Previous Day (Museums & Binh Quoi Village)
Destination: Ho Chi Minh City,
Vietnam
Duration: 4 Days 3 Night (Oct 26~Oct
29, 2018)
Day 3: Of Tunnels & Heinekens
We had a light breakfast again at hotel before getting
picked up by the tour agent for our halfday Cu Chi Tunnel tour. We booked the
tour through Klook (link).
The bus brought us to the agent’s office before transferring us to another bus
for our tour. The tour group was huge with the big bus in full capacity.
There were actually 2 sites of Cu Chi Tunnels – Ben Duoc
& Ben Dinh. Ben Dinh was more touristy and modified for tourist and nearer
to the city center – this was where most tours would go. Ben Duoc was the
original tunnel without modification but further away from city center. During
my research online, most tour would be going to Ben Dinh unless a private car
was booked to go further to Ben Duoc which was far more expensive. Or one might
take the local bus which would takes long hours which meant we would be losing
precious time during travel. At the end I compromised by booking a halfday tour
at Klook.
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| Posing with the Tanks before the Jungle walk |
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| The Plane |
The ride took about 2 hours to reach the tunnel site and we
were quite surprised when the guide mentioned the site was Ben Duoc – the
original tunnel! Yay! We made it without paying double for the private tour nor
taking the long transit time local bus! Such good fortune! *Happy* We were
ushered to the ‘cinema’ area to take a look at the history of Viet Gong and how
they fought with the American soldiers during the war by staying underground
literally. After the movie, our guard led us through the jungle and started to
show us on the little things that one might missed when walking in the jungle.
There were the small ventilation hole of the tunnel which looked like termite
nest and the hidden shooting fort underground which killed you without you
realizing. The most amazing thing was the hidden tunnel entrance that we
completely missed!
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| Welcome to Cu Chi Tunnel! If you look at the cut-off sign at the left - it was stated as Ben Duoc as well! Yay! |
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| Beginning our Walk.. |
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| Lots of Bombs... |
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| A Cinema! |
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| The Fake "Termite Nest" which served as an air vent for the tunnel |
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| The Small Hole with snipers which kills you out of nowhere! |
The entrance was super small and the guide started to invite
people to jump down to take that classic Cu Chi Tunnel picture. However, one
would have to basically sit on the ground to get inside thus I’d decided
against it to avoid being covered by dirt. My decision was proved wrong later
as I still had the same fate after crawling through narrow tunnel!!! But this
would be another story later… *facepalm* Anyway the tunnel “door” (or should I
call it “cover”) was actually heavier than I thought.
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| Look at the Original Tunnel Entrance! It's so small!!! |
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| Didn't climb in so took a picture on top instead.. =P |
The Guide started to explain on other traps in the jungle to
kill the enemy before we were ushered to experience our 1st tunnel
experience – military health bunker! The tunnel was alright as it was only 15m
and one could walk pass by bending over. I guess it needed to be bigger to
transfer the wounded underground.
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| Beware of Traps! |
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| Our 1st tunnel experience! |
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| It is manageable... |
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| The "Medical Bay" |
Our 2nd tunnel experience was the meeting bunker
which had 2 options – 15m and another 15m further into a narrower tunnel. The 1st
15m tunnel was similar to the 1st tunnel which led us to the meeting
bunker. We were given a choice of whether to get to the ground level or
continued on to the narrower tunnel. A guide was leading us all the way to
ensure we entered the correct tunnel since there were more than one tunnels
inside that bunker.
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| Our 2nd Tunnel! |
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| Even the Entrance looks narrower!! |
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| The War Room! |
We braced ourselves and continued on to the narrow tunnel and it was really different this time! It was definitely narrower and in some part one had to crawl through the tunnel by squat-walking. The worst part was the narrow slippery slope. Definitely not for claustrophobic! There was no turning back once we started thus make your choice wisely! The exit of the tunnel was a very abrupt vertical slope thus I had to lift myself up to sit on the ground level before pulling my leg up – there went my original plan of not sitting on the ground! My arm and lower body ended up with dirt after the experience. This last 15m definitely felt more than that!
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| This is the scariest part - squat-walk in a super narrow tunnel down a slope!!! |
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| Some other air vents in the tunnel... |
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| The Narrow Exit of the tunnel - look at his face!!! =X |
We were led to yet another “Resting Bunker” again and this
time the tunnel was in normal size. We were so hungry after the exercise so we
were so glad when tapioca was served. Apparently this was the main food for the
Viet Cong during the war. We were also being led through a display of different
jungle traps displays.
