Ho Chi Minh City (including Mui Ne, sort of), Vietnam

9th June – 12th June 2018

After setting off from Hoi An at 6pm, we arrived in Nha Trang at 5.15am, the following morning. We managed to get some sleep on the bus, but I didn’t sleep as well as I have done on other sleeper buses. When we arrived in Nha Trang, we were told to wait outside a load of shut shops, for another bus (which wouldn’t arrive until 7.30).

While sat there, we got moved around quite a bit, as things started to open up. Eventually, we were called to show our tickets. In Hanoi, we bought an open bus pass with Queen Café bus company, where we received a little booklet with addresses of bus stations, and bus times.

When we presented this to the lady in Nha Trang, she took it off us and gave us new tickets, with a different company. These tickets also had new bus times on them, which ruined our plans for Saigon (meaning we would have just over 12 hours there, instead of a full day). We questioned why she was changing the company but she just kept telling us that they were the times and that she was keeping the other tickets. We weren’t happy with this, but there wasn’t much we could do to change it, at this point, and we were running out of days on our visa.

After getting our new tickets, we still had to wait a while until the bus arrived, making our ‘layover time’ almost three hours! We eventually got back on our way to Mui Ne just after 8am and still had quite a distance to go.

After a half hour break, and lots of traffic, we finally arrived at our destination just after 2 (over 20 hours after leaving Hoi An). When we got off the bus, we noticed, at the bus office, that there was a list of bus times to Saigon, and one of them was the original time that we had planned for. There was no one at the desk, so we sat and waited.

When a woman arrived, she couldn’t have been more rude. She really wasn’t interested in anything that we had to say and told us that if we wanted to change to the earlier time then we had to pay because it was a different company (the one we were originally with). While we had a little discussion amongst ourselves of what to do she rudely told us to make up our minds and come back later as she was busy, and then she got on a bus and disappeared!

As we had no other choice, we left the office and walked to our hostel. Luckily, we had planned it, so that there was only a short walk between the bus stop and the hostel, as we weren’t planning on staying long.

Once we were checked in, we spent the afternoon in the hostel. The original plan was to spend it on the beach, but we needed to sort our bus out for the next day, which involved wifi, so we couldn’t really leave. I emailed the hostel where we stayed in Hanoi (the one where we bought our bus tickets) and they were really helpful. They managed to speak to our original bus company and get us on the early bus the next morning, sending us our confirmation number. This made us feel so much better, although it wasted our stop in Mui Ne, trying to sort it out.

After we were happy that our bus was sorted, we had showers and researched where to go for dinner. When Joe opened his bag, the shampoo had leaked over his things, so he had to sort that out, before we could go anywhere.

It was about 6.30, before we made it out for tea. Joe had researched a few places to go, so we head off in the direction of those, to check out the menus. When we were half way there, Joe realised that he hadn’t brought his wallet, so had to run back, leaving me to check menus out alone – and that’s a big responsibility. We arranged to meet outside the furthest away place, after Joe had run back for the wallet.

Once we had met back up, we decided to go in, as it was the highest rated place in Mui Ne, and it was meant to be cheap. When we went in, we asked for a menu, learning that the place was Russian. We deliberated for a few minutes but in the end ordered some food and drinks. We sat down and waited, and waited, and waited some more. The food took forever to come out, despite the fact that we were the only ones in, but when it eventually did, it was good. We swapped bits of food on our plates, as mine came as meat on the bone, which I’m not keen on. While we were sat there, we realised that it was more of a bar than a restaurant, but most places walking up seemed the same.

After finishing our food, we made our way back to the hostel. We stopped for an ice cream along the way, which was genuinely the highlight of our day!

When we got back, we chilled out for a bit, while I messed around with the blog, trying to make it a bit fancier, before finally giving up. We fell asleep around 10, ready for an early start the next day.

The alarm was set for 6am the next day, as we didn’t want to miss the bus, that we had tried to hard to get. We got up and ready and packed up our things, so that we were ready to head to the bus office at 6.45. We were told to be there around 7, so we made sure that we were early.

When we arrived, the office was still shut, but it was early, so we waited. As it was a long wait, I nipped across the road to look at the beach and was happy, in a way, to see that it wasn’t a nice beach, and would have been a let down after the beautiful beach in Hoi An – it meant that we hadn’t missed out on much.

After waiting for about an hour, a woman came out at 7.45 (I figured that this was fine at first, as the sign said the bus was coming at 8). She asked us if we had confirmed our ticket, so I showed her the email from the hostel in Hanoi. She seemed really nice at first, so obviously didn’t remember lashing out at us the day before. She read the email and then asked if we had a ticket. I got out the ticket we had been given in Nha Trang (with the new bus company), but regretted that instantly, as she snatched it out of my hand and stormed off.

When she came back she was shouting telling us we hadn’t confirmed our seats, and mentioned something about ringing from Hanoi (so obviously she knew that some conversation had been had with the bus company). She said there was no room left on the bus because we didn’t confirm and that we now had to get a taxi somewhere. I tried asking her where and explaining that we had no money for a taxi (as we had budgeted ourselves so we didn’t need to get more Vietnamese dong out, as we were leaving Vietnam the next morning). I tried to tell her that we were told to wait at the office, as I had even checked the address with the company. She wasn’t interested in a word I had to say though, despite me staying very calm, she just called a taxi and told us we had to leave ‘NOW!’.

Without having any choice, we were forced into a taxi. The taxi driver set off, to wherever the woman had said to go. Along the way, the driver pulled over and turned around asking us ‘where?’. We didn’t have a clue where we were going, we didn’t even want to get into the taxi in the first place. He rang the office and spoke to the woman again, before carrying on.

