MYPT Part 1 - First Day in Ho Chi Minh City

On June 1st, I went to Ho Chi Minh City with my colleagues for our Mid Year Planning Trip (MYPT). We took a Tiger Airways flight and started our journey by checking in at Changi Budget Terminal at 530am. The queue was very long - didn't expect that it would be such a full flight for such an awkward timing. Most of us were very tired as we didn't get much sleep night the night before. The flight there lasted 2 hours. Due to the time difference, we gained 1 hour and arrived at Tan Son Nhat International Airport at 830am.

On exiting the plane and entering the airport through the bridge, I felt like we're still in Changi Airport. The facility looks very new, clean and well maintained. Clearing customs and immigration was quite hassle free despite the scary uniformed officers. I celebrated my entry into Vietnam due to my bad experience trying to enter Penang with an expired visa previously.

Coming out of the terminal, it was very spacious... kinda reminds me of the Chennai International Airport as the taxis were all at the side waiting. The difference is that the there were not as many taxi drivers touting their services. One taxi driver tried to pose as "Mai Linh" despite his taxi logo being different. We hesitated to board the taxi until we saw a Toyota Innova taxi labelled with Airport Services (forgot the exact words). Asked an airport staff and took the cab for USD10 to our hotel. I was quite surprised with the driver seat on the left side as this was my first experience. We were quite happy that all of us could fit into 1 taxi - saved us cost and trouble of finding another taxi.

Entering the city, I had a sense of nostalgia..... the city looked and felt so much like Chennai except that it's very clean and "autos" were replaced with "ninjas on motorcycles" (most were wearing face masks). Along the way, we saw lion dances celebrating the opening of a new shop. This was the first hint for me of the influence of Chinese culture in Vietnam. The 2nd hint was almost every shop we went to, there was an altar for what I assume to be "tu di gong" as it was placed on the floor.

Reaching our hotel - Saigon Mini Hotel 5 in District 1, we were all quite surprised as we had no idea our hotel was so "small". However, the interior exceeded my expectations. I am quite satisfied with the stay there except for the poor airconditioning. Nonetheless, it is great value for $$ - helpful staff, very central location and free wi-fi access.

After checking in, we took a taxi out (another Toyota Innova... seems like this is their favourite car) to Nhà hàng Ngon restaurant.

Pond in Restaurant	Enjoying my phở gà

The restaurant looked very posh and expensive. We had our first meal of phở with gỏi cuốn and lime soda.

After lunch, we began our sight seeing trip around Ho Chi Minh City starting with Notre-Dame Cathedral and then the General Post Office building next to it. We went to more places including the newly opened Hard Rock Cafe inside Intercontinental Hotel, Reunification Palace and so on.

Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) is bustling so much traffic that we were initially very lost on how to cross the road. It took quite some time to find out the strategy to cross "safely". There aren't that many cars but with so many motorcycles around, it is very quite challenging. Nonetheless, being in a group does provide abit of safety. We wrapped up the sight-seeing with shopping at Bến Thành Market. It's amazing at the amount of effort required to negotiate and the amount one can slash. We bought fresh Blue Mountain coffees from the market! mmmm~~ (I failed in my task to avoid coffee... haha.. how can I resist such a wonderful taste!)

Finally, we wrapped up our day with dinner at Pho2000 which is famous for hosting Bill Clinton back in 1995. It had been quite an eventful Day 1 in Vietnam. Part 2 will come up soon.