Hoi An to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City)

A very early start – early morning call at 5.30am and we had to have our bags outside our doors by 6.15 and at reception ready to go by 6.30am. The hotel provided a breakfast box for us – some bacon a little sausage and a boiled egg – two slices of toast bread with a cheese slice, a croissant, a banana and a pottle of yoghurt which we could either eat on the bus or on the plane.

Checking in at Da Nang airport was interesting and our guide Van was there to make sure all went smoothly – and I was pleased to find that my suitcase weighed 19.3kg. The usual security checks – no sharps, no weapons and LAGs in the plastic bags and Mary had her mango slicer in her hand luggage and this was confiscated.

The flight was late taking off – a passenger was sick and had to be taken off and the luggage removed as well, so about 20minutes late arriving at Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City). Here we were met by the last of our local tour guides – a delightful chap by the name of Cheung. He is a real character, with a great sense of humour. His English is great and he is much easier than both Nam and Van to understand.

Not quite so hot here in Saigon, I think it’s the humidity is a bit lower. We were taken on a tour of the city - we visited the War Remnants Museum, the Reunification Palace, the Notre Dame Cathedral and the Saigon Post Office, with a fancy lunch included in there as well.

The War Remnants Museum was sobering – the photos and stories showing the full horror of the war here in Viet Nam. It is so hard to believe that these atrocities were allowed to happen, and the long term effects of Agent Orange are horrific. How these people have moved on from all that is amazing, and it is shocking to realise that we didn’t really know or understand the full story of what was happening here. And to think that at the end of all that fighting and all those lives lost, the country still became communist and it really was all in vain. The statistics on the wall in the War Office at the Reunification Palace show that there were (I think, I remember – I didn’t write it down at the time – I may have taken a photo of the board) 563 New Zealand troops here in 1972.

The cathedral and the post office were both built by the French – the cathedral looked quite spectacular from the outside but was quite unimpressive on the inside – nowhere near as ornate as I would have expected – and certainly nowhere near as decorative as the Budhist or Hindu temples are.

After our sightseeing trip we were delivered to our hotel – The Majestic, a fabulous old building which looks just like the photos on the website. I am sharing with Dianne again and after settling into our room, showering and changing we headed up to the bar on the 5th floor for a drink. The cocktail of the day was a “Sweet Saigon” which was pretty yummy. The view from the 5th floor looked down on the hectic traffic of Saigon – more motor bikes, thousands of people and the traffic wending it’s way round and across the huge intersection in the road.

Gradually everyone joined us and we then headed away with Kylee to a restaurant for a Vietnamese Barbeque at a busy little rooftop restaurant which we reached by taxi.

The meal was delicious – barbequed beef rolls wrapped around cheese and fried rice (which I was told was safe to eat until Kathy discovered a shrimp in her bowlful) salad and morning glory.



Each night Kylee has chosen a different type of restaurant to take us to introduce us to Vietnamese food, and each one has been quite quite different. Tonight’s restaurant was doing well in the popularity stakes until the waiter brought out the prawn kebabs. Everyone was impressed until they realised that the shrimps were in fact still alive and jumping about on the plate. The squeamish stomachs started to complain until Kylee asked the waiter to take them away and bring them to us cooked, which they did, and then everyone felt comfortable eating them !!

It was then a ten minute walk back to the hotel and time for bed – we were all pretty tired and we knew we had to be up and have had breakfast and be ready to on the bus by 8am in the morning.