December 11^th, 2024

Our two hour flight from Hanoi back to Saigon was more or less on time .  We did end up waiting over 30 minutes for our bags but at least all three arrived!

It was raining here in Ho Chi Minh but still around 29 C / 84 F and humid. We caught a Grab to the hotel, dropped our bags in the room and headed out to go pick up Fran’s new eyeglasses that we’d ordered three weeks ago. They obviously were ready and waiting (they only took 3 days to make them and she gets high index lenses) and fit perfectly. The staff there is so kind; when we ordered the glasses they gave her a free bottle of lens cleaner and a gift and today she got another bottle and another gift!

Our hotel is on a tiny street in a busy area but we needed a hotel in District 1 this time to get free pick up and drop off for the two tours we’d booked. The hotel is an older building across from a temple with renovated rooms. We have a smallish room with a queen bed, private bath, fridge, kettle, AC and Wi-Fi. Turns out the hot water is solar heated and the sun has not shone too much lately so we didn’t have any hot water that night.

We then went to find dinner and two of the restaurants we found on Google were not there so we ended up back on the little street our hotel is on and found a decent Vietnamese meal (although Doug found it spicy).  We had cranked the AC before leaving and came back to a cool room for the night.

Today we were picked up at 7am for a private tour to the Cu Chi Tunnels (cost us $70 including the car, driver and a guide). The sky continued to be overcast and it was of course, quite humid. We had looked into group tours but the groups are a minimum of 16 and there are too many other stops along the way and the tour takes most of the day. This way we got to the tunnels as they opened, had the tour, did not stop anywhere else (except one bathroom break on the way) and we were back at the hotel before one. So we would have the afternoon free.

The tunnels of Củ Chi are an immense network of connecting tunnels are part of a much larger network of tunnels that underlie much of the country. The Củ Chi tunnels were the location of several military campaigns during the Vietnam War, and were the Viet Cong’s base of operations for the Tet Offensive in 1968.

The tunnels were used by Viet Cong (VC) soldiers as hiding places during combat, as well as serving as communication and supply routes, hospitals, food and weapon caches and living quarters for numerous North Vietnamese fighters. The tunnel systems were of great importance to the Viet Cong in their resistance to American and ARVN forces, and helped to counter the growing American military presence. The tunnels contained various bamboo traps made by the VC to injure and potentially kill South Vietnam’s Tunnel Rats if they breached the tunnels. The tunnels also contained ventilation shafts to release smoke from fire and any poisonous gases pumped into the tunnels by the American G.I.s.

Our tour guide Khoa, spoke very good English and was a font of knowledge without overwhelming us. He gave us the best synopsis of Vietnam history we’ve ever had on the drove over and he was most informative about the tunnels themselves. His father actually fought in the Vietnam War against the Viet Cong.

The tour took about 90 minutes, we walked through the area stopping at sites like a “US military graveyard”,

ammunition displays

and of course, several tunnels. We learned that the tunnels that tourists get to enter have all had the ceilings raised 20% in order to accommodate the taller people!

Most of the tunnels on view have stairs with coverings above them but at one point you have the opportunity to try to enter as the locals did. Doug did this but Fran passed.

There was an example of a medical bunker, a command centre, a kitchen and a workshop where they took metal objects like plane parts, ammunition pieces, some unexploded and created their own tools and bombs.

We saw bats in some of the tunnels that Khoa shooed away, a scorpion and a huge spider!

The sun tried to come out here in Cu Chi though it never fully did, but man, was it humid! Crossed the 32C / 90F threshold and as we drove back to the city, the humidity did not abate much but the sun was gone and it threatened rain.

For more photos of this day trip, click here.

Upon returning to the city, we hit an ATM, Fran went to pay our hotel bill (as they didn’t have a card machine when we checked in yesterday) and to grab some lunch and Doug went to find a clinic to get some blood work done. He’s been pretty much vegan the past four weeks and wants to see how it affected his cholesterol (note: it was quite a change – he’s probably too low now so he’s reached out to the doctor about lowering his statin pill dosage). He also wanted the ENT he saw three weeks ago to check his ears again and they were good. The rain began on and off as he was returning and was pouring in the late afternoon.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in the hotel room having warm to hot showers, staying cool and tomorrow we head off on our 2d1n trip to the Mekong Delta. The tour includes transport, hotel, 3 meals and we get to see several things enroute and the main event: the floating markets in the Delta for a cost of $99 each. We will return late Saturday afternoon and head straight to the airport.

