My family visited Ho Chi Minh City recently, and our 4D3N trip was planned entirely by yours truly. Let's get started :D
Day 1
Hello Saigon! One of the first things we did after landing was to get our own sim cards that has a data plan. We got one for each of us to use in case of emergencies. It's like a security blanket for in case we lose each other. The data plan was helpful too since I had to rely on google maps quite a bit.
This row of shops are the only shops you'll see after passing through the first set of screen doors. You can't miss it. But once you're out into the open waiting area, you can't go back in here!!
We went straight to Vinaphone, although there were other brands like Viettel and Mobiphone. The staff there was very helpful and spoke good english. Getting the cards fixed into the phone was a breeze.
We had an early dinner at Quan An Ngon, located along 160 Pasteur Street, District 1. It is super easy to locate and I would compare it to like a Marche? Where all types of vietnamese food are served and you can easily pick what you would like to eat from the extensive (which has english!)
Here's what we ordered... though we honestly cannot remember all the names.
This was one of my most satisfying meals in HCM. All the food was really nice, properly prepared and I could try a large variety! Everything you see above cost us a total of only 482,000 VND, which is about SGD 30 only!
Take a walk around the place okay. You can even see how your food is prepared.
We then went to Vincom Shopping Centre which was.... a disappointment at first. We thought the mall was so small because all the floors at and above ground level had very little shops! Then we went to the basements and were like WOAH ._. haha I would compare it to Ion Orchard Singapore, where the top levels are smaller than the extensive basement levels. Still.... I didn't find the shopping there interesting.
To end off the night, we went to Temple Leaf Spa and Sauna. This massage place was the best among the 3 that we visited. It is located at 32 Thai Van Lung, District 1. I found out about this place through trip advisor, as the top 3 spots for best massage were all taken by this particular massage parlour!
We did the 90 minute massage. It was really not bad, I appreciate the procedure of filling up a form to choose 2 areas which I would like to be focused on during the massage. ;D
But right.... the use of hot stones kinda shocked me. Ouch. Really quite hot ok! ><
I strongly recommend this massage place. It has a much better ambiance and the massage was shiok. The ones I will talk about in the upcoming posts were really a disappointment.