Monday, November 24, 2008

Day 2 @ Ho Chi Minh

Phew...I woke up this morning feeling much better than yesterday. Thanks cousin, thanks mom & dad, thanks love! Sorry to worry all of you *hohoho...woopzzz

Woke up around 10am and was really really hungry coz I only had 2pc of pears for my dinner and I threw up everything else. Basically whatever that entered was successfully vomitted out. After getting ready, the two of us walked towards Ben Tanh market direction. We saw a decent franchised pho restaurant, Pho 24, and so we had our brunch there. Yummy soup... but slightly tasteless for my tongue.

We roamed around Ben Tanh market after our meal but we found nothing much interesting for us. They sell clothes, souvenirs, arts and crafts, accessories, shoes, bags, sweets, cakes, and so many more. The arts are marvelous, but the quoted price are steep. Cannot afford, not even interested to bargain *haha

Walk walk walk...around Ho Chi Minh

Next stop is the Notre Dame Cathedral, an almost similar replica of the one in Paris. We were approached by a Vietnam trishaw driver outside the market. He said, "15 thousand for two." We checked and double-confirmed. Alright...set to go! One person per 'trishaw'. Along the way, he showed me the embassy, city hall, library and so on. However, when he and his alliance dropped us at the park opposite the church, he asked for "One and fifty!" Damn...I was still pretty blur from everything and was unwell still. That was 10x of what he initially said, and this was per person. Nice...a tourist scam!!! Anyway...that's a small price to pay to be more street-wise huh!

Waks...gotchaaa!!

Notre Dame Cathedral *looks alike heh?

We took some pics outside the cathedral and saw many married couples taking pictures outside the church too. Then, we stepped into the Post Office to chill out for a while *it was friggin' hot outside* before we decided to enter Diamond department store for a better air-conditioning system *haha*. Oh...we played some video games too *what a remembrance of my student life!

Spot the differences!

After that, we walked over to the Reunification Palace and join the tour inside. It was a warm and humid day, we were sweating like mad. And exhausted too. The tour took around 1.5 hrs and we explored the different rooms inside the building.

The Reunification Palace *15,000vnd for entrance fee

One of the rooms inside the palace... the orange room!

Gift for the family... a whole family killed??

The heli used by the president to runaway during the American War!

The view from the top

Half-way through, I was hungry again. So, as soon as we finished the tour, took some pics, we headed to find some decent food. We tried the broken rice... mine came with bbq pork *yummy. Happy happy...

Slurpee....

We continued our walking trip to the city hall cum museum. The entrance was free on that day, lucky! They displayed the Vietnamese village lifestyle, their old money and coins and many more. I was too tired to enjoy and familiarize with all those.