Ho Chi Minh: First Impressions

Exercise bikes at a park we walked through.
What a great idea!

Today was spent exploring Ho Chi Minh/Saigon. Our hotel (Meagan and I) is in District 1 and I'd like to think we had an active, yet lazy morning with lots of iced tea and coffee and cold water and a walk around Ben Thanh market that did not end in a single shopping bag. We met and made friends both for lunch and dinner and it was a nice way to be introduced to the city. I haven't been able to enjoy any of the food because of the heat but I will get to it.

Idol at Giac Lam pagoda

I definitely think walking is one of the best ways to explore a city and we did a fair amount of that today, but also took cabs for longer distances. Tourist tip: Vinasun and Mai Linh are metered and apparently the most inexpensive. To be fair we did have to pay twice the regular fare from the airport to the hotel because we could get neither Vinasun or Mai Linh cabs so there does seem to be truth in that.

At Giac Lam

In the afternoon we went to visit the Giac Lam pagoda, which was great and I think a relatively undiscovered tourist spot. It was calm and we could hear the prayers, but there were also no signs in English and nobody spoke it either, so we just mimed and made our way around. I think I only know one word so far: kamun = thank you. Hopefully we can get some lessons in Hue before I accidentally offend anyone! (I think it is very helpful to get directions especially in a place of prayer about what is and is not appropriate. We figured it out for shoes but not for much else).

At Giac Lam

After dinner we walked around a street market and sat outside this building that had a window with a curtain that had grass and a bike painted on it and it was lovely. We then strolled back to her hotel and it is go time tomorrow with our flight to Hue leaving around noon (I am told VietJet is usually late but let's see what tomorrow brings).

(As you can tell, I was a tourist and took lots of pictures today :)).