100 days in Southeast Asia | Part 10 | Vietnam: Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)

From the Philippines we decided to go to Vietnam.

I’m glad we looked up visa requirements 1 week before arriving in Vietnam as they require an invitation letter, and then visa on arrival is available.

So we found this random website which we paid $3aud each for them to write this invitation letter. We didn’t even know if it was going to work, if it was some legit company or just a dodgy one. 

In the end it was legit. We arrived at the airport and next to the immigration lines there is the visa on arrival counter.

So you just need to go there and give your printed invitation, fill out the visa form and give the passport and a passport photo. You pay $25usd and then just wait a few minutes and they will call your name so you can pick up your passport with the visa on it and head to the immigration line.

Actually, I have just remembered something at the airport in Manila, Philippines where we were checking in to go to Vietnam. At the check in, the lady asked for the printed invitation letter and we didn’t have it. 

It took them a good 15+min and chat to at least 4 different people and then print it for us, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to check in and take the flight I guess. 

I believe they would’ve probably been calling people up and confirming with the company we paid for the invitation or something like that. But it took them a while. 

But at the end it worked out well, she came with the printed invitation and gave it to us. 

No problems. So if you want to save time, have it printed on with you before going to the airport.

We happily arrived in Saigon (HCMC) at night time and went to catch a cab… 

Not sure if we paid more than we should’ve but it wasn’t too much anyway. We took a metered cab however we found out later that they also temper the meter, so no idea if we got scammed or not haha… 

  

We stayed at the famous backpacker area, District 1 and our hotel, Thao Nhi Hotel, was cheap for the location we got. We paid about $15usd. Quite street but 1min walk to Duong Tran Hung Dao, the street with all the bars and clubs.

But the room wasn’t the best at first, since it had no windows and it smelled like cigarette. So in the morning we asked to change rooms and it was fine. Small but clean and the owners were lovely too. Very little English tho. Hehe cute

We spent a total of 7 days in Ho Chi Minh City, because we were looking for a motorbike and because we were also waiting fo Viv’s brother that was coming over to spend 2 weeks riding with us! Pretty cool!

So we walked quite a bit around the city and also rented a motorbike before finding our one. Quite cheap to rent it, I think we paid $7 per day or even less.
Watch our short video here :)

It was Viv’s second time in Saigon and he said it changed quite a lot compared to last time he was there in 2012. Well, in 5 years I believe a lot can change everywhere in the world.

But he was still happy with it, some things were still the same. There were more car on the street tho. 5 years ago apparently it was mainly motorbikes and push bikes.

A lot more traffic lights too he said. But still quite tricky to cross the roads over there haha We had lots of fun doing it all the time. Saigon I think has the craziest traffic I have ever seen. But it works, that’s what is funny! Haha Love it. 

We didn’t really do any touristy things, we didn’t go to almost any landmarks or anything since we were more looking into finding a good bike and fixing the one we found haha, a Russian Minsk. 

So we spent a lot of time at the mechanics and riding around looking for a second motorbike afterwards. 

We went to a few bars near our hotel and also to some rooftop one. One night we went out partying and had a ball with fellow travellers! 

We went to this weekend market nearby which was pretty cool. So much cool stuff and delicious food/drinks. Also went to Ben Thanh Market which I didn’t really like so much.

Also to that tall building called Bitexco, where there is a restaurant and sky-deck at the top. You get an awesome view of the whole city from there. Pretty awesome. But not cheap to eat there, so went for sunset, only shared a jug of beer between the 3 of us, enjoyed a bit and left.

The Barbecue Garden was a good restaurant, we enjoyed the variety of food and drinks. I had the best passion fruit smoothie ever! A must try haha 

And it wasn’t expensive which is good. But most of the time we had street food or food where locals go, which were crazy cheap.

Oh! And also the restaurant next door to our hotel was quite good and cheap too, it’s called Nha Hang Asian Kitchen. The mango salad was my first meal in Vietnam and I loved it!

If you drink beer, you will be glad to know that the cheapest one we found around the area we stayed cost $10.000 dong for a Saigon Green, which is about $0.50!!!! Gosh unbelievable. Haha Paradise

We wanted to have visited the Cu Chi tunnels but we ended up not having time because of the motorbike issues. But I would recommend going if you are around as I heard pretty good things about it.

There are lots of things to do and see also like the Municipal Theatre, Notre Dame Basilica, Museum, Botanical Garden, etc...

From there we tried to go to Da Lat which was going to be our first motorbike trip destination. However we broke down just before leaving the city so Viv’s brother followed with his bike by himself and we returned to town to drop the motorbike off and catch the sleeper bus. 

  

It was a actually a good thing in the end since it rained so much and it was an 8h trip there. So we got to enjoy the chilled bus trip instead.

Meanwhile Viv’s brother was getting soaked and having flat tires all the way up to Da Lat.

In the end he made it a couple of hours after we arrived and we all stayed at the same place. And now we had to look for a new motorbike to keep going.