Ho Chi Minh City / Saigon
Posted by Rebecca Lynch on Sunday, July 22, 2012
Our first stop in Vietnam was Ho Chi Minh City. Our hostel was down a little alley way, just round the corner from a brilliant streets for shopping. Vietnam has many gorgeous materials, hand woven with ribbon and strips of fabric making up patterns, some cross stitched patterns, I found a bag made up of many of these fabrics, very traveler looking, perfect for when I start uni when I get home. Along with the gift shops are the little cheep clothes shops full of quwerky tops, which we bought a few of as being in Xinjiang for a year, I had few strappy tops and it's way to humid in Vietnam to have shoulders covered with t-shirts, you just get far to hot.
Elly happened to be here the same time as us, so she found our hostel and joined us for our shopping. Me and Elly also wondered down to the Cathedral, which was very pretty, and on the way I had my first experience of the back of a motorbike! It was a bit scary at first (that's just me though, a bit wimpy sometimes) but once I relaxed it was great fun. It wasn't to far away, so we decided to walk back, popping into KFC for a bit so not to get soaked as a storm came on, it came down really heavy but very fast so we weren't sitting round for long. Saw some giant rats along the path edge on the way back, sounds odd, but I never knew rats were that big, they're massive!
After a bit of shopping and relaxing on roof top bars, me and Becky headed out for the day to the Mekong Delta. It took a few hours to get there, traveling through rice paddies and little towns of houses with corrugated iron rooftops. When we got there we got onto a boat which took us down the Mekong and into a little floating market. We were expecting to be taken to a larger market, however then found out that only the people who were doing the 2 and 3 day Mekong tours got to see them, but at least we saw one of the floating markets. We got taken onto one of the islands where we shown how they made sticky popped rice and coconut toffees (which tasted delicious). We then got to have a cycle around after lunch, which was nice, I miss my bike, I got used to cycling everywhere so it was good being back on a bike.
From there we got onto a little canoe, got given a straw hat for the journey and headed of down the canal rivers lined with reeds and swampy plants. Only five minutes down river, and a storm came, of course we had no waterproofs so got absolutely soaked through. On the bus soaked,, got rather cold, but luckily the bus stopped at a little place on the way back where a grabbed a t-shirt, putting a big dry t-shirt on made a huge difference, then got a hot coffee for the bus. Warmed up we soon made it back to the hostel where we stayed the rest of the night, no going back out into rain.
Elly happened to be here the same time as us, so she found our hostel and joined us for our shopping. Me and Elly also wondered down to the Cathedral, which was very pretty, and on the way I had my first experience of the back of a motorbike! It was a bit scary at first (that's just me though, a bit wimpy sometimes) but once I relaxed it was great fun. It wasn't to far away, so we decided to walk back, popping into KFC for a bit so not to get soaked as a storm came on, it came down really heavy but very fast so we weren't sitting round for long. Saw some giant rats along the path edge on the way back, sounds odd, but I never knew rats were that big, they're massive!
After a bit of shopping and relaxing on roof top bars, me and Becky headed out for the day to the Mekong Delta. It took a few hours to get there, traveling through rice paddies and little towns of houses with corrugated iron rooftops. When we got there we got onto a boat which took us down the Mekong and into a little floating market. We were expecting to be taken to a larger market, however then found out that only the people who were doing the 2 and 3 day Mekong tours got to see them, but at least we saw one of the floating markets. We got taken onto one of the islands where we shown how they made sticky popped rice and coconut toffees (which tasted delicious). We then got to have a cycle around after lunch, which was nice, I miss my bike, I got used to cycling everywhere so it was good being back on a bike.
From there we got onto a little canoe, got given a straw hat for the journey and headed of down the canal rivers lined with reeds and swampy plants. Only five minutes down river, and a storm came, of course we had no waterproofs so got absolutely soaked through. On the bus soaked,, got rather cold, but luckily the bus stopped at a little place on the way back where a grabbed a t-shirt, putting a big dry t-shirt on made a huge difference, then got a hot coffee for the bus. Warmed up we soon made it back to the hostel where we stayed the rest of the night, no going back out into rain.