Trip To Ho Chi Minh City

Day 1
Arrived at the international airport at 3.40 pm (local time) - 1 hour behind our time. Aman (a friend's son), was waiting for us. He has been here for 5 months but his parents have been staying here for 3 years.
We were lucky coz Aman had booked 2 rooms for us at Hai Nam Hotel. It's located at Le Than Ton, 5 minute walk from Cho Ben Thanh, the famous shopping centre. I think it's a 3 star hotel, has 5 storeys, with 4 rooms per level ... so you can imagine how it looks. I noticed that most of the budget hotels look alike, they are small but tall! The room was not bad ... it was clean and complete with fridge, tv, aircond and hot shower. Service was so-so as we had to call for many times before they sent us the hot water. After we checked-in at Hai Nam Hotel, we went to Parkson, where Aman's stall is located. Actually his mother runs a stall, named D'Anjung at the food court. We were proud to see malay food is sold in Vietnam, in fact the Vietnamese have started to like the nasi lemak sold there!

We had our dinner there and on the way back to the hotel, we 'browsed thru' the night market. It is like the night market at our place, mostly selling handbags, shoes, t-shirts and souvenirs. According to Aman, we have to bargain up to 50%. None of us bought anything, maybe we were still confused with the currency! By the way, they accept both dong and dollar - that's why it's confusing .... So that's how the first day in Ho Chi Minh City ended. ( to be continued ..... )