Ho Chi Minh City 180315

Ho Chi Minh City or still known as Saigon was the place I had my first proper rest. It has been 10 days but I felt like I had been traveling for a long time. Initially I planned to visit historical sites and finding out what’s the fuss about regarding the Vietnam War, which Americans were greatly involved. I was really interested on how the North Vietnam & south Vietnam fought each other before and now had become one. I also imagined of shooting the AK47 at Cu Chi tunnel. But all that didn’t happen. Ho Chi Minh City for me was mostly hanging out with the people living there. I spent about more than a week in Ho Chi Minh City. When I first arrived it kinda felt like home again. It was like KL in the 90's and that made me feel homesick. Food was easy to find here. There's a street full of Malaysians and Malaysian food. So, yeah you can get confused whenever you are in that street whether you are in Vietnam or Malaysia. It was next to the famous Ben Thahn Market.

For the first few nights I stayed at Zombie Shop with Sao's family which I shared a room with his younger brother. It became a routine for me to go to Ben Thahn Market every afternoon, to get some food and walked around the city for the first few days. There's this game that the Vietnamese people likes to play every evening and sometimes foreigners would join in at the park nearby the Ben Thahn market. Well, in almost every park they would play this game. It's like balancing a ratan ball of 'Sepak Takraw' in the air within the circle of players but instead they use like a shuttle cock shape to kick it around. I also sold my DSLR camera set for a lighter weight camera, a go pro and a light weight and best ever smart phone for now. Sao was a busy businesswoman, and she had to concentrate on her new project. She lives with her siblings in the building that they rent for the Zombie Shop which sells hipster stuff for the Vietnamese people like clothes, shoes etc. She used to be a civil engineer but went for business and now, owned two outlets of Zombie shop. She showed me around town at night on her motorbike where the famous bright colour post office of Saigon & the Notre Dame Cathedral next to it. Locals like to hung out at this area.

I've also met Uzair, a fellow friend from Malaysia. He went traveling about two years back and now settling down in Saigon with his partner, Lix. And I stayed at his place for the rest of the days in Saigon. He lives in District 7, a proper neighborhood with many expats foreigners living there. From here I learnt how to use the bus, which was really cheap about 7,000 dong one trip. You just need to know what number bus and where the bus stations were. And in Saigon, I met up with someone that represents Ho Chi Minh City, Nha, who showed me around the corners of Vietnam. Nha is currently doing her internship in accounts and management and she can only see me at night. She drove me around on her scooter and I’m was like double her size. She lived so far away from district 7 and yet managed to send me back without fail even though I insisted not too. She took me to try out the street food of Saigon and to slurp the best coffee in the world, the Vietnamese coffee. We also went to one of the famous temple in Saigon. Nha was the best tour guide you could have, as she was eager to exchange learning each other cultures. She taught me a few words in Vietnam and showed me the traditional dress of Vietnam 'Ao Dai'.

All in all, it was really great being in Saigon because of these lovely people. I was getting lazy towards the end of my trip, partly because the Uzair's place was too comfortable which have air conditioning and a proper bed. And so I decided to head north to Da nang before going to Hanoi. Nha helped me until the end of my stay in Saigon, where she sent me to the train station to get me last minute ticket to Danang, & I regret not getting it early because there were only seats left for a 16hours journey. I hesitated to go because I've never been on seating overnight train for 16 hours before. but of course I just had to try out how the vietnamese people do it!