Backpacking in Saigon

This trip is extra special for me because I traveled again with my cousin, Shobe. This was a follow-up trip after I visited her in SG last April 2013 (story of my recent SG trip in my next post). Since she is working in SG, we initially planned on meeting in Ho Chi Minh City (also popularly known as Saigon). I’ll be coming from Manila and she from SG. After a couple of attempts in booking a flight, she finally decided that she’ll be coming from Manila instead. That made my task easier as I just have to book two roundtrip tickets from Manila to HCMC (haha!)

Flight

I booked our flight thru Cebu Pacific. Our flight left Manila at 10:50PM and it took around 2.5 hours to reach HCMC (HCMC behind by an hour).

We arrived at Tan Son Nhat International Airport at around 12:30AM (1:30AM Manila time). Upon clearing through immigration and exiting the airport, we just took a cab to our hotel. Just be careful when choosing a taxi in Vietnam. I have heard quite a number of warnings that it is safer to take more reputable taxi companies as taxi scams are very prevalent in Vietnam. Vinasun taxi was recommended to me by a friend.

Hotel

Throughout our 3 days in HCMC, we stayed at Kim Huong HoteI¸ as recommended by my officemate. It’s just in front of the famous Ben Thanh market and walking distance to Saigon Square. This is just a simple and decent hotel. In fact you can find a lot of affordable accommodations around HCMC. I got our room at USD28 per night for two persons, inclusive of free breakfast.

I directly coordinated with the hotel via email for my inquiries and reservations. I also bought our first 2 days tours around the city with them. But take note, nothing is paid until we checked out on our 3rd day. Not bad right?

Foreign Exchange

I usually buy local currency even before my scheduled trip. That has been my practice since I started travelling in 2009. But VND is not available in our bank, so I brought USD with me and just exchanged at the airport. We all know that airport rates are relatively low compared to the rates outside so we just exchanged only a small amount just to let us reach our hotel and have some left for any contingency.

FYI. USD is widely accepted especially on big stores, restaurants, hotels, and tours. I am not sure if USD can also be used in tiangge and night market.

Tour

For both days, we were picked up by the agency from our hotel. What they did was, they pick up guests using smaller buses then they meet at one point to join everyone in a bigger bus. The country attracts tourist across continents (haha!). In fact, I lost track of the different languages I heard while inside the bus (I tried so hard to pick up the language and identify the nationality, but I failed).

We did the Cu Chi Tunnel and Mekong Delta tours on Days 1 & 2 respectively. Each costs USD14 and USD17 respectively. And already inclusive of the transpo, lunch, entrance fees, guide.  

Here are some photos of the places we visited.

View of HCMC from our hotel. Those red roofs is Ben Thanh Market 

Day 1 - Cu Chi Tunnel tour

see how we fit into this small hole

this is Shobe! :)

know what is this?

its a trap!!!

tunnel entrance

 

we managed to crawl inside the tunnel for about 20 mins

film showing

they are blonde foreigners

Day 2 - Mekong Delta tour

the boat and the river

we bought our "salakots" at the night market

river cruise

At Mekong Restaurant

Day 3 - Third day is our free day. I did not book any tour for this day. We did our huling hirit sa shopping today and also visited these places.

Notre Dame Basilica

Saigon Post Office

Inside the post office

In front of the Parliament House
I think hahaha! I really don't remember

Shopping

Ben Thanh Market

I think this is the largest and oldest marketplace in HCMC. It is mostly popular among tourist looking for souvenirs, over-runs or imitation items, coffee, tamarind, tshirts and many more. There is a daytime and night time markets here. I feel that the night market prices are cheaper than the daytime one.

TIP: Sellers would initially tend to offer higher prices than what really should be. Don’t be afraid to haggle. Haggling is very common in Vietnam, and honestly, I was immediately identified by the local as Filipina everytime I haggle (I really don’t know if this is a good thing :D).

Like in our case, I just asked how much does one tshirt cost. They said its 600VND. That is very expensive. When we were about to leave, they initially offered to bring down the cost to 300VND. That’s already 50% discount. So Shobe and I began to choose tshirts as pasalubong to our family back home. In the end, we bought around 9 or 10 tshirts and asked for discount. Finally they priced us at 200VND per tshirt. That’s almost 67% discount (hahaha!)

Saigon Square

Saigon square is an indoor air-conditioned shopping center not far from Ben Thanh market. The shops there are mostly selling clothes and bags at affordable prices. I am not sure if these are authentic or not. But those brands do have manufacturing in Vietnam and Cambodia. But I guess most of them are imitations. Nevertheless, I bought bags and clothes and they are still in good condition now.

You can also haggle here but they might not give as much discount compared to Ben Thanh Market. For me, I prefer shopping here in Saigon Square.

