Ho Chi Minh City, June 28 - July 1, 2013

The entry to Vietnam's largest city is easy. It takes just one and a half hours to fly from Singapore to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), or Saigon like it used to be called, and it is still called by the locals. Our small hotel in the very centre of the city has arranged the pick up from the airport.

The city itself is surprisingly clean and orderly. Compared to our earlier Hanoi experience, it is even relatively easy to cross the streets.

The city is full of French colonial architecture, but Ho Chi Minh statues and posters also abound.

The streets in the central District 1 are clean and the shops modern.

The opera house is a good landmark for a tourist.

As is the Notre Dame Cathedral. The French left a lot of Catholic influence in Saigon.

The old post office from snail mail era is huge.

There is some old and there is some new.

The pedestrian paths are protected from the myriad of scooters by metal bars that are easy to step over.

There are still some rickshaws around,

but the main mode of transportation is the scooter.

After initial sight-seeing we visit the Nguyen du BrauHof for lunch and beer.

Their Weizen is OK. but the lager is yeasty and tastes raw. Their dark beer is very good.

After being nourished we head to the nearby parks.

HCMC is also much greener than Hanoi.

Some culture.

A playground(?)

We return to the hotel for a quick rest.

We head for French dinner at Thai Van Lung street behind the opera house. It starts to rain, and we find a ourselves at a Mediterranean restaurant Skewers that serves us well.

On Saturday morning we walk towards the river.

Restaurant ships wait for customers.

The riverside is a sactuary for the wildlife.

And billboards.

This time the single skyscraper serves as a good landmark.

We find the art museum,

which is in an old building initially built by a wealthy Frenchman. The project was completed by an even wealthier Chinese businessman.

Even toilet doors are artsy.

Long corridors create a classic atmosphere,

and provide shade from the sun.

We look for a place for lunch and stop at an up-scalish Maxim hotel's Nam An restaurant.

It is time to walk back to the hotel to dress up for the main excuse to our trip: a Vietnamese wedding at the Rex Hotel.

It is a big wedding.

With the Chinese style ceremony and a seven-course dinner. Luckily the portions are not huge.

On Sunday we hire a driver to take us to two main tourist destinations around the HCMC. The first one is the Cu Chi tunnels that showcase the huge network of tunnels Viet Cong used against the US forces in Vietnam war.

The story goes that the big Americans could not fit into the tunnels ...

which were also very well camouflaged.

There are still this one American tank left for kids to play on.

We see a collection of ingenious booby traps used by Viet Gong.

On a peaceful side, next to the shooting range, there is a demonstration of making rice paper,

and drying it in the sun.

We also have a chance to crawl in the tunnels that had been upgraded to fit tourists. They are still quite narrow for our frames.

After the tunnels we head to the Cao Dai temple.

Cao Dai is a relatively modern syncretistic, monotheistic religion, officially established 1926 in the city of Tay Ninh, southern Vietnam. Due to its young age, it shows its syncretistic roots more than older religions. (Wikipedia)

The main temple is beautiful. There is a service going on as we visit the place at noon.

Floor tiles.

Heavenly frescoes on the ceiling.

The Divine Eye overseeing the universe.

There are large open spaces,

and tacky Disneyland like "architecture."

Everything is well maintained.

Even if the temple is from a "Disneyland", the traffic signs are from this world.

And there are practically no cars.

Manicured parks ...

and gardens ...

some of which are behind the decorated gates.

After viewing these bizarre buildings for a while

we notice the clouds are turning darker and drawing closer.

It starts sprinkling.

The service in the temple also ends and the people hurry back to the city, some with scooters,

and some on bikes.

Soon the place is even emptier than before, and we call our driver to pick us up.

We ask him to take him somewhere for lunch.

This place has an English menu.

We order spring rolls with rice and a smallest ever portion of yummy lemongrass chicken.

Which we down with Saigon beer.

It rains heavily when we start our trip back to Saigon.

It is a monsoon season after all, and the scooter riders are well prepared for it.

The rain ends eventually and we try to get to the French place at Thai Van Lung we missed the first night. However, the restaurant appears to be closed (or we do not find it) and we go to the Le Bouchon de Saigon across the street. We start with tuna tartar ...

and a goat cheese salad.

We have duck and rabbit for the mains.

They both go well with French wine.

Before crawling back to the hotel to sleep we visit the neighbouring Jazz Club. They have a cover charge but the place is nice and the music by a local saxophonist is good --- we even buy a couple of his CD's.

On Monday morning we wake up early to join a small group for a Mekong delta tour. Our first stop is at the Vinh Trang Buddhist temple in My Hoa village in the town of My Phong some 70km from Saigon.

It is a nicely kept temple,

with impressive Buddha statues, some reclining ..

and some standing tall.

After the temple visit we continue to My Tho city on the bank of Tien river that belongs to Mekong delta.

We take a boat to an island in the river.

Nowadays there is also a less touristy option to cross the river.

A fish farm.

We land at the Con Qui (Tortoise Island) and are offered some fruit. We are entertained by local people with girls and women singing and guys playing traditional (and not so traditional) songs. Everything is very artificial and makes us feel uncomfortable.

We are then taken on rowboats to a small canal that runs through the island.

It appears to be a very popular path.

Kind of nice.

We stop for a tea at the bee and honey farm, so that people can try to sell us stuff. Then we jump into the boat again to go the the other bank of the river, where we visit a coconut candy workshop; another chance for people to sell us stuff, and we do buy some candy.

The final trick to squeeze some money from us is a horse ride to lunch. This tour definitely isn't worth the money. In every possible occasion we are asked to tip the locals, who give us boat rides, serve us fruit, sing to us, serve us honey tasters etc. However, in the end we do not tip our guide who is full of cheesy and sexist jokes.

Lunch is very good. However, Tomi feels ill and cannot eat much.

Then we are back aboard the boat again.

And travel back across the river. It only takes some 20 minutes since our boat has a motor.

The clouds turn dark and soon it starts to rain. We return to the bus, to Saigon, to the airport, and smoothly back to Singapore.