruguay) with sourdough bread and it was
packed full with egg, hams, beefs, chicken, cheddar cheese etc. The only
downside was the sourdough bread was not as ‘sour’ as the authentic sourdough
and the edges were too hard after getting toasted.
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| Oh no! Not the stairs again! |
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| The Menu |
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| OMG! This is huge!!! |
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| Filled with ingredients no less!!! |
We finally called it a night with the heavy meal and beers
since we booked a half day tour to Cu Chi Tunnels with Klook tomorrow. This time
the agent did watapps me to confirm the pickup at 7.30-7.40am. So it’s definitely
time for bed!!!
Next Day (Cu Chi Tunnel & World of Heineken)
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