Vincom Center, Parkson, Diamond Plaza, Nowzone

These shopping centers houses high-end brands. The look and feel is comparable to Greenbelt. I guess this is popular for those who are really on a budget. But for us, we went inside these malls to window shop (hehehe!) and also because these malls have good airconditioning system, it’s good to stay indoors given that it was really humid outside.

Eat

I love Vietnamese food!!! I must say, this is the first trip wherein I really enjoyed the local food. I am not really a foodie. I just like comfort food which I believe I deserve after the loooog day of touring. But it was different in HCMC. I enjoyed all the food I tasted there.

1st day dinner. From the drop-off point, we happen to pass by a restaurant near New World Hotel. We chose what's within the area because we we so hungry after the tour. We ended up at Pho Hung Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup. And ofcourse, we ordered beef noodle soup :-D

they served us with those leafy thing :D

2nd day dinner. We looked for Pho 2000, as recommended by another friend. The restaurant is also known as Pho for the President. They have pictures all over the restaurant of Mr. Bill Clinton dining there. The restaurant is just outside Ben Thanh Market.

 

3rd day lunch. We decided to have lunch near our hotel. After we checked out and left our luggage (our flight is on the night), we just walked and found the Grill Bar

3rd night dinner. It was raining so hard then in HCMC. Shobe and I decided try another authentic vietnamese restaurant as this was our last night in HCMC. Our feet led us to Pho 24.

yum yum yum those noodles

Vietnamese coffee is very famous and strong. We both tried Highlands and Trung Nguyen. We even bought both 3in1 coffee as pasalubong.

trying out Trung Nguyen Coffee

beatin' the heat at Highlands Coffee

Transpo

We did not spent even a single dime on transpo, except for the taxi from and to the airport. We stayed at District 1 which is known as the central district. All the places of our interest are just walking distance away (both short and long walks). 

Budget Breakdown

In PHP

Airfare: 5,325.50 (two way per person)

Travel tax: 1,620

Terminal fee: 550

Total in Php: 7,494.50

In USD

Accommodation: USD 28 x 3 nights / 2 pax = USD 42 (3 nights per person)

Tours: USD 14 (Cu Chi) & USD 17 (Mekong) = USD 31 (2 days tour per person)

Other expenses (i.e., shopping, food) = USD 120

Total in USD: 193 (@ USD1 = Php45) = Php 8,685

Total for 3D2N in HCMC= Php 16,179.50

And with that, I am already scheduled to go back to HCMC July this year! This time, it will be Cambodia-Vietnam.

UAE Invasion Part 3

It’s now time for the 3^rd and last leg of our UAE trip. To read my earlier posts on this, click here.

Part 1

Part 2

Day 5

At 7:00am, we checked-out at Al Diar Mina Hotel and headed to the Abu Dhabi Bus station. How did we get there? We took a bus just outside the hotel. Because it was still early, we were able to board the 8am bus to Dubai.

After around 2 hours, we alighted at Al Jafiliya metro station bus stop (hope I remembered it right). Actually, we got the wrong bus this time. Instead of taking the E101 bus which has a bus stop at Ibn Battuata, we took again the E100 bus to Al Ghubaibah.

Our first agenda for today was Ski Dubai, located inside the Mall of the Emirates. From Al Jafiliya metro station, we took the metro to Mall of the Emirates. Ski Dubai is located at the far end of the mall, so it had been quite a walk. But do not worry because there are signs almost at every corner leading to Ski Dubai.

In Ski Dubai, we only paid 320AED for two persons (entrance fee: 150 buy 1 take 1 c/o Entertainer Dubai, plus 50AED for pax for upgrade from regular pass and 70AED for big locker rental). Since coming straight from Abu Dhabi, we needed a big locker to keep our bags. Regular-sized lockers are included in the entrance fee.

Here’s some pictures while inside the Ski Dubai.

 

 

By 3pm we already started walking back towards the metro station. The temperature inside Ski Dubai reached as low as 3 degrees, so honestly we did go out a couple of times to warm up.

At 5pm, we reached Ramee Guestline Hotel. The hotel is just few walks from Al Rigga metro station. The hotels in this area can be quite pricey because of its accessibility. But still I choose to stay here for our last 3 nights in Dubai.

Our day was far from over as we still have our reservation for the Dhow Cruise. Ate Mayet picked us up from our hotel at around 7pm and we headed to Dubai Creek. The Dhow Cruise costs 200AED per head but because of Entertainer Dubai, we only paid 100AED per person. This time, we were joined by another friend, Clarisse, who works at Dubai airport. (I did not have any picture while on the cruise LL

The cruise is for two hours so at past 10pm, we already headed back to our hotel. After the cruise, we are still scheduled to meet Tita Melinda and some of my Tita’s friends (former officemates at The Landmark) at Juice World. Ate Mayet dropped us off just in front of it.

Juice World is known in Dubai for its fresh fruit arrangement that is changed daily. To know what I am talking about, see these pictures.

 

 

Mind you, one can freely move around and take pictures anywhere. They are not strict and no one is manning to guard whether sometime touch or pick up fruits.

