I am currently blogging here in Nha Trang (which I will get into later) overlooking the South China Sea from our hotel balcony. It is going into our second full day here in the beautiful country of Vietnam. I hope to post our days here in Vietnam separately since (as always) I have way too many pictures.
Our flight to Ho Chi Minh began on October 30th at 12:10PM. I was definitely not excited about our 19:55 hour flight to Ho Chi Minh. The whole time I was thinking what my mom's reasoning was behind visiting Vietnam. We know nothing about Vietnam except for their good food and the language is totally different. However, now that I am thinking about it, I'm glad that I was blessed with the opportunity to travel with my mom to explore a country I am not familiar with. As I spend more time with my mom, I have realized that she is someone who I look up to and I wish to be like her when I am older. To be brave and adventurous to visit different countries and expand our knowledge of other cultures.
We exchanged USD$100 and became instant millionaires! (USD$1=VND21,100)=(USD$100=VND2,110,000 *That's a lot of zeros)
My mom was so excited to fly ANA because it was her first time flying with the Japanese airline. It was my third time flying ANA and I hate flying in general so it was nothing huge. I usually get sick in the air (mostly because of the airplane food) but since my mom was so excited, she wanted to try everything and all the food they have to offer.
ANA does have much better airplane food than any other airlines I have been on. But I still caint. It's cute though! Look at those cute portions.
My eyes were so puffy from bawling at the airport x__________x
We had a layover in Tokyo and were there for two hours after an 11-hour flight. My mom (again) has never been to the Tokyo airport so she was so excited to see all the little shops.
Since we had time, we had noodles from Tatsu. The noodles were a bit chewy but the soup base was delicious. I'm obsessed with the portion size and the pretty presentation.
Finally!! We arrived at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh at around 10:30PM at night and took a taxi to our hotel. We stayed at the Blue Diamond Hotel, which was just 7 km from the airport into the town center. The hotel is centrally located in the town center, around all the attractions. After reading reviews on TripAdvisor, it was apparent that there were not many tourist attractions in the city. They said that you only need a day in Ho Chi Minh to see all it has to offer.
The exterior of the hotel was nice. It was quite deceiving as their rooms look nothing like the exterior.
^Taken at the lobby of the hotel^
^Reception area^
But it was still a decently priced nice hotel for a night stay.
After taking a shower, we ventured out to find some food. The famous Bến Thành Market was just merely two blocks away so we decided to head there to see if there was something to eat. The market closes at 12AM and it was 11:30PM by the time we got out but everything was still opened and lots of people were still out! There was a bunch of street food and we just picked one and went with it. Like expected, we didn't know what anything was or how to say what we wanted. So we just pointed and nodded and they showed us real money to tell us how much everything was.
It was so good! One was just plain broth beef noodle soup and the other was satay beef noodle soup. A bowl of pho probably can cure anything, especially a near 20 hour flight. It was VND$40,000 each (which we now know it's a total rip off.) But at the time, it was a good deal! USD$2 for a bowl of noodles. Yum. By the time we got back to the hotel, we literally passed out from exhaustion. I don't remember when we woke up.. But it was quite early-- like 4:30 or 5AM so we didn't get much sleep. We connected our devices to the free wifi (bonus points for the hotel) and lounged around until the complimentary breakfast at 6:30AM! It was a pretty good breakfast buffet with a lot of savory items, which is my favorite things for breakfast. They had really good passion fruit juice and their fruits, especially the papaya, was sosososo good!
^A whole pho bar & porridge bar set up^
^My momma and her pho^
After breakfast, we headed back up to our room to lounge a bit and figured out our next destinations. Our original intention was to walk around as all the tourist attractions were around the hotel. We were just going to walk a circle and end up back at the hotel before getting on the plane to Nha Trang. Once we stepped out on the street and turned the corner, two men with these cyclo's approached us. Again after doing our research about Vietnam and the people, we were skeptical in talking to strangers who approach us. But of course, my mom wants to get the full experience and the guys sold it with VND$150,000 an hour, going around all the sites we were going to walk to. So, we got on board. And when I say, it was the scariest experience ever. It was the scariest experience ever.