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| The Resting Bunker seems more relaxing! =P |
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| Some of the instruments in the tunnel... |
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| Finally FOODsss!!! |
We were ushered to the bus to get to the shooting range
which was 15minutes drive away. We did not stay at the range for long as the
shooting was too loud so we opted to get back to the bus instead.
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| Care for a Shoot? |
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| Shooting Range! |
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| I don't think this can be smuggled through the airport security! |
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| Our Bus of the Day |
It was already almost 3pm when our bus returned to the city
center and we were starving. Since we were dropped at Ben Thanh so we went to
Bep Me In restaurant (link)
for our late lunch. We ordered their famous coconut fried rice, caramelized
pork and a Vietnamese pizza. The restaurant was actually famous for then Ban
Xeo as well but we did not order since we tried it yesterday in Ban Xeo 46A. The
coconut fried rice was mixed with crispy rice and it tasted of coconut milk
whereas the caramelized pork was tender and sweet. The Vietnamese Pizza was
definitely special as the base was made of sesame cracker and soft rice roll
topped with pork & quail eggs among other condiments. The pizza was also
served with a spicy sauce which enhanced its taste. We also ordered the banana
ice cream as dessert – it was freezing cold with frozen banana, coconut milk
and roasted peanuts.
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| Beer & Tea |
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| Coconut Fried Rice & Caramelized Pork |
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| Vietnamese Pizza |
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| Banana Ice Cream |
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| In front of Bep Me In |
After the late lunch we’d decided to proceed to Bitexco Financial
Tower for its sky deck. It seemed like the famous Pho Bo Vien Thap Cam was on
the way thus we’d decided to make a stop there for a quick bite. Hubby ordered
the ‘mixed’ bowl which had tons of scary stuffs. The soup was quite flavorful
but definitely not a fan of the scary stuffs on top.
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| Walking again! |
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| At the Pho Place! |
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| The Famous Pho in HCMC! |
We continued our walk to the tower and bought our ticket
@VND250k/pax for Sky Deck entry & World of Heineken visit. The ticket
without World of Heneiken already cost VND200k thus one only paid extra VND50K
for World of Heineken with loads of freebies such as 2 free glass of beers! The
sky was still bright when we arrived at the 49th floor Sky Deck but
the sun was slowly setting after a while. Too bad the cloud was thick so we
were not able to see a full sun set view.
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| Finally! |
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| Time to get our Tickets |
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| Tickets for Skydeck & World of Heineken! |
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| Our Tag for Free Heineken later! |
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| Finally at 49th Floor |
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| Desperately looking for chairs as my legs are killing me |
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| Halloween Deco |
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| Toa Nha Tower at the Background |
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| Sammy the Witch! |
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| Sammy eating the Sun! |
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| Note the Mong Bridge at the bottom - we were supposed to go there but ended up canceling since we can't feel our legs anymore |
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| The Heli Pad at the top.. |
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| Posing with the Pumpkins |
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| The Sun is setting... |
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| Looks like an Egg York... |
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| Sammy taking a bite! |
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| Goodbye Sun! |
After sunset, it was time for our World of Heineken tour! We
took another lift to the 60th floor and was asked to write our name
for our customized Heineken Beer with name on it. Our guide started the tour by
introducing us to the Heineken history and the beer ingredients before ushering
us to the 4D interactive tour. The 4D tour basically treated us as part of the
ingredient and brewed us alive in the whirlwind process. A cute trivia –
Vietnamese Heineken bottle was different from our countries with the extra tin
foil and an embedded star at the bottle cap whereas the ‘e’ in Heineken was
tilted at a certain angle to represent a smiley face. =P
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| Waiting for our Tour to start! |
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| Our Guide! |
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| Toa Nha Tower at night |
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| We are getting brewed alive!!! |
After that we were led to the 59th floor to get a
lesson from a draught master on the correct way to fill up a glass of ice cold
beer from tap. We also got the chance to enjoy our end product. Cheers! There
was also games room where we got to drive the F1 simulator, got a free photo
and playing penalty shoots game.
