Thanh Pho Ho Chi Minh Travel Blogs | Travelogues | Travel Journals

Well after the odd Beer Garden and Saucey Catwalk, I crashed over at Bohng Phatry's hotel, Hotel Cara. Located near Wat Phnom, Hotel Cara is a newly built establishment, and is surprisingly cheap for the standard of service they provide!Anyhow, in the morning we struggled to wake up at the break of dawn to get ready for our journey to Srok Vietnam. At the bus station, I managed to put my foot down and told the ticket instructor off for allowing the locals to push in front of the nice A...

Known as Saigon. This was the beginning of our trip. We were showed the city driven on tuk tuk by locals. This was definitely a cool way to see the city. We walked around by ourselves alot and visited the museums. A tip if you can't cross the road because of all the motorbikes; follow really close behind the locals. They might have though we were crazy but I had a hard time getting up the courage to cross when it was really crowed or when there were cars. We went to the Reunification Hall,...

  My phone turned itself off in the night again and nearly caused me to miss my bus. I woke at 6:10 and my bus was at 6:30. Luckily I had packed & paid the night before so I stumbled out the hostel onto a motor-bike and arrived bang on 6:30. If I was not half asleep I would have remembered that buses don't leave on time in Asia so I was infact 40minutes early. This was not a problem as I hopped on and went straight back to sleep and did so for the entire journey to Ho Chi Minh o...

I love Vietnamese food! My favorite is the Vietnamese chicken noodles. I love the aroma of the spices & herbs!

Cu Chi district is on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City. During the Vietnam War - 1965 to 1973 the Viet Cong Guerillas occupied 200 miles of secret tunnels. The Viet Cong lived undeground for years at a time, cooking, sleeping, teaching children, performing medical operations and conducted military operations. If you want to know more then read The Tunnels of Cu Chi by Tom Mangold and John Penycate 1985,Berkeley Books.

In November 2007 i visited Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand

Today was another tour day, the Cao Dai Temple and the Cu Chi Tunnels. We really were packing in the tours here in Ho Chi Minh City, I think mainly because there actually were loads of tours to do here. In Hanoi, the only tour was to Halong Bay and we stayed out there anyway, much to our regret. In Hoi An the only tours were to the Marble Mountains which weren't that exciting as well as the tour to the Holy Land 'My Son' which we done. Anyway back to the tour today. The tour...

We checked out of our hotels at 7:00 and headed for the airport for the 8:20 Vietnam Airlines flight to Ho Chi Minh City. Daniel arrived a bit late because he went to the airport on a motorbike with his 12 kg luggage in his hand. We had to wait for the 12:50 Tiger Airways flight to Singapore.

Vietnam. This was without question the best trip of my life. Vietnam has everything, and in the best possible ways. Fantastic food, rivers, oceans, bays, mountains, forests, a rich history, the craziest driving on the planet, and all at the lowest prices. Then of course is the people: An amazing and resilient race with a lot to be proud of - especially the women, who pretty much run the country!

Following the typhoon that had hit central Vietnam resulting massive flooding coupled with the complete lack of information available, Andi, Gaby and I decided to take the bus back to Saigon to fly north to Hanoi. Maria and Michelle, however, braved the open bus through the flooded Hoi An and Hue.***A straight forward five hour bus-ride back to Saigon and we booked ourselves into a guesthouse for the night before going out to eat dinner. The room had the coldest air-con of any place that I’...

In Vietnam, the best celebration of the year is the new year. And becasue their new year is based on the moon calendar as the Chinese and Moslem, then it fell exactly on the same day as Chinese new year or Moslem new year. In Vietnam it's called as Tet. During this holiday we got 5 days of public holiday. And believe it or not, this is the longest public holiday of the year (beside 1 day on Sept for reunification day and another 2 days I forgot what's holiday was it for) in the country. ...

Among the strangest belief systems on the face of the earth is the nationalistic syncretism of Vietnam's Cao Dai sect. Cao Dai (pronounced "Cow Die") didn't exist a century ago. Its beginnings date back to the 1920's when a provencial official for the French colonial government in southern Vietnam claimed to have heard from God in a séance in 1926. On September 26 the official, Ngo Van Chieu, founded the Cao Dai religion with the help of 247 disciples. Today visitors to the Great Temple, T...

So let's catch up from where I left off.. going to the beach. What a beautiful beach... So peaceful, lovely warm water and beautiful clear sands. I could get used to this lifestyle, but gotta move on.. So Ho Chi Minh City - I was hoping this wasn't going to be another Hanoi and thankfully it's not. Yes there's a lot of traffic, but it is a lot more organised. The city is so much more cosmopolitan as well - loads of good restaurants / hotels. Went to the Rex bar for drinks - what a place...

Vietnam April 2008

Vietnam and Cambodia are really affordable to everyone. I have found the people to be very friendly in both countries. I visisted Saigon and did all the side trips (Megkong Delta, Chi Chu tunnels, Cat Tien national Park), Hanoi including the Halong Bay trip and Sapa. In Cambodia I unfortunately only did Siem Reap with 4 temples of which Angkor Wat is the most famous. I loved it and would do it again.