Finally we got home at around 2am already. I was so tired yet I still felt excited on what’s in store for us in the last three days of our stay in Dubai.

Day 6  

Today was scheduled at Tita Melinda’s day. It was Thursday and luckily, it was her off from work. I honestly don’t have any idea where she would tour us because I did not dare ask (hahahahaha!) I somewhat like the idea of surprise.

At 9am, she picked us up in front of our hotel and our first stop was Jumeirah Beach Residences (JBR) Walk. You can find a wide variety of restaurants along the Walk, and many high end and well-known shops. It’s very good location for walking and sight-seeing specially because of the cool February weather.

Dubai Marina was our second stop.

Third stop was at Souk Madinat Jumeirah.

Next stop is Dubai Mall. We choose to explore the Dubai Aquarium since we have Entertainer Dubai vouchers, we paid only 70AED (buy 1 take 1). The aquarium is situated inside Dubai Mall. I must say, many attractions are located inside Malls and enclosed areas to still encourage people to visit even during summertime. If not because of the voucher, we wouldn’t go inside the aquarium. I was not really impressed. This is not a must.

Here at Dubai Mall I met and had dinner with my long lost friend from highschool, Doris. She has been working in Dubai for almost 9 year and in fact, her husband, two kids plus her mom are living with her. We met shortly for dinner because of her work schedule. And to my surprise, we ate at Shake Shack. Honestly, before going to Dubai I already wanted to go there. I am curious because I saw in one of Toni and Alex Gonzaga’s IG posts that they have a picture taken in front of Shake Shack. I was really happy and made my trip complete. I wish it would open in Manila soon.

And the finale of the night, the dancing fountain show at Dubai Mall. After dinner, I went outside and there I met Tita Melinda and some of their friends from The Landmark Makati. We also had a chance to see Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. But I did not have a good shot of it because it was already dark. This has been, again, a very long but fruitful day.

Day 7

Today, we are scheduled to visit Miracle Garden in the morning, and do the sand dunes bashing in the evening. It was Friday today so Ate Mayet will be coming with us. At 9am, we picked us up and drove towards Dubailand. At first we got lost along the way because that was also the first time to go there.

I felt so happy to see beautiful flowers in the desert. It was a very welcome sight for me.

 

For lunch, Ate Mayet treated us for a Japanese lunch at Sumo Sushi & Bento Restaurant (I don’t know exactly where it is located).

If there is one thing I was most excited with to do while in Dubai, it is the Desert Sand Dunes bashing. Honestly, I was very looking forward to this. Though I must admit it was a mix feeling of excitement and nervousness. I really don’t know what to expect. I have heard quite a few stories of some throwing up right after the sand dunes, some would really feel uneasy, etc. But really, it was a superb experience for me. Given a chance, I would do it over and over again.

And again, because we have Entertainer Dubai voucher, we only paid 200AED for two persons already.

 

The evening desert sand dunes bashing is inclusive of roundtrip transpo, sand dunes bashing, camel ride, get a henna tattoo, some sand boarding, pipe smoking (though we did not try this) and buffet barbeque dinner. Softdrinks, water, and coffee were included in the price, but you had to pay extra for alcoholic drink. The belly dancing was very entertaining. It was the highlight of the evening.

 

For the finale of tonight’s agenda, we went to Deira City Center. I wanted to buy something for myself in addition to the bag I bought last night at Dubai Mall. Lucky me and this is my priced purchase to date, I bought a Rayban sunnies for myself!!! Indeed, I am one lucky and happy girl.

Day 8

Today was our last day in Dubai. We did not schedule any major activity for today. We just planned to wrap up and enjoy the city. We checked out at our hotel and brought our bags already, so we’ll save time. We just loaded them up to Ate Mayet’s car.

By 10am, we were headed to JBR again. We had our quick but heavy early lunch at El Chico, Mexican Restaurant.

After lunch, we went Atlantis Hotel and rode the Jumeirah Monorial. I had a better appreciation of the Palm Jumeirah seeing it from the Monorial. On the ground, you would know nor notice its unique shape.

Next we went to Souk Al Bajar to get another sight of Burj Khalifa. I requested Ate Mayet if we can go back so I’ll have a photo at day light. It was a success.

For our last itinerary, I wanted to do a last minute shopping so we went to Festival City Mall. True enough, we were able to do some shopping (hahaha!) Good thing, they still have some stores on sale.

 

  

At around 5:30pm, we had our last meal in Dubai at Royal Oasis Chinese and Japanese Restaurant. We had our table overlooking the fountain show and this amazing sunset.

At 7pm, we were already heading to the Airport. Our flight back to Manila is at 11pm (Dubai time).

There you go. That’s our 8days stay in UAE. I can say this is my most tiring yet enjoyed and meaningful trip. Looking back, I never thought I can go to Dubai at this very moment. Yet, I did. And I am so thankful for this experience.