Index
Sorry for the long delay between these days. With Georgia in university it’s hard to write together.
We all slept restlessly this night and woke up still feeling very jetlagged and tired. We had arranged not to meet Ian until this evening as he had things he needed to do. As we wanted to visit the Emperor Jade Pagoda, we decided to do that today without Ian and also to relax, to try and get over our jetlag a little more (before flying the next day to Hoi An)
We had breakfast on the rooftop. The food was similar to every day, a mixture of Western and Vietnamese foods.
I forgot to take many photos at breakfast, other than this one of my coffee.
After breakfast Ian called me to check that we’d be ok by ourselves for the day, which we reassured him we would be. After talking to Ian we went down to the lobby of our hotel and ordered a Grab car to the Emperor Jade Pagoda (which cost under £1).
It’s useful to find out the names of these places in Vietnamese, and the full address as it’s often confusing to use the app if typing in Emperor Jade Pagoda (as it has many different names in English. For example, the Emperor Jade Pagoda is known as Ngọc Hoàng Pagoda) It’s easy to find these names by just googling the place that you want to visit.
Our Grab car only took about 10 minutes to reach the pagoda, although it seemed to go a route we hadn’t seen yet and we were all a little confused during the drive. Often in Ho Chi Minh, we found that the Grabs would take us through streets we hadn’t seen, even though we were near places we knew. They usually did this to avoid traffic.
The pagoda was in a very ‘local’ area, with houses and stores nearby but without the tourist feel of the museums we had visited the day before. This was definitely more a place of worship than a tourist attraction, although we were not made to feel unwelcome. We think this made it more beautiful to visit, as it was a glimpse at the religious culture of the city.
I felt a bit uncertain about taking photos in here, as it was a place of worship and people were praying so I tried to only take photos in rooms where people weren’t present or if it didn’t feel intrusive.
The outside of the building was spectacular. It was so bright and ornate.
In the courtyard outside there were small shrines that people were praying at, leaving gifts and lighting incense. There was also a fish pond with catfish in and another part of the courtyard with terrapins/tortoises (we’re not sure which.
I think terrapins but it’s also known as the tortoise pagoda, so it could be either)
We then went inside the pagoda. It was quite small (although it did have an upstairs portion that we visited but didn’t see many people going up to) but the interior was very elaborately decorated. There were statues and carvings in the wooden building everywhere you looked. It was dark inside but lit up by candles and there were even more people praying here. It was sometimes a little confusing to know where we could go and what the right thing to do was, as there were no signs as it’s a place of worship. This is more our problem than theirs, as we’re ignorant about the religious customs and proceedings. We did really enjoy our visit here as it’s the first time we’ve ever been to a pagoda and it was so beautiful and peaceful. As you probably know if you’ve read our Croatia trip report, we love to visit religious buildings and this was totally different to any we had been to before.
I loved looking at the different carvings, as there were carvings of people, battles, mythical creatures and real animals. There were also huge statues and the whole building was just so interesting to look around.
We only spent around half hour here, as it was small, but we were so glad we visited. We sat in the courtyard to order a Grab but instead of going to our hotel we would stop at the Opera House and walk the 3 minutes from there to the hotel. This was simple to do
(as I did it) and the Grab quickly arrived and took around 10 minutes to reach the Opera House.
The Opera House is very beautiful to take photos of, but as you can’t go inside (unless you are going in for a performance) there isn’t a lot to do here. We took a few minutes to take our photos before walking back.
Mum’s insisting on saying that we had to cross roads to get back, as though that’s an achievement. It is in Ho Chi Minh!
We then stopped at our local Circle K and bought a ready-made sandwich, cans of iced coffee and a cake each, plus a large bag of crisps between us (which came to under £5) We got back to our room at around 12 to eat our lunch. Georgia and I both had a teriyaki chicken and a ham sandwich each and we’re unsure what sandwich Rob had. The sandwiches weren’t great, but they stopped us being hungry.
On the other hand, we really enjoyed the cakes we chose and the iced coffees.
