Sunday, August 24, 2014

~ Trip To Ho Chi Minh : Day 1 @ Ho Chi Minh City Tour (Part 1) ~

Day 1 (25/6/2014) -Part 1
About 5a.m. like that we went to check in (reluctantly waking ourselves up lol), which was 2 hours before our flight. =) We also had breakfast after we check-in. Our breakfast were those typical local breakfast, the rest were having nasi lemak set as breakfast but I decided to have toast since I was quite worried of the chili sauce in it was sweet. >.< I also ordered Starbucks coffee too, haha. =P


Before night after we had our supper at Pastamania, Alexis drew this while we were sitting at Dunkin' Donuts, haha. The drawing was cute and it also can be used as a signboard for our group, lol! =P



Here are a few more photos taken during and after we check in. =)



Not forgetting the typical shot or shall I called them a must-take shot whenever we go travel? xD


Haha, you may called this mainstream but I guessed that's what most people do and it made no exception to us. xD *shrug*

The final gate finally has opened and here we go! Time to on board the flight! =) *excited*

A glimpse from the inside of the plane! The view is just awesome and it's hard to hide our excitement as we were soon to begin our adventure in Vietnam! Woohoo! =)



After about an hour of flight later, we were soon announced that we have arrived in Tan Son Nhat International Airport, Ho Chi Minh. =) As we made our way out, we saw all kind of singboards written in both Vietnamese and English. Seriously can't get a clue of their language but luckily they still have English translation below. =)





After we had our passports checked, we went down to collect our luggage. The airport is not big and really nothing much to see or shop, but it's clean and kinda better than we have expected. Of course I love Changi Airport more, haha. =P But just can't compare as Singapore is one of the top cities in the world while Vietnam is still "under developing"? Ok, pardon my poor knowledge and phrases here. >.<


After we claimed our luggage, we went to settle our data plan and get ourselves two sim cards. We decided to share the sim cards as we only stayed for 6 days and we were just thinking getting ourselves local data plan and number might come handy in necessary time. (Not forget it allowed us to update more in social media sites, hehe~ =P)



There were actually a few shops inside the airport and after making some comparison, we decided to choose this Vinaphone as it offered better coverage in cheaper price. =) Sorry that I can't provide in details that which plan we chose but here are the packages you can find, and do note that it will be slightly expensive if you are using nano/micro simcard. =)



As we walked out from the airport after settled our data plan, we were trying to look for the people that send by Seventy Hotel to airport to pick us up. Yup, you can either choose to take public transport from airport or request the hotel to provide pick up service. Of course we choose the latter as it will be much more convenient. =)

Then we saw our name written on a paper! Haha, it was holding by the driver who came to pick us up. Suddenly feel so welcomed cuz there was people holding your name and waiting for you. *dreaming*


After we booked our hotel online, I wrote email to Seventy Hotel and asked whether they have any pick up service or not and this is what they offered us: USD 14 for 4 seats car and USD 16 for 7 seats. Since we only have 4 people and not much of luggage, so we chose the 4 seats one, which is USD 14 for 4 of us.

Here is a GLIMPSE (ya I know, really a glimpse only, sorry for the lousy photo. >.<) of the 4 seats car.

Selfie again when we were inside the car, haha. xD

But what amazed us the most is the electric cables that we spotted on the street! They were all tied up and looked like all jumbled up together. Just wondered why they never worried and how they gonna fix if anything happened? Oh wells...


After around half an hour of driving, we finally reached our hotel - Seventy Hotel! =) The reason why we choose Seventy Hotel is because I done my homeworks based on most of the reviews that posted by the people in Cari Forum, and most of them who went Ho Chi Minh stayed and recommended this hotel. The price of the hotel is cheap and most important, it is clean and has a strategic location. =)

We booked a Family Room and it costs us around USD 32 in average as we stayed there for 4 nights but not continuously, so that's why the price will be slightly different. Seventy Hotel located at the heart of Ho Chi Minh, which is somewhere very near the Pham Ngu Lao(范五老街) where most of the tourists will gather here. =)



After lazying a while inside our cosy room, we reluctantly dragged ourselves out to start the day, lol. We went to The Sinh Tourist to settle the transportation to Mui Ne for the next day. We booked the bus from The Sinh Tourist to Mui Ne, and it's just located opposite the row of shops that have Starbucks. =)

A few more shots taken while we were strolling on the street while heading to Ben Thanh Market and tried to think of where to settle our lunch a.k.a. first meal in Vietnam, haha. =)




More groupfies while we were on the street! xD


Finally we reached Pho 2000! This is where we going to have our first meal a.k.a. lunch here. By the time we reached here our stomach already growling and all of us were famished. >.<

This restaurant is quite famous and also one of the restaurants recommended by the travel book I bought. Why is it famous? Because US former president Clinton had visited and eat here before.



Pho is a Vietnamese noodles soup consisting broth, rice noodles, herbs and meats. Since beef noodles is one of the famous food in Vietnam, so how can we missed it? xD Not forgetting the famous Vietnamese Coffee of course! =)


I must said the beef noodles taste quite good. I love it especially the soup! It was so delicious and taste so well when you eat them together. The beef were quite tender and the slices were not too thick, which I think is just nice. =)



But one of the best thing that I ever had throughout the trip was definitely the coffee from Pho 2000!! It's really awesomely divine and I could hardly have the same taste from else where. It's really something that we didn't expect so it was really a good surprise to us. =) *STRONGLY RECOMMEND*




We headed to Ben Thanh Market which is just opposite the Pho 2000. Ben Thanh Market is a large and famous marketplace in Ho Chi Minh, so you definitely can expect some crowd here.



When we were walking inside the market and try to explore the place, this stall caught our attentions. I can't really tell what kind of food it is selling but judging from the crowd around the stall, we bet it is good. So we stopped by and decided to give it a try. =)


So from the photo you can tell that the food they sell is called Banh Beo Hue and this is how the banh beo hue looks like:

The appearance of the food may not looked that appealing but trust me, looks sometimes really can be deceiving and this really taste much better than how it looks, haha. =P The sauce that comes with it just blended well with the white thingy which I really have no idea what it is, another good surprise for our first day in Ho Chi Minh! =)



To Be Continued.....

Well, I guessed that's all for the part one of our day 1 in Ho Chi Minh, so do look forward for the part 2 of my upcoming post for the day 1! Really must split them into a few posts or else it will be too long! >.<

You all can refer HERE for the details of the itinerary of our 6 days 5 nights in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. Till then, annyeong! Xoxo, Phoebe. :)

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