Up and on to Ho Chi Minh

Well how on earth do you start to explain Saigon or Ho Chi Minh city. Well we left Hoi An for Danang airport. The whole of the Lantana Hotel seem to come out to say goodbye, which was really sweet.  45 minutes later we were checked in and sitting in the lounge, and after an hour and a half we were in Saigon.

The first thing that hits you is the wall of heat as you step out of the plane. We are in really hot hot country now.  I had booked a taxi on line, and he was there waiting for us, which always nice and 45 minutes later we pulled up outside the Continental Saigon Hotel.

Throughout our journey we have stayed in smaller hotels, and they have been fantastic. For our last hotel stay in Vietnam we thought it would be nice to stay somewhere slightly more upmarket and with some colonial atmosphere.

Looks lovely doesn't it?

Well the Continental first showed us into a huge bedroom, really bare, and dark with the curtains drawn which I thought was strange. On opening I found they had given us an inside room with a window with a view of the door to the bar!  Janette said No! And asked to be moved. I wonder if they try this on with everyone. Anyway they did give us a room with a proper window. Unfortunately the first experience tarred my view of the place, especially when first night our room didn't have any warm water and WiFi didn't work. I didn't even take a picture of it as it was so boring.

The bathroom looked like something from the 80's with brown tiles, plastic fittings hanging off the wall and grubby grouting. The hotel looked wonderful from the outside and grubby from the inside. It wasn't of course grubby, the staff were always cleannng all the time, but it was half empty and they could have given us a better room.  But as usual the staff were brilliant.

View of Opera House across the road from the hotel.

Enough of that..  On our first afternoon we walked around the local area and crossed a few roads to get used to it.  We were told there were 4.2 million scooters in Saigon.

 We looked through the guidebook at what to do.  Saigon threatened to hit 37 today and the forecast was for even higher for the next three.  So we sat down and worked out what we wanted to do and then paced ourselves. The first few days were hot and very humid. The last two hotter but drier, easier to cope with.

Tonight were went out to a courtyard restaurant called Nha Hang Ngon. Covered with lights, it was a lovely courtyard surrounded by street food cooking stations and you just ordered the bits you wanted, and they brought it over when cooked.  A great place for our first night.

After that we had a wak down Walking Street. It was like Disneyland and felt that half of Saigon came out to walk as well it was brilliant.

Hoi An - Just some pictures to finish on

Bye bye Hoi An

Hoi An - More Food

Today is our last full day in Hoi An and we spent the day cooking with Chef Tony from the hotel

The day started with a visit to a market garden, sort of.  Families have a strip or two each of land which they cultivate,,  the produce is then taken to the market to sell or sold direct to the hotels. The land is rich and dark, it being a flood plain of the river. There were fields of fresh vegetables, salads and herbs. It smelt and looked wonderful.

The place was green and verdant with the locals working on their individual strips.

There was also the Vietnamese equivalent to a country show, sized down of course. People racing to see how many rice plants they could get in the soil. The reckoned on planting a full strip in ten minutes.. Phew!

Little older ladies carrying enormous weights of water and swinging them around to water in the plants. Who needs aerobics.  Just amazing.

In a restaurant located on site there was a competition where people brought in their own produce and were cooking up local specialities, to their own recipes, and of course kids running around everywhere enjoying themselves.

After that Chef Tony took us to the local market where we spent over and hour looking at stuff and he explained about the ingredients.  We discussed what we could substitute when we got home. But we can get most of it at home.

I just love the market, all the people, lots of muttering old ladies elbowing you out of the way. Scooters trying to run you over... Ahh back to normal!

After the market it was back to the hotel to do ourcook up outside on the terrace. We started off with Tum Haa a sort of inside out spring roll and then a papaya salad, which we sat and ate, a small break and then fish in a banana leaf followed by claypot pork. And then we scoffed that. A brilliant day was had. We got a copy of the recipes and a papaya salad grater each.

Do you like the tomato flower I made!

Our last night and we did what we normally do. We crossed the bridge walked through the funfair into the Old Town. Wandered around around taking in the cooking smells and people watching. When we had a little appetite we crossed over again and went back to there Gecko and had spring rolls and wanton, with a couple caiparinas, and that was enough.

We finished the evening sitting on the balcony.

Hoi An - My Son

Today something completely different. We were up early and out on a morning trip to a Hindu temple site called My Son, about an hours drive from Hoi An.

It's set in a beautiful lush valley and originally had over 68 temples until the Americans bombed it to pieces. All are now in ruins,but what glorious ruins. Built between the 4th and 13th centuries by the Cham people. There has been steady archeological work there for many years and the have rebuilt one of the temples completely using the traditional built materials and technicals used to create it. Although great to see how it originally looked, the ruined ones were magic.

I don't want to volunteer on this site seeing the spiders webs, the hole was about two inches across, so I wonder what size the spiders were. Eeeee

The places speaks for itself.

It was blisteringly hot when we got there, but somehow when we were wandering around the ruins, it seemed cooler. There were loads of other tourists, but you wouldn't believe it by the pictures.

So two hours and two bottles of water later we climbed back into our lovely cool taxi and headed back to Hoi An exhausted. What a lovely place.

There was obviously summit going on when we got back. We watched over the balcony as people lined the water as boats paddled around. It was a boat race scheduled to start at 2pm. That is Vietnamese time and it actually started at 3pm by which time we had wandered down to watch.  Well all I can say is that I am amazed there wasn't a few heart attacks.

The race was between the bridges, not once, not twice but eight times at full speed in eighty degrees. We felt exhausted just watching them.

Another evening of wandering around the Old town,  people watching and taking in the street scenes.

Family out for the festivities