Jet lag was affecting us all this afternoon and as we were all tired we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing. Rob dozed for quite awhile and Georgia and I rested and read. We then headed up to the pool to sit here and relax.
We also took photos and I saw a really cute TINY lizard.
The pool in this hotel was very small, so we didn’t actually go in the pool here but it was very relaxing to sit and enjoy the views. When we went back to the room, Rob had woken up, so we all started to get ready for our evening. We also spent time packing our suitcases, as we were taking one of them to Hoi An with us and leaving the other two in Ho Chi Minh in Ian’s apartment. He was taking them back with him that evening, so they had to be ready to go before we went out.
We met Ian and Claudia in the lobby of our hotel at around 5:20pm. We had decided that evening to walk around Walking Street and around the river area and have food at Secret Garden restaurant. We first went to Walking Street but we decided not to walk around too much as we wanted to see it later when it was dark and we were starting to get hungry, so would be heading in the wrong direction from Secret Garden. Instead, Claudia showed us a building filled with small shops and cafes.
This building was crazy. It used to be an apartment block and each of the flats had been converted into boutique style shops selling clothes and accessories or little cafes and restaurants. They were all so beautifully decorated and sold really unique things. I loved it here instantly, and we would have walked past it if we were there without Ian and Claudia, as the entrance looked like an alleyway or the entrance to a car park. Here’s a photo of the view from the top and also one of the outside that I took later in the trip.
The stairways up to the shops also had the appearance of abandonment and it was only when we went into the first shop did we realise how cool the building was. We spent quite a while exploring these shops
(despite starting to get very hungry). On the second floor, I bought a burnt orange coloured handbag for around £10.
I also bought something in this shop. I bought a pin for around £2-£3 (I can’t remember exact price). I think Dad and Ian were regretting bringing us here now, as Mum had bought ANOTHER handbag 
It was cheap, how could I pass it up (I think Rob was actually relieved that handbags were so cheap here, as last time I’d bought a bag on holiday it had been a Michael Kors one
)
We also went into a huge bookstore here, that sold books in both Vietnamese and English,
as well as lots and lots of stationery items. I bought a pack of star shaped push pins for my university notice board.
After spending much more time in the shops than we’d anticipated
(and me already starting to regret having not bought more), we started to walk towards Secret Garden. On our walk, we stopped to take in the city hall and take photos of it.
This was probably one of my favourite buildings in Ho Chi Minh, as the architecture of it was so beautiful and different compared to everything around it on Walking Street (as it was French designed).
I really loved seeing the old buildings amongst the new skyscrapers (especially along walking street)
Ian had never been to Secret Garden before, but had heard that it was a good Vietnamese fusion restaurant and he thought we would enjoy it. I had also read reviews for it before we travelled and thought it sounded interesting. When we entered the building that Secret Garden was situated in, I was again surprised by how un-business like the entrance was. We had to walk up a few flights of stairs, that seemed to leading to apartments, rather than a restaurant. This is something we became more used to in Vietnam, but this early on it still felt weird to me.
I didn’t care where we were going as I was so hungry. When we reached the rooftop, where the restaurant is situated, I was taken aback by how pretty it looked.
There were fairy lights strung to posts around the rooftop, a wall with lanterns and it had a bright, relaxing atmosphere. There were also lots of plants up here and it felt very natural compared to the city below.
We all spent a while looking through the menu. Ian suggested a few things we should definitely order to try and we also came up with a few ideas (as there were a lot of photos and descriptions of the food so we could choose what appealed to us). We ordered lots of plates of food to the table and shared them between us, as we usually did in Vietnam. Some of the dishes we had were (we’re not 100% sure of names or exactly what we had and it’s been a while)
sliced beef with shallots, bok choy with garlic,
pork and lotus root ‘things’ (
these were honestly the best thing I ate in Vietnam and we all agree. They were so so different and tasted amazing. I wish we’d had more than one each 
),
red snapper soup (which I was very surprised that I liked, as before the holiday I hadn’t liked the look of any of the soups or noodle dishes such as pho
(which seemed really weird to me as she’d never tried anything like this) but the fish was excellent.