Eventually, we arrived at a bus, pulled over on the side of the road. I tried to ask the driver if that was where we were meant to be but he wasn’t any help at all. We found out that it was going to Saigon, so that was good enough for us (even though it was a completely different company to the two we were already being passed between).

As soon as we were on the bus, I constructed another email to the hostel in Hanoi, explaining what had happened, as they had said we didn’t have to pay any more money, as the bus ticket we bought said that we would get to Saigon. Once the email was written, we had five hours to sit back and enjoy the ride.

After a few naps, and a short stop over, we arrived in Saigon just before 12.30. We were dropped off on a street which was only a few blocks from our hostel, but it took us a few minutes to get our bearings.

Once we found the hostel, we checked in, but were unable to pay straight away, as we had used our cash on the taxi. We were shown to our room, which was on the third floor, up a steep, narrow, windy staircase. When we were in the room, I sent my email to the hostel in Hanoi before we sat and waited.

We had requested to be taken on a free walking tour of Saigon, through a company found online. I had had a response saying that they got our request and would let us know either way if they could accommodate us, but I hadn’t heard anything at all. The tour was due to start at 1.30, and as it was almost 1, we decided to wait to see if anyone showed up.

After nipping out to get some cash, we came back at 1.30, and no one was there for us, which was kind of expected. Instead, we had to explore Saigon by ourselves.

For a change, Joe was in charge of the map, to give me a day off. As he was trying to tell me a bit about the itinerary, the northern accent was too strong for me, and instead of hearing Joe’s Tours, I heard Joe’s Toes, so that was the name of our new tour from there on out.

From earlier research, I already knew that Ho Chi Minh city didn’t have an awful lot to offer, but everything it did, was pinned on the map, making it a little easier for Joe. We made our way to some of the ‘main sights’, which included a temple, a street food market, the cathedral and the post office.

As the guide for the day, was not a local, there wasn’t much information coming from him. I learned that the temple was pretty, and that the street food market sold different types of food.

When we arrived at the cathedral, named Notre Dame, my guide told me that it was currently closed due to construction work (I think the scaffolding gave that away). We took some photos of it, before crossing the road to the post office, where I learned that I could buy stamps and send letters if I wanted to!

While Joe’s Toes was great, it really is beneficial to have a local guide with you to explain some history about the place, otherwise you just end up walking around, looking at pretty buildings.

From the post office, we walked up towards the Opera House, which again was just another quick photo stop. We walked through the streets and found Ho Chi Minh himself (or his statue anyway). We sat and had a rest with him, before taking some photos. I lost at the game of odds, so had to pose just like him, which I was great at!

As the statue of Ho Chi Minh faces a long ‘walking street’, we decided to walk down the middle. I thought that the walking street would have contained nice little shops and market stalls, but it didn’t, it was quite bare. We sat and had a rest, and tried to decide what to do next, as we had seen everything we wanted to.

After a little rest, we walked back to the post office, to the souvenir shop to try and find a patch. It was a tough hunt, because there wasn’t much around, but we found something suitable eventually.

Once we had a patch, we walked back to the street food market, to get some dinner. It was a little earlier than we would normally eat, but we hadn’t had much all day, and we were hungry. We walked up and down the stalls, pricing up what we wanted to eat.

In the end, we both ended up getting similar dishes, which were cheap and tasty. I managed to also get a dessert! I had waffles and ice cream, which I shared with Joe, before we made our way back to the hostel.

On the way back, we looked for a bakery, for breakfast, but we didn’t want to buy anything yet. We found the bus office for the next day too, and confirmed our tickets. When we got back, we dropped off some bits before deciding to go out for a drink. It was still really early and we felt that we shouldn’t go to bed yet, plus the ‘bed’ was just a piece of wood and wasn’t comfy at all.

We wandered around the streets, looking for a good deal, but after around half an hour of walking and nothing catching our eye, we decided it wasn’t worth it, and went back to the hostel instead. We stopped at a shop on the way and got some sweets as a different kind of treat, and saved our money for a decent breakfast in the morning.

Back at the hostel, we settled down and put Netflix on, getting though a couple of episodes before falling asleep at around midnight.

After an uncomfortable sleep on the piece of wood, we got up just after 8. We got ready and packed up our bags, before heading out for breakfast.

As it was still early, we weren’t exactly sure what we wanted to eat yet, so wandered for a while. In the end, we ended up in a bakery, where we got a croissant each for breakfast and bought a large baguette to share for lunch, as we would be on the bus then. We used our last dong to buy some snacks from a shop, before grabbing our bags from the hostel and checking out.

From the hostel, we walked to the bus office, where we checked in and sat and waited for our 10.30 bus to Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Ho Chi Minh City is the most westernised place that we have seen in the whole of Vietnam. Although we didn’t have a lot of time, we felt it was enough to see what we wanted to, in the city itself. Another day might have been useful to do a day trip to see places a little further out, but our visa time didn’t allow that. It was another area in Vietnam that was again, different to everywhere else.

Vietnam has been a strange one for us. Before we arrived here, we had only heard great things about the place, so we were very excited, with high hopes. We feel we may have set our expectations too high though, as although the country is beautiful, and we love that every place we visited it different in some way, it is really dirty in parts and we’ve come across some really rude people (mainly the women). Although the majority of people are friendly and smiley, the ones that aren’t, made us feel like a burden on their business, even though we weren’t expecting much from them – it’s strange. The country is beautiful though, and we learned a lot about the culture. We’re excited to see what Cambodia has to offer, as we cross into our penultimate country!

To travel is to live, Katie x