Teacher Trekker

Airport

I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC – Saigon) in the early afternoon. I had no issues clearing Customs & Immigration. In general, the agents in Vietnam were slower, appearing to look through documentation more thoroughly, but that is just a personal observation. The airport itself has minimal eateries and shops, but most of the essential services are available once you get through all the security checks. I shopped around for the best exchange rates and cab fares. At the time the flat fee was 200,000 dong, but prices are always negotiable despite what the employees may tell you about all the cab companies offering a standard flat fee to the city center. Actually, this can be a good deal if you know that traveling to your hotel will cost more if using a metered cab. (For example, when I returned to HCMC in August I knew the cab to my hotel was only going to cost approximately 150,000 dong so I chose to use metered cabs and save the money.)

Note, there is no wifi available in the airport unless you purchase a local SIM card from a vendor. Therefore, it would be in your best interests to have reservations or a plan in place to get a hotel room if you are not purchasing a local SIM card.

Getting to HCMC District 1

I jumped in my cab, pointed to a general location in District 1 and told my cab driver to drop me off in that area. A short while later, I was dropped off at an intersection congested with speeding motorbikes and scents that were quite new to me, scents with which I would become much more familiar as I spent more time in country. Once in the center of the city, I found a hotel. I was not in the mood to price shop and negotiate after two long days of travel, so I chose to stay at a slightly nicer and quieter hotel a few blocks away from the noise and chaos surrounding the bars around Pham Ngo Lao Street and the Backpacker’s Area. After checking in at the Hotel Tram Anh I quickly unpacked some of my gear and spent the rest of the day creating a game plan for my next few days in HCMC. (More on the hotels I stayed in across Asia in a future posting.)

Saigon

My first few days in Ho Chi Minh City were an absolute whirlwind. Keep in mind I have grown up riding the subway, wandering city streets and avoiding speeding yellow cabs around the city of New York for my entire life. Even with all of that experience in the concrete jungle that is my childhood home, I felt ill prepared for handling the chaos that enveloped me as I explored HCMC. Trying to so much at once felt like car tires spinning on ice as the car goes nowhere or the hamster on the running wheel who may have gotten a good amount of exercise, but in reality hasn’t traveled anywhere. In hindsight, attempting to do too much in too short a period of time wore me out. Additionally, there were outside forces and variables that impacted my time in Ho Chi Minh City. I will be elaborating on these issues in subsequent sections.

Planning

Prior to my trip to Asia, I spent a portion of time planning and researching what activities and sites I wanted to visit in each major location I was going to visit during my trip. There was a host of museums, temples and other places that I wanted to see while I was in Ho Chi Minh City. Building off of preexisting walking tours and my own skills in route planning, I tried to organize locations based on proximity in order to make the most efficient use of my time. I did manage to get to the majority of sites I targeted, but it was at a cost. I thought I had a plan, and then the city slowly consumed me.

Walking to Ben Thanh Market

My first afternoon in Ho Chi Minh City, I just walked around the area surrounding my hotel. I was yet to find a good map or realize that the GPS feature on my phone was free, but I wasn’t really concerned. I found a coffee shop that ended up having the best coffee I would have during this trip, so good in fact that I would go there everyday I was in Ho Chi Minh City. There will be more on the subject of coffee in a future update. Afterwards, I went on a search for some dinner.

A few blocks away is the Ben Thanh Market. After walking past vendors outside selling fresh fruits, vegetables, various animal proteins and seafood I made my way through a maze of aisles lined with everything from dried fruit and nuts to household cleaning products to every tourist T-shirt you could imagine. I didn’t want anything but dinner, so I made my way to the center of the market. There were a number of kitchen stands operating at that time of day, and since I couldn’t read most of the signs, I used a long standing travel tip and sat down where the majority of the local customers were eating. I drew up a plastic stool and sat at an open table where I was soon given a menu with English and placed my order. I chose to eat what all four of the men sitting next to me where having. They had to know something I didn’t. The crayfish sausage turned out to be very good. After dinner I made my way back to the hotel to rest up for another day of exploring Ho Chi Minh City.

Evening view from my hotel balcony