Blog - Vietnam day 1: Lots of scooters!
Vietnam day 1: Lots of scooters!
After one quick night in Taipei, on Tuesday September 22nd we arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. At the airport we were after a taxi to get to the city, although I had read in our guide book that it's not so easy to catch one yourself, also because there are fake taxis and ones that won't use their meter. An easy alternative is to get a taxi ticket at a counter for a fixed fare to get to your hotel, beware though, right next to the $8 counter there's the $20 counter. We got our $8 ticket, and someone from the counter took us straight through the crowd to a designated taxi.
In HCMC it seems always possible to get by with U.S. dollars, but the exchange rate is approximate and not very good, and change is always in Vietnam's currency called dong. Currently 200,000 dong is roughly about ¥1000 or $10 USD. It takes a little time to get used to the huge numbers.
So our taxi took us to our hotel for the stay, Hotel Continental Saigon, probably the oldest hotel around, built at the end of th 19th century. We had a junior suite that was very nice and comfortable, the bathroom could have been a bit better. Some staff at the hotel was very nice and helpful, although the front desk wasn't quite so. We got there around 11:00 and our room wasn't yet ready, after waiting for a while and being told that it would take a bit longer, we went to have drinks at the hotel's restaurant.
After dropping our bags we were out. We first exchanged some Japanese yen to Vietnam dong downtown, at a place called "59" on Le Loi street that seems reputed to have good rates. Later we also found another good one at the corner of Mac Thi Buoi and Dong Khoi streets. Money can only be exchanged within Vietnam, as the currency isn't allowed to be traded outside of the country.
Then our first stop was for lunch at Wrap & Roll (62 Hai Ba Trưng St.), a restaurant popular with foreigners, where we had fresh and fried spring rolls.
Most of the day was spent walking around the city, ordering order-made clothes, and getting really tired by crossing streets with non-stop scooters. There aren't many traffic lights, and even when there are it's hard to rely on them. You just have to walk your way slowly through the flow of scooters and some cars. We didn't get used to it the whole time we were there and it was a bit of a stressful experience.
Here's a short video of scooters in Ho Chi Minh City. The traffic never stops!
During the day we had some strawberry and sugar cane juice at a small restaurant in the afternoon. For dinner we had pho at a chain called Pho24, which was clean and easy to understand with an English menu, but it wasn't that good. We also bought a bánh mì (vietnamese sandwich) at Như Lan, delicious but surprisingly spicy!
Another thing we did on Tuesday was to book a bus tour for the next day, at Kim Café (nearby Sinh Café that's very similar and probably as good), to take us to the Cao Dai religion temple and the war time Cu Chi tunnels. Nearby Kim Café was a Highlands Coffee that was quite nice and had free Wi-Fi. Actually there was a lot of free Wi-Fi in many places, more than in Japan.
To be continued...
View a short route that we walked towards the end of the afternoon on this day. (Gmaps Pedometer)
Larger sizes and more photos at Flickr
Posted on October 6, 2009 at 20:12 | Tweet
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