Vietnam..the land of honk! honk!!

Last week I had a meeting at Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. This is my 3rd visits to Vietnam. My last visit was about a week before my marriage. This time, I took Malaysia Airlines because I’ve bad memory with Vietnam Airlines during my first travel to Vietnam.

I arrived Tan Son Nhut Airport in Ho Chi Minh City about 4.30pm. The driver was already there waiting to pick me up and drive me to the hotel. His name is Mr. Minh and they pronounce it “Men”.
He then drove me to hotel at Ho Chi Minh City center, Rex Hotel. It’s a nice and beautiful 4 stars hotel.

The hotel was located in front of People’s Committee Hall near Saigon riverside and about 7km from the airport. However, it took almost 40 minutes by car because of too many motorcycles crawling about the streets!!
The best thing about this hotel, they offered free WIFI in every room!! That’s really great because I can get connected with my Diyana for Free every night!

There is not much change about HCM City since my last visit. Everything is completely the same. The road full of motorcycles…sound of unstoppable honk.. and anywhere you go, there’ll be kids that would try to sell almost anything they have at 1 dollar price and the men that offered a bike ride around HCM City.
They’re so annoying and at one time, I nearly got hit by the taxi in attempt to get away from them.

I stayed there for 4D3N. Everyday, the driver will pick me up at 7.30am ( 8.30am Malaysia time ) from hotel to Sony plant that was situated about 5km away. It sounds near however sometimes it takes close to 1 hour of “snail” driving. The city was so noisy with motorcycles honk and almost all of them look stressful. Even my driver looses his cool at one moment. He came out from the car and has a quarrel with the biker. It’s quite scary.

Most of the food in Vietnam were cheap.. however, this didn’t apply to me because Halal food was expensive!  My lunch was normally rice with fish curry and Coke that cost me about RM10 ( 50,000 Dong Vietnam ). It almost the same cost of 1 week lunches for most Vietnamese. Can you believe it????? Dah susah nak jumpa makanan halal kat Vietnam ni, mesti la mahal. Mahal mahal pun..cuma kari kari kari kari setiap hari. LOL. 

Halal food can be found around the mosque area in Dong Du road, about half km from my hotel. It is Masjid Jamek or Masjid Musulman that situated in the middle of  Ho Chi Minh city center. Makanan halal paling murah di Ho Chi Minh and dekat dengan Ben Thanh Market yg popular dan murah-murah.

 There’re 3 restaurants at that area that were known to serve Halal food in Vietnam. The restaurants were Bombay and Four Season. Another one was a stall behind the mosque. That stall was the place that I normally take my lunch except Friday afternoon because the stall was close due to Friday prayer. There was not much choice available at the stall. They only serve curry…fish curry…chicken curry..prawn curry…and all taste the same!

That stall also is the place where I unbelievably meet my ex-Zabahan friend, Tugie. It just proves how small the world really is since I never know that Tugie was in Vietnam and he also didn’t know that I was in HCM City.

The most popular product of Vietnam for tourists was actually lacquer products and also Vietnam silks. All that stuff was really cheap and beautiful. Luckily, Diyana was not around!! If she was there, I believe that we would need at least extra 2 baggages!

To buy some stuff for souvenirs, I went to HCM most popular market called Ben Thanh market. This market situated about 15 minutes walk from my hotel. It’s open at 7am and close around 6pm. It’s centrally located and popular with tourists; it sells everything from fake Nike shoes to silk Ao Dai (Vietnam traditional long dress). This is one of the best places to pick up conical hats and ao dai. The market and surrounding streets make up one of the city’s liveliest areas. Everything that’s commonly eaten, worn or used by the Saigonese is available here: vegetables, meats, spices, sweets, tobacco, clothings, household items, hardwares, coffee powder and souvenir worthy items. Known to French as Les Halles Centrales, it was built in 1914 from reinforced concrete.
While shopping here, don’t forget to bargain!!…they will start the price normally more than 4-5 times higher than actually price. For example; when I wanted to buy a shirt, they started the shirt price at 13USD. However, after hard sought bargain, I managed to get it at USD1 per shirt. What a huge different!! If you don’t have enough Dong currency, they will happily accept US dollar at flat rate of 16,000Dong = 1USD.

Although I considered myself as a good bargainer; however..I don’t know what to buy there..hahaha… I hope one day I can brings Diyana along to Ho Chi Minh City!