Even I liked the flavour of the broth and the vegetables in it, despite not trying the fish),
spring rolls and beef short end ribs (which were the most disappointing thing, as the flavour wasn’t great and they were quite hard and gristly).
This was one of my favourite meals of the trip. I loved the atmosphere of the place (you could put up pretty lights anywhere and I’d probably fall in love with it) and the food was soooo good. I loved being able to try new things (such as bok choy, the soup and the pork lotus root ‘things’) and not feeling obliged to eat it if I didn’t like it, as we were sharing dishes and other people always liked something that others didn’t. I also think Ian realised during this meal how much food I can manage to eat, especially when I stole the last spring roll before he could have it 😊 As Georgia said, this meal was excellent and I would recommend it to anyone going to Ho Chi Minh. It is described as being more touristy, so it can be busy because of this and we were lucky to get a table without booking. Overall, the meal plus non-alcoholic drinks for all of us, came to £26, which was again incredibly cheap. It was fun to sit on the rooftop, enjoying the atmosphere and all chatting.
After waddling back down the stairs, very full after our meal, we made our way back to Walking Street by the city hall. This is a pedestrianised area of the city, that’s used a lot by locals and tourists as a place to sit, relax and people watch.
We really liked walking along here in the evening, as it was bright and vivid and very ‘alive’. The skyscrapers were lit up and it reminded me of the big cities, such as New York (which sounds a little silly as obviously Ho Chi Minh is another big city). We strolled and chatted as we walked towards the river front.
We crossed the road to the river, which was bigger than any of the roads we’d crossed before and was very very busy. Claudia and Ian were very helpful with crossing this road, as it was much more difficult to judge than any of the others we’d crossed.
Thankfully, none of us got run over, so we then went for a walk along the river. The river was also very pretty. There were boats and boat-restaurants here
and the trees had lights in them that made it look even more pretty (see, I like anywhere with fairy lights ) This did seem a relaxing area but it was broken by the traffic going past nearby and the constant horn blaring.
We didn’t want to stay out too late this evening, as Ian and Claudia had to be up for an early flight to Hoi An the next morning. Rob, Georgia and I’s flight had been changed to later in the day, so we didn’t have to be up so early. We all walked back to our hotel, stopping to take photos of the Opera House at night
Ian and Claudia took the two of our suitcases to store away. We spent some time in the lobby taking photos after they left.
We then decided to head down to the nearby Circle K to buy some drinks
(and I was determined to get ice cream but didn’t mention that until we were there. I knew how easily Mum and Dad would be persuaded) We bought some lagers for us and orange juice for Georgia
(which wasn’t very nice but I had it later in the holiday too, so it couldn’t have been that bad although I still complained about it not tasting very nice each time I drank it) and surprisingly we bought ice creams too. Georgia and Rob both chose a Korean ice cream in the shape of a taiyaki (a Japanese cake in the shape of a fish, usually filled with red bean paste). These had vanilla ice cream in (instead of the paste) and Rob’s had a strawberry sauce
and mine had a chocolate sauce. I had a more normal ice cream similar to a Magnum. When we bought the Korean fish ice creams, the woman behind the counter in the Circle K kept pointing behind us and then ran around to pick up a tote bag for us, as they were giving them away free if you bought 2 of the ice creams, which we had without realising.
I really love this bag, as it has the fish ice cream on it in the top corner (I would put a photo of it here but it’s currently in Bristol and I’m writing this at home with Mum. Guess who got to keep the bag lol) I thought it was so nice of the shop assistant to get it for us, despite us not understanding what she was trying to indicate. It was a good example of how friendly and how people in Vietnam would go out of their way to help you if they could.
We went back to our room and ate our ice creams
(which tasted AMAZING.) and drank our drinks. We sat here, chatted and watched tv before heading to bed at around 11:30pm.
The next day we travelled to Hoi An and checked in to the Hoi An Beach Resort.