It began to rain in the late afternoon and lasted a few hours and at times it was quite heavy but by the time we went out for dinner it had stopped. We wandered the local streets south of our hotel this time and found lots of bars and restaurants that reminded us of Beer Street in Hanoi but the street was wider and not covered in tables and chairs.

We stopped at the Waikiki Bar and had a nice meal before returning to our hotel. We had a very noisy night that night in our hotel – the worst of the entire trip – even ear plugs didn’t help and Fran especially hardly got any sleep. We received a message at 7:30 am to be ready between 7:50 and 8 for our tour pick up and they arrived on time. Our guide today was a young man named Vinh and like our guide yesterday, he too spoke very good English. There was already an American couple in the mini van (Ann and Devon from Oregon) and we picked up three young Spaniards before leaving the city. We were very happy with a group of 7 instead of the possible 25.

It was about a 90 minute drive out of Saigon passing by rice fields and rivers before we arrived at our first stop: Vinh Trang Pagoda. This pagoda was built in the mid 19^th century and has been restored three times. It is still in use and there are many statues of Buddhas here.

The happy Buddha:

The Sleeping Buddha:

The Amitabha Buddha:

The female Buddha:

as well as many smaller buddhas leading up to the larger ones.

Vinh Trang pagoda is one of the most well-known temples in the Mekong Delta region. It is considered the most beautiful, ancient and significant temple in the Mekong Delta and became a national monument in 1984.

Funny coincidence was that while at this stop, we saw our guide, Khoa, from yesterday – they work for the same company, Vietnam Adventure Tours and we have to say we have been very happy with their guides.

Upon reaching the city of My Tho, we boarded a motorized boat (like the tender on our cruise) and traveled on one of the nine branches of the Mekong River (Mekong means 9 branches) where we visited three islands.

First was the Unicorn Island where we saw honey bee hives and got to taste a honey tea that contained bee pollen as well as a taste of Royal Jelly.

Royal jelly is a honey bee secretion that is used in the nutrition of larvae and adult queens. It is secreted from the glands of the worker bees to feed to all larvae in the colony, regardless of sex or caste. During the process of creating new queens, the workers construct special queen cells. The larvae in these cells are fed with copious amounts of royal jelly. This type of feeding triggers the development of queen morphology, including the fully developed ovaries needed to lay eggs.

Royal jelly is sometimes used in alternative medicine and is often sold as a dietary supplement for humans, but the European Food Safety Authority and the FDA conclude that evidence does not support the claim that consuming royal jelly offers health benefits to humans. 

Next was a visit to hold a python:

Then Vinh showed us many of the fruits that grow on these islands. The islands have mostly farmers and fisherman living on them and they are not large enough to support rice fields but the soil from the Mekong Delta is very rich in nutrients and many kinds of tropical fruit can be grown here. Here are some of what we saw on our walk to take a boat ride in the water coconut river:

Calabash 

Jack fruit

Cacao

pomelo

Longan

Custard apple

Rose apple

Pandan, known as the ‘vanilla of the East’, is a staple herb in Southeast Asian cuisines. The leaves can be used to infuse their fragrance to foods or as a natural green coloring in desserts.

 We boarded a small row boat with two rowers (one on either end) and take four passengers and took a ride down a canal off the river through a water coconut forest. 

We were taken about two kilometres through the forest before we met our original motor boat to take us to Coconut Island.

On Coconut Island we were shown a star fruit tree as well as a mango tree but it only had one mango on it.

Khoa showed us how they make candy from coconuts. We learned that the locals use every part of the coconut so nothing goes to waste. The shell is used for fertilizer or for burning in stoves (we saw that the next day). The meat on the coconut is scraped and pressed for the milk and oil. From the milk they make the candy and it has no added sugar however they do add some malt and depending on the type of candy a flavouring like chocolate or banana. We got to each try a piece of some fresh candy with peanuts and then sample a few flavoured ones before purchasing anything we’d like.

Then we were shown two kinds of wine: Snake wine (which we could sample and Fran did) and banana seed wine which no one wanted to try when Khoa told us it was stronger than the snake wine!

There were crocodile products for sale and many tables of souvenirs as well. Crocodiles no longer live in the Mekong Delta except on crocodile farms.

