Ho chi Minh, Vietnam!

It was our first wedding anniversary, my husband was placed in Singapore and I was in Mumbai. He moved to Singapore for a short term assignment after 6months of our marriage.

We both have already visited and seen all of Singapore in our two trips there. So, we decided to visit Vietnam instead.

The planning and bookings were kind of impulsive and without much thought we decided to go to Ho Chi Minh and what a wonderful decision it turn out be.

It was a 3-nights, 4- days trip. We booked an airbnb with the most fabulous hosts. Our hosts were 4 young girls who were students and self-employed working full time as bloggers and running a really cool cafe on the ground floor and apartments given on airbnb on the top floors. Pavitra is my husband’s name as can be seen in front of the apartment we had booked.

Pic courtesy- Instagram: Prerna Thakur (@prerna_thakurr) • Instagram photos and videos

1st day- 9th December

Our flight from Singapore was delayed hence we reached around 4pm, freshened up and decided to take a local tour of city not going too far. Went to Binh Tay market which had a lot of items like souvenirs , local street food shops and fashion accessories. We bought a few things that we thought were unique and things that we won’t get in India easily.

One of them is this-

This little wild buffalo is a handmade stuffed toy which has been recycled using leftover pieces after a garment was made out of it. I knew I am getting this at the very first glance. I got it around 80,000 Vietnam dong. (1 INR= 303.8 Vietnam Dong = 5 SGD). I have a habit of collecting fridge magnets from all the places I visit, bought magnets too. It was almost 9pm , we had our dinner at a local restaurant and went back to our homestay and relax.

A local restaurant where we ate:

2nd Day- 10th December-

We got up by 9 in the morning, went down to sit in the cool cafe of our hosts and ate some pan cakes with hot chocolate and coffee. Got ready and decided to head out for lunch and to try some local cuisine. We went to a restaurant where we ate a veg . It was delicious. In the afternoon, visited a famous church- Saigon Notre dame Cathedral and enjoyed the water puppet show (which was completely in Vietnamese but was fun to watch). Water puppet was also listed among the must watch in the city.

City Tour:

Saigon Notre dame Cathedral:

Water puppet show:

It was almost 8:30 pm and we learnt that the finale of SEA games was happening that night between Vietnam and Indonesia, so we decided to watch the match like locals. Went to walking street which looked like this at that time. Locals were seated all across the long street and we were excited to be there. And then, Vietnam won the SEA games after 20 years. It was a one in a night to celebrate and cherish. People came on motor bikes, open jeeps to celebrate. They sang, danced and cheered!

Definitely a celebration to remember.

3rd Day-

It was our anniversary.

We had booked a one-day tour package to Mekong Delta which is around 80 kms away from Ho Chi Minh. We were to be picked by 7am in the morning.

We got ready , our tour guide for that day came to pick us at our apartment. We were a small group of tourists with 4 from Europe, 2 from America and we two from India. Our tour guide was the most sweetest person I have ever met. Her name was Yan and she had the most welcoming smile.

We reached half way, and left our tour van to board a boat to reach Mekong delta. We saw the famous Buddha temple, ate their famous sweet dish made of sticky rice. We reached Mekong delta and were amused to see the diversity there. We did boating like the backwaters one. There were small factories making hand-made chocolates, candies, coconut sweets, coffee, organic honey and so much more. Our tour guide gave us an intro about all of it and we tried them all and bought some.

Buddha temple:

Sticky Rice sweet dish:

Boating in Mekong delta:

A tourist from our group hanging out with the pet python there:

We ate famous dishes from Vietnamese cuisine which our guide recommended. Most of it was their famous sea foods and varieties of sticky rice. She was very kind to consider our food preferences since we both do not eat sea food. The good tasted heavenly.

Our tourist guide made this souvenir for each one of us out of leaves.

After this, we returned back to our homestay. Changed quickly and went for our anniversary dinner on a cruise. It was my first ever dinner experience on a luxury cruise. It was perfect.

Ho Chi Minh, you are beautiful. <3