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| Oh no! Stairs!!! |
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| Our 'Sifu'! |
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| In Training! |
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| Here are the Steps! |
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| Enjoying our 1st glass of Heineken! |
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| At F1 Simulator... |
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| A Race car made of bottle |
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| Let's try a Penalty Shootout! |
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| Sammy getting lazy! |
This ended our tour where we were led to 58th
floor to enjoy the bar. The package included 2 beers & 1 bottle of mineral
water and refillable potato chips. The beers could be in glass (from tap),
bottle or can. We ended up taking the draught beers since we always felt
draught beer tasted better. We were there for a long time enjoying the potato
chips, ice cold beers and the night view of Saigon from top. Definitely a
must-try experience in HCMC!!!
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| Going to the Bar using the Stairs!!! |
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| Free Beers & Refillable Potato Chips!!! |
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| Heineken Merchandise |
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| Enjoying Beer on 58th Floor! |
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| Sammy is enjoying his beer too! |
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| The Tower is changing its color... |
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| Another Colorful Hotel |
After 3 glasses of beer (1 from draught practice & 2
from our coupons), we finally returned to ground floor to redeem our
personalized beer bottle. This was so COOL!!! The beer bottle was filled in
beer as well so we would need to finish it before our flight back home tomorrow
since we did not purchase check-in luggage. Imagine > 1 liter of Heineken and
fun activities for just an extra VND50K! This was so worth it!
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| Our Customized Bottle!!! |
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| Goodnight! |
We left the tower at around 8pm++ and decided to skip dinner
since our tummy was fully filled with Heineken & potato chips. We walked
through the Ben Thanh Night Market and saw some colorful sticky rice (link)
but we were too full to try anything. Not to mention we had no idea how to
order it as there were no visible sign. At the end we just went straight back
to the hotel to sleep off our drunkenness.
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| Ben Thanh Market |
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| The Colorful Sticky Rice |
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| Stalls are still opened |
Day 4: Of Bottle Opener & Delay
We had a flight back to Penang at 1.10pm thus we had limited
time in Ben Thanh before taking a bus to the airport. We needed to finish the
beer from our personalized Heineken bottles before our flight thus we took the
bottles to hotel breakfast area in hope of borrowing a bottle opener. However,
it seemed like they did not have a bottle opener in a restaurant... Hmm… we
ended up borrowing the opener from reception instead and had to drink up in
record time so that we had enough time for some last minute shopping at the
market.
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| Last Breakfast in HCMC |
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| Last Beers in HCMC!!! |
We literally had 30minutes at the market to get some last
minute souvenir before rushing back to the hotel for checkout. We did manage to
buy some cashew nuts & hair accessories but were not sure whether we got
ripped off since the market was known to have higher price tag for bargaining
buffer.
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| We have 30minutes!!! |
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| The Lady actually understands Mandarin!!! |
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| It will take hours to really explore the market |
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| The Food Market that we never had the chance to try... |
The bus stop was a 5-10minutes walk away and we missed the
Bus 109 by minutes. We were waiting at the bus stop for another 15minutes
before Bus 152 stopped in front of us unprompted. The conductor told us to get
on the bus as it was going to the airport and the charges were actually cheaper
than Bus 109 (VND6K/pax + extra charge for luggage).
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| A Huge Tree on the way to the Bus stop |
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| Waiting for the Bus! |
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| Bus 152! |
We managed to arrive at 2 hours before flight time to have
our document checked at AirAsia Counter. The queue for immigration &
security checking were short so we ended up with ample time on hand. We’d
decided to take a look at the foodcourt and bought a bowl of Pho Bo from
“BigBowl”. For some reason the price tag in the airport were all in USD but one
could still pay in VND with the conversion of the day USD1 = VND23K.
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| Pho again!!! |
We also took a look at the souvenir shop and found out the
roasted cashew nuts were more expensive in airport if compared to the one we
bought in Ben Thanh Market (VND250K/kg). However, the hair accessories seemed
to have a bad choice as the airport cost USD3 (VND69K) but we bought it in the
market at VND70K. Alright it was only a VND1K different each but imagine the
market seller originally quoted me at VND150K per piece!!! Definitely beware
when buying stuff from the market!!!
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| Delay as usual!!! |
I never seemed to have luck with AirAsia as well since we
were facing with another delay – 1.10pm flight being pushed back to 2.10pm.
UGH!!! Anyway we finally managed to reach Penang at 5pm++ in time to join the
rush hour traffic jam. All in all, HCMC seemed to be more urbanized and
commercialized than Hanoi – or at least from the places we visited in last few
days. It seemed to lack the old style small town charm of Hanoi and most
important of all – it lacked the romantic entanglement of rain like our Hanoi Visit in August (link)… =P
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| Goodbye HCMC! |
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