We reboarded the boat and were taken to Phoenix Island for lunch. We had fried and fresh spring rolls, rice, veggies, pancakes; those non-vegetarians had fish, shrimp and we had some tofu items. It was all quite good and way too much food. This was included in the tour; we just had to buy drinks.

 

After lunch it was back on the boat to go back to Unicorn Island where we were taken to a shelter and given a variety of tropical fruits to try: dragon fruit, pineapple, jack fruit, guava and pomelo. While we sampled these a small musical performance was put on for about 10 minutes. It began to rain when we arrived here and did not stop for several hours.

The Mekong River had a lot of floating plants on it like we saw in Ha Noi and we learned that the plant is thew water hyacinth. We saw no flowers but there was plenty of plants.

At this point, we were taken back to the main docks where there was another market and we returned to the mini van for the two hour drive to Can Tho where we taken to a hotel for the night. We were on our own now until 5am tomorrow morning.

After checking into our hotel, we were taken to room 5105 which was very nice but it turns out the lights didn’t want to work and the bathroom was quite wet. Doug went down to complain (the phone in the room also didn’t work) and they told us we should change rooms so we moved to 7106. It was not as nice but the same arrangement, with a king bed, private bath with a tub, large closet, desk, no bathrobes like the first room and the fridge didn’t work. It was definitely a room that had not been remodeled like the first one but it’s only for a night and we’ll let the tour agency know what happened.

The view from our room:

As it was still raining pretty hard on arrival, we spent some time in the room before going out to find dinner. We thought we should get a bit more cash so the hunt was on again for an ATM that worked with our debit card in the rain.  After four tries, we found one that worked. So many of the banks here do not accept foreign cards – we’ve never had this much trouble in nearly eleven years on the road!

Rather then hunt for a place to eat on our own in the rain, we went to the place recommended by our guide on the riverfront. By now it’s dark and you can’t see anything anyway, but there was a nice breeze while we ate dinner. We were in bed by 9 so as to arise early at 4:30 to begin the second day of our tour.

We all met in the lobby at 5am and Vinh took us across the road to the Wet Market where fresh seafood and more are sold.

It was still dark and overcast but not raining and we walked through the fish market over to catch our boat to take us to the Cai Rang Floating Market – one of the reasons for taking this tour. Vinh was telling us that the market is not as big as it used to be and he expects in a few years, it will be no longer as fewer and fewer people come here to shop and we noticed the majority of boats were tourist boats and none of them were full. The markets is open from 5 to 9 am only.  There are many people who live on their boats here as they cannot afford a house or land.  

This is the rickety ramp we had to walk on to get into the boat!:
Most of what is on offer is fruit and vegetable and there are many boats selling fresh coffee.

We were taken to a structure on the water but affixed to the shore where we learned about rice paper.  It comes in different colours: white, green, orange and purple from plants. Red cabbage is used to make purple colour, pandan for green and pumpkin for orange. We watched a demonstration and those who wanted to, could try their hand at making some – Fran did.  

We saw the machine they used to shred the paper into noodles. The sheets of rice paper feel very much like plastic – weird.

Next Vinh took us to where many exotic dried meats are for sale: frog, snake jerky, and many seafoods.

We did not purchase anything but a small spray bottle of virgin coconut oil for less than $3. Then it was back to to the boat to begin the return journey but enroute we stopped and got off our boat and got on a houseboat where the family sells pineapple. We saw how the family lives inside (they sleep on the floor on mats) and how they have a small kitchen and worship area in their living space – it’s still larger than the space we live in!

We got up on the roof and two women were working with the pineapples and we watched her cut them up – she used a special took to make the spiral cuts.

It was a short boat ride back to shore where we wandered another market for a short visit and the mini van picked us up to take us back to the hotel. There was a buffet breakfast and then we had time to shower and chill before checking out at 10 am.

We all met back in the lobby after breakfast and it was about a 90 minute drive to the Vo ancient house where we did 6km round trip ride on bicycles.

Upon returning to this historic Vietnamese house we were shown how to make Vietnamese pancakes, known as “bánh” before having lunch.

We then saw the inside of the house – which part of is still lived in and part is preserved for tourists and for worship.

Now the tour is over and it was about a two hour drive back to Ho Chi Minh City. As we don’t have or need a hotel tonight, we asked the driver to drop us at a Cong Ca Phe to have one more before leaving the country! However, after disembarking, we decided to get a foot scraping to get all the dead skin off our feet before leaving. This is NOT included in most pedicures here. We checked out many “spas” before ending up back on the street where our hotel was located a couple of nights ago, and there the Nail Spa offered them for 300,000 VND each – about $12. When we confirmed that the scraping was for the whole foot not just the heel and said we each wanted one they offered it for 200,000 VND ($8) each. It took about a half hour and we were both done at the same time.