It was us verses thousands of motorcycles, cars, and huge busses.
Watch the video below and you'll see what I mean.
One of the guys turns out know how to speak Cantonese so my mom was talking to him and he was recommending us places to eat etc. It was going pretty well. My mom mentioned that she wanted to go see the markets and that's where they pedaled us. We went to a total of three places. Below is the first market we went to where there were a variety of random stuff ranging from True Religion jeans to Apple fashion shirts (yes, Apple shirts) in plastic wrapped boxes.
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The second place we went to was a temple. I have no clue which temple it is but it was so beautiful! There are many temples in the city cause going there, we probably passed two or three.
^I believe he said this temple is over 140 years old and that every detail was handmade and each drawing/person is a story.^
^And then we got out and boarded our cyclos^
The next place we went, I unfortunately didn't take any pictures. It was a nicer looking mall-type place with the same stuff as the earlier market. At this point my mom began suspicious on how much this whole cyclo thing will be and since our flight to Nha Trang is coming up, she asked them to take us back to the hotel. To that, they said it would take an hour. By the time we got back to the area by the hotel where they picked us up from, it was only 20 minutes! Once we got off, this is where things got real. They insisted that we owed them VND$1,000,000. Yes, you read that right. Remember in the beginning they said it was going to be $150,000 an hour? How did two people, two hours end up to be $1mil? I would like to know as well.. So APPARENTLY what they didn't tell us was that the first hour was $150,000 but if we wanted to come back to the place where we started, it would be $500,000. At this point, the guy who spoke Cantonese didn't even look at us/tell us how much it was. It was the guy who spoke little English that was pressing us for money! My mom was not having it because she hates it when people lie to her or is not truthful. Before we even got on the little cyclo pedal thing, we asked them how much it would be before we even got on because we didn't exchange much money. We definitely did not have a million to give them (and even if we did, my mom wouldn't). So then she offered them VND$500,000 and USD$2 tip each. Take it or leave it (which means going to the police station). And when my mom said she didn't have enough money to give them, the guy was like ATM ----> Pointing down an alley. Lol! Anyways, long story short of course they took the money. It's interesting to these tourist traps you always hear about in reviews.
We returned to the hotel and at this point I think it was 11:30AM. (It felt like the whole day passed and it wasn't even noon yet.) Our check out time is 12:30PM and my mom wanted to get a foot massage. So we dropped off our luggage (since we are coming back for one more night after Nha Trang) and I waited in the lobby until my mom got out! The foot massage was pretty cheap, even at the hotel. It was USD$10 for 70 minutes!
After my mom came back, we grabbed what we were bringing to Nha Trang and headed out for lunch. (I feel like all we do is eat, lol! Definitely not complaining.) We walked towards Ben Tranh market and turned right before we hit the market and it was a whole street full of shops and restaurants. After looking at a few restaurants, we picked this purple place because a lot of locals were inside eating and enjoying their food. It turns out they have more than 10 other locations, so it must be good right? They also had English next to items on their menu so that was definitely helpful.
My mom ordered the braised fish in special sauce with broken rice. She also ordered the bittermelon soup, which was good but the bitter aftertaste was really strong. I love love love their fish sauce. But then again, I like all kinds of fish sauce.
I ordered the rice noodles with lemongrass pork and spring rolls with a side of shrimp and crab in beancurd. In addition, I got their famous passion fruit juice!
The passionfruit juice was so fresh. There are even seeds inside! It's totally different from anything from the boba places in SF with passion fruit flavored syrup (duh). So good!
So basically, VND$190,300 for a whole meal and more which is USD$8.90. It might be expensive in their standard but it's so cheap in American standard. The portions are small but they are perfectly portioned. We were so full by the time we left! We hailed a taxi and headed to the airport afterwards.
Coming up is Nha Trang! Stay tuned.
xoxoxoxo
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