I have now been in Vietnam for 3 full days and have had an opportunity to explore what Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) has to offer. As I sit here writing this I realize I might be giving a bit too much detail when it comes to trying to keep this up for 365 days, so might end up becoming a bit more general in the next few.  However, I guess you can get a day by day account of my time in Saigon.

My first night started at 3:00am after landing in Saigon and getting a visa on arrival.  You have to get a welcome letter from the Viet government, fill out a form and provide a visa photo.  I had all the required paperwork but it still took over 30 minutes to get my visa.  Other than the late night wait, the visa process was decently quick and painless.  Just remember to have USD as there was a guy who only had Dong and they wouldn’t take it.  Once I got to the outside world, I had expeted to have T-Mobile service and had heard that uber was pretty cheap.  I tried to come as prepared as possible when it came to logistical things but one thing I missed is that T-Mobile international does not work in Vietnam.  Therefore I was stuck with no internet upon arrival and could therefore not get an uber.  I had heard that Taxi’s in front of the airport are trying to rip off tourists like crazy and was suggested to go to the taxi line.  I try to avoid people offering taxis out of no where but there was one guy parked in the taxi lane with a uniform on ushering me to a taxi so I assumed that this was what I was after.  It did not take long to realize that it was a scam as the meter ticked up ridiculously fast.  Ended up costing me just over 800,000 Dong ($35 USD) when it should have cost something like 150,000.  It was 3AM and I had been travelling for 25 hours and had no patience to argue with the guy so I paid it and moved on.  I booked a private room for my first night and it was alright but couldn’t sleep due to the jet lag.  So I headed out at 6:30am for my first run in Vietnam.

I had heard that running along the river provided a relatively easy route which would avoid too many intersections.  Turns out there is a lot of construction and no real path to speak of.  I took my life into my own hands and ran along the side of the road, ditching food vendors and being zoomed by motorbikes.  I decided that the small loop park outside of the hostel was a better option for my next few runs.  15 laps around the park anyone?

My first day consisted of mainly walking around.  I went to the financial tower skydeck, city hall, the Ho Chi Minh city museum and generally got the feel for the city.  By 3:00pm however, I was pretty tired, so I headed back to the hostel.  I didn’t really like the vibe of my current hostel, so I moved down the street to the Saigon Guide House which promised to provide some help on planning my next few days in Vietnam.

When I was planning my trip, I had to decide where I was going to start my travels and initially I was going to meet a friend in China and we were going to go to Taiwan after, but then I realized that was during the time of Chinese new year.  “Well, I said to myself, there is no way I want to be in china for Chinese new years” so I decided to see what cheap flight I could find in SE asia.  Vietnam became the destination and so I booked a flight.  However, upon my arrival, I find that Vietnam celebrates their new years as well during this time.  Tết Nguyên Đán or Tet for short is celebrated sometime in January or February and is the largest holiday of the year.  Think christmas and thanksgiving all in one.  Anyways, my initial plan was to book an open tour bus which would allow me to hop, hop off, at various destinations on the journey north while allowing me to keep my schedule flexible.  However, with Tet looming, transpostation between Hanoi and Saigon has become incredibly difficult.  I met a few people in my hostel dorm room who were also trying to get to Hanoi and together we hatched a plan to use any means necessary to get us North within the 1 month time frame the Vietnamese visa allows.

With the logisitics of getting north looming, I decided to take a tour on my second day and based on the suggestion of our Hostel host Lau, I went to the Ci Chi tunnel tour which is a tour of the tunnels the Viet Cong dug during the vietnam war.  We only got a small taste of what the soldiers experienced (cramped and tiny) and even the tunnels we went through were taler and wider than most of the networks the viet cong used.  I also found it super interesting, hearing the perspective of the Vietnamese on this war vs growing up mostly hearing the American side. I still need to learn much more about the Vietnam war as I am honestly pretty ignorant still, but by the end of this trip I want to get a better understanding of what it was all about.

After touring the tunnels, I headed to a craft beer bar which showcased beers from across Saigon.  Having mostly been drinking $.50 Saigon Lager beers, a few solid craft beers were a welcome taste to my lips.  The price was about 4x the price of other beer you can get in Vietnam, but under $5 for a craft beer in a place where craft beer is not well known is pretty decent.  The next day was mostly a logistics day, but I saw that the pasteur street brewery was only a 20 minute walk away so decided that I had to go.  Even though the walk was not that bad, I really wanted to try UberMOTO which is basically a guy that comes and picks you up on a motorbike.  It was actualely super fun and super cheap.  AT 10,000 dong ($.50 USD)  for a ride, you can get anywhere in the city for super cheap. I got to pasteur street and was pleasantly surprised at the quality of their beer.  I tried 7 of their beers and 5 were hits and the other two were good just not Great.  I would 100% recommend a taste of their beer if you ever come to Saigon.

I will end my Ho Chi Minh City recap here as not much more happened.  I had a lot of street food, and drank some cheap beer, but overall I really don’t like large asian cities, so tried my hardest to get out of Saigon as soon as possible.

I am currently finishing this post up at a beach side brewery in Na Trang, so you know that I at least made it there.  Next post will be about Dalat and the journey that took me there.

Stay tuned.