This link will take you to more photos of this 3 day trip.

We then walked back to the Cong Ca Phe and as it was after 4, Fran decided not to do a coconut coffee but a Coconut Cacoa – Doug’s fave – instead so as to too consume any more caffeine before our flight tonight.

Around 5, we called our last Grab and went to the airport. It was way early, but we didn’t want to wander around with all our luggage. Our JetStar flight back to Melbourne is at 10:40 pm and we had upgraded to Business Class hoping it might be more comfy for sleeping – the seats do not lie flat in Business Class on this airline but there’s more leg room and wide seats, no added cost for bags, meals or beverages or choosing seats as well as a separate check in.

Bag drop and check in did not start till 7:40 so we found a place to sit near by and as soon as it opened we saw the airline staff step our in front of their counters, bow and it was off to the races. The line up for Economy Class had started at 6:30 and now it was ginormous. The Business Class line had two people in it so we were checked in quickly. This time we were allowed 30 kg each instead of 20 kg so we checked out carry on bags as usual and added Fran’s old backpack which was full of all the Hoka’s we’d purchased for Doug and John.

Next was immigration, which was quick – we were three hours away from our visa expiring! We looked at the Duty Free Shops thinking “it’s Vietnam, it should be cheap” and we still about $26 worth of VND left but nothing was in that price range or cheap.

We found a small restaurant and had a last meal before going to the gate. Being in Business Class we boarded first; we were in the third road of the section (which is the last row) and had the two seats by the window (there were three in the middle and two more on the other side). The flight attendants came right up taking drink orders: orange juice or champagne and then took our meal orders from a set menu (light dinner an hour after take off and breakfast in the morning). The flight left pretty close to on time and was smooth. We both managed to snooze on and off after one movie and dinner. By 5:30 am Vietnam time (9:30 Melbourne time) it was light and breakfast was served.

Some of our thoughts on Vietnam:

• It’s very inexpensive for tourists.
• The people are friendly but most don’t speak more than basic, simple English unless you are in a tourist city.
• Reminds us of much of towns in Latin America except that here, unlike Latin America, there are not unfinished buildings everywhere with re-bar sticking out of the tops. But the shops and businesses look very much alike.
• The roads are okay, there’s too much traffic and more than half of the traffic motorbikes.
• Climate varies thru country with the south being hot and humid and the north drier with more pleasant temperatures this time of year.
• Although it’s a cheap place to travel, the chaos of the traffic and the Asian language, remind us why we can’t imagine overlanding in this part of the world.
• People don’t smile much unless you are speaking to them; we find often the staff in shops and hotels, smile a lot but it seems forced a lot of the time.
• There are lots and lots of rivers – much of the country is green even in November.
• Lots of food options with a large number of vegetarian options.
• Distances great and transportation slow – the one time we hired a driver it was far too slow.
• Garbage issues like in Latin America but there are more bathrooms.
• Little English signage except road signs.
• Sidewalks covered in motorbikes so you often have to walk on road – crossing the street takes some getting used to as vehicle do NOT stop for pedestrians – just swerve around them.
• Often have to pay cash or a 3% service fee on credit. You can book so much online and save that though – but at all hotels in this country, we’ve had to pay on arrival not through the Booking.com app.
• Easy to get prescription drugs without a script like Latin America.
• We would come back for a cheap beach holiday for sure.

Fun Facts about Vietnam:

1. Vietnam is the world’s second largest coffee exporter.
2. Nguyen is the most common surname in Vietnam.
3. You can be asked about your age and marital status when meeting locals.
4. The literacy rate of Vietnam is over 97%
5. Lotus is Vietnam’s national flower.
6. Vietnam is a major exporter of cashew nuts in the world.
7. Sepak takraw (A.K.A calameae ball or kick volleyball), is a traditional sport in Vietnam.  In this sport, a ball is passed from player to player by hitting it with the head and feet (it’s pretty intense..). 
8. It is a land with a 1000 year old temple made of bricks: My Son Temple – the towers are made of bricks and held together by a vegetable based cement.
9. It is a tropical country but it still gets snow in the north in the mountains.