We arrived about 9:00PM on 24/6/08 from Sydney on Jetstar. We had booked the flights about six months earlier and paid $2637 in total for the four of us, roundtrip. The international airport terminal seemed very modern and clean, didn’t take long to go through immigration. As promised, the hotel we were staying at had a guy there with a sign with our name on it - a good idea to arrange an airport pickup so as to avoid dealing with the various touts and dodgy cab drivers at the airport when you first arrive. For the four of us, the airport pickup cost $18 USD. All dollar prices mentioned here are USD – that is what the hotels mainly use in Vietnam, and while we were there the exchange rate was so close (about 97c) that it was not worth thinking about the conversion into AUD.
The ride back to the hotel was an eye-opening experience for anyone who had never travelled in Asia before – my wife and I had some idea what to expect, but for the kids it was quite a culture shock I am sure! The cab driver navigated through narrow streets, coming alarmingly close to the many small motorbikes that make up most of the traffic here. As with many drivers he would honk the horn constantly and also flash his high beams every few seconds or so.
The traffic in HCMC has to be seen to be believed - mostly small motorbikes which often have a whole family onboard. You see small kids (2 or 3 yrs old) clinging to the handlebars, sleeping or even babies being breastfed while dad drives. At least they now wear helmets - last year they passed a law where you had to wear a helmet when riding - 95% of them comply, although they are more like pushbike helmets in many cases and probably don't offer a lot of protection. And kids seem to be exempt which is a bit of a worry! They don't really stop at crossings so there is a trick to crossing the road. If you do it right, the bikes just move around you like water around a rock in the middle of a river, as someone said! You need to be confident, don't run, or stop, or speed up or slow down, just keep going at a steady pace once you start.
We stayed in the Bi Saigon/Bee Saigon Hotel, located in an alley or laneway between Pham Ngu Lao Street and Vui Bien. The area is called Pham Ngu Lao and is where most of the ‘mini-hotels’ are located. The more upmarket hotels tend to be in the ‘Dong Khoi’ area a few kilometres to the east. Our hotel had two parts, a couple of doors apart, can’t remember if we were in the ’Bee’ or the ‘Bi’. The hotel was OK, the staff were friendly, especially one young guy who was always hoping to win a BMW under the bottlecaps of the Tiger beers he was serving us – some competition Tiger was running at the time!
The rooms were fairly basic but large enough. Air conditioning worked OK, only on the 1st level up so no major dramas climbing lots of stairs. Cost was $30 per room including breakfast – we needed two rooms as it is very rare to find in Vietnam the ‘family size’ rooms common in Australia or the USA. They do advertise ‘triple’ rooms but generally do not cater for 4 people in the one room. Maybe with smaller kids they would put an extra bed in the room for you…
When we returned to Saigon for a few nights at the end of the trip we did not stay at the Bi Saigon as we found a cheaper option. But we did go back two or three times for a meal there. The best thing about the Bi Saigon/Bee Saigon was the food. The menu is about 25 pages long and you can order almost anything! As well as great Vietnamese dishes we enjoyed Mexican meals, various pasta, pizzas, burgers etc etc. All of this is cooked in a small kitchen across the laneway.
One thing that impressed us in HCMC and throughout the trip was that even the cheap hotels generally have free wireless internet (useful if you brought a laptop), same as we found in America in 2004 and much better than at home where they almost always charge heavily for WiFi, if it is available at all. I was able to use my mobile phone to access the internet, check emails etc using the WiFi provided at most of our hotels. They don’t have 3G yet, although it is coming soon.
While we were in Saigon we visited the ‘War Remnants Museum’ and took a half-day bus trip to the 'Cu Chi Tunnels', a huge network of tunnels, very cleverly designed, where the Viet-Cong would live underground during the war. They had kitchens, classrooms, clinics etc down there and were able to operate almost right under the noses of the American bases just outside of Saigon. They have a rifle range there where I got to fire an AK47 machine gun. My wife and the kids even had a few shots of a pistol as well. Quite an experience - very loud and a decent kick in the shoulder from the AK47. I’d never fired anything other than an air-rifle before so was a bit surprised how loud the guns were. Costs about $1 per bullet, if memory serves…There are lots of photos of the Cu Chi trip on our Picasa web album.
At the end of the tour we got a propaganda film about the war, featuring a heroic 15 year old schoolgirl who apparently earned the 'American Killer Hero' medal on several occasions, even earning the 'Tank Destroyer' and 'Plane Killer' badges as well. Lots of references to ‘The American Enemy’ when describing the battles the Communists fought in this area. That said, our guides have been keen to emphasize that these days Vietnam is friends with everyone, with the ‘American War’ having been consigned to the past as Vietnam moves forward. I’m not sure they realize that Australia was also involved – you don’t really hear many references to it on these tours or in the War Remnants Museum.
We visited the old Presidential Palace where a tank crashed through the gates in 1975 when the Communists finally conquered South Vietnam, bringing the Vietnam War to a close. Also did some shopping at the Ben Thanh Markets which are a short cab ride (should be $2 or less) or maybe a 10 minute walk from where we were staying. If you get sick of the constant sales pitch by the vendors, people grabbing your arm, etc, there is also a ‘fixed price’ section which is much less hectic!
We had one problem – my wife had a fungus infection or similar between her toes before we left. I think due to walking in puddles of not-very-clean water in the HCMC streets, this had become infected and was getting rapidly worse. Anyway, we went to one of the several western hospitals and got an injection and antibiotics. This was the ‘SOS International’ – the hotels have business cards for them and they are also in the Lonely Planet guide. It was a world-class facility; the staff all speak English and the doctors are a mix of Vietnamese and foreigners including Australians. Needless to say, this doesn't come for free - $192 USD for the consultation and meds. All credit cards accepted. Can't complain - if left it could well have turned into something quite serious. The service was much quicker than we'd get at the Emergency Department at home!
We also did a Mekong Delta river cruise, which was interesting – floating markets with people selling stuff from boats etc. The Mekong is a huge river - maybe a kilometer or more wide in places. Starts in the Himalayas then goes through China, Laos and Cambodia before Vietnam. We visited places where they make the ‘coconut candy’ which is a famous local product, as well as villages where they produce rice paper for export all around the world.
As part of the tour we stayed overnight in Can Tho, which is the largest city in the Delta region. We enjoyed the tour, but it was two long days, riding on buses, getting off the bus to cross rivers on ferries, riding on small boats along canals, more bus trips etc. Our kids found it a bit much I think. Being teenagers they’re not very impressed with most of the stuff we find interesting!
Click here to see our photos from Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta