Going forward husband will now be called Andre
After not a great sleep alarm wakes us up again this morning. Another round of looking at empty platters in the breakfast room. Pork stew, noodles and fried eggs were the hot food. Yesterday it was Shrimp stir fry with rice and fried eggs.
Today we are off to I think what is called Chinatown, I think John posted a map on Tripadvisor. Map was great, our map reading leaves a little to be desired.
Decided to use Grab, just too hot to walk that far today. There is a very friendly security guy always sitting outside our hotel, I think for the jewelery shop beside us, or maybe bike parking or maybe even our hotel? Anyway he saw us fiddling with our phone, came to help. Asked if we wanted a taxi, we said no thanks want to use grab. He said guy parked right across the street would take us, no thanks want to use grab. Finally after trying for about 5 minutes to get it to work guy parked across the street is our grab driver.
Started off at Thien Hau pagoda , we are never clear on the etiquette, can we go in? hats off? Shoes off? We were the only visitors there until what appeared to be a Russian tour arrived, which created a line up for bathrooms. I have learnt in travels whenever a bathroom is available use it, you never know when you will have the opportunity again. This was a great visit, we spent quite a bit of time inside the Pagoda, wish we could have read some of the signs , too lazy to get lens out, yes we even have lens on our phones.
Next off we ended up in a Chinese community center. A lovely woman gave us a little tour, from what we understood it was rebuilt in 1962. I think she was happy to have someone drop in, only one other old man was in there and he was sound asleep in a chair. The wood carvings in the center were absolutely beautiful.
Next we made our way to the St. Francis Xavier church. At least we know the etiquette going into a church. Had a little break in a pew, but oh so hot and no fans were turned on.
Never did find lantern alley despite backtracking twice. Did walk down aquarium alley and button, sequin, ribbon alley, closely followed by what I call fabric land. Not alley but land of fabrics, who buys all this stuff? Workers at the end of every row on those tiny chairs making ribbons, sewing, or some other task. These alleys were so great, so narrow, but of course bikes coming through going about their day to day lives.
These little alleys take us to an outdoor small neighborhood market. We love these markets, chickens, all kinds of eggs, fruit we have never seen. It was only a couple of streets long, but so interesting.
Next we find the Binh Tay market, wow this is big. I am not so much into this market and choose to sit on the stairs and people watch whole Andre goes exploring. He comes back after about 10 minutes, has only done bags, socks, and food court sections, he had enough by then too. On our way back out of the market see bathroom sign, yep will take advantage again. This time costs 2000 each, I am happy to pay for clean bathrooms and paper provided. Andre goes in first, I am in line for women's. Andre says don't look, of course I look, urinals are right at the entrance with no door, thanks Andre. My clean bathroom involves a woman literally throwing a bucket of water in the toilet, then another bucket of water to clean the floor, mops not needed. This happens each time a toilet is used, yep very glad I had sneakers on today and not sandals like yesterday.
VP bank is right outside the market, stock up on lots of dong as we have a couple of tours coming up. Thanks to whoever posted about limits at VP ATM, we withdrew 15,000,000 no problem, just choose other button. Most of it was in 500,000 bills so wasn't hard to tuck away. Someone else posted circle k breaks big bills no problem, a couple of stops for water and we now have enough smaller bills as well.
Grab again, feel like pros now, and back to the hotel for a little break. $6 Canadian for a 20 minutes ride
Break over and now we are off again in search of a lens cap. Yes, Andre misplaced his lens cap again.
First stop is a nice bakery just around the corner from our hotel. 2 donuts and an ice tea for same price as lunch yesterday, urgh but they were very good.
Next we are off to find camera shop. To get to the photoshop we went through Ben Thanh market, I bought the lightest coolest blouse available. It may only survive a few washes, but it will get me through this trip.
Next stop is photo shop that does not have the right size lens cap despite digging through a box of lens caps. Another lesson learned, don't assume shops only have what is on display, they have stacks of inventory tucked away. He pointed towards vaguely over there for another shop to go try.
Over there is not exactly around the corner . This camera shop also seems to be serving meals as well. It smelled absolutely delicious, especially for a camera shop. No idea how many cloves of garlic were being fried up on the front step, but sure smelled good. We scored on the lens cap at camera lunch shop, they had the right size in the second box he checked. Convinced Andre to buy 2, as I'm sure one more will go astray. Down another 100,000, but it was a fun adventure.
Decided to change another$ 100.00 cdn at a jewelery shop, just in case. Quoted us a decent rate, but when I pulled out 2 $50 bills the rate decreased a little. Bring $100 bills as new as possible for best rates.
Back to the hotel to rest up for our adventure tonight. Really looking forward to it, I think.
Here are the pictures from today. Will hopefully post the pictures from the food tour in a second blog tonight if we are not too late
We ended up doing walking 9KM
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On the drive to the Chinese section of town, will visit later
A small snack that cost us almost $20, not very cheap but much better than Tim's donuts
Finished off a great day with XO Saigon night tour. This tour combines history, culture, and 2 street food stops. We loved it.
Two scooters arrived at our hotel to pick us up. I have never even been on the back of one, Andre had a motorcycle in his much younger years. I was shaking like a leaf when we started, Andre was just smiling from ear to ear. They picked us up at 6pm, just starting to get dark to add to my anxiety. We got instructions about how to be a safe passenger, girls could hang on to the driver, boys could not. I'll just say I felt like we were a couple for the first little while. My driver even commented that she hadn't been hugged in a long time and she thanked me.
First stop was Chinatown, I told my driver we had been there this morning. She said no, tourists don't go there, I should have mentioned we did John's walking tour from trip advisor. The wet market was much busier at night, so it was fun to see again.
Next stop was I'm not sure which district we were in. We had some amazing street food, I know what 2 things were, but I have no idea what the rest was. Banh Xeo and Bo La Lot. We had 5 other dishes as well, I should have asked them to write them down. We are in this area as one of the girls grew up here. It is apartments built by the Americans and French that have managed to survive demolition. We were fortunate enough walk from the restaurant to go visit the apartment she grew up in, Aunties and Uncles still live there. Uncle is very happy to see us, there were 7 of us on the tour, hard to believe 14 of them used to live here. He wanted a picture of all of us with him. This tour is new to XO Tours, designed to show tourists a bit more of Vietnamese life. Our guide told us it is not to be sad seeing this, we are to be happy they have a roof over their heads and food. It was amazing to hear how they look after the homeless, we could learn a thing or 2 from them. A great memory we will not soon forget.
Next off back on the scooter, drive through the flower market and then stop. Again for coffee and dessert. Dessert was flan, which they pour coffee and ice over. I tried the other option of coconut milk, mung beans, some other little bean served over ice. Next time I'd do flan and pass on the bean concoction.
One last scooter ride back to our hotel just after 9pm. Good bye to our lovely tour guides that looked after us so well.
Packed up as we are away the next 2 nights then back to this hotel again for 1 night. 7:45 pick up in the morning, laundry drop off at 7:30am around the corner. That means 7am breakfast, wonder if the platters will be full.
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| Andre's driver |
They took pictures of us and will be sending them to us.
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