Vietnam Day 1

Andrew and I left Singapore on a early Saturday afternoon flight to Ho Chi Minh city. The hotel we stayed at, which was neither fancy nor a roach motel, actually sent a driver to transport us to the hotel which was about a 25 minute ride into the city. Awesome! After we checked into the hotel, I believe it was called Bi Saigon, we went back down to the first floor which was also a restaurant. It was dinner time and he hadn’t had anything to eat since the pub grub and beers at a English Pub in Terminal to of Singapore’s Changi airport. Andrew and I ordered some of the local food which was amazing and sampled the local beers which were just as good. I believe we forked over $25 US a night for this hotel and it was a great location and very well maintained. I do recommend it to the traveler looking to save a few pennies with out making any outlandish sacrifices. The thing that boggled my mind the most was that the beers in the mini bar in the room were 70 cents. I think they were 1.20 in the hotel restaurant.

After that we decided to venture to all of the local bars we had heard so much about. We went to the top of the Rex hotel where an amazing band played Latin, guitar lead, music while we were there. After a few beers, we left to go to Saigon Saigon which was in another hotel diagonally across from the Rex. Both of these restaurants had amazing views of the city. Saigon Saigon has the best in my opinion. The bar is set up on the roof and instead of walls with windows they have folding wooden doors. It was a nice night so all the doors were open and we had a perfect view of Notre Dame Cathedral. To make myself feel big time I ordered a Tom Collins and smoked a Cuban.

From there we proceeded to have a couple of beers at random bars as we walked our way back to the hotel. Nothing was too memorable except for a bar named 77 Saloon, I think those are the right numbers. Anyway, picture this theme. The music was a Filipino rock band who were pretty good if you ignore the fact that they had 6 lead singers. The bar decor was a mix of the American Southwest and Native American Northwest. So there were “Don’t Mess with Texas” signs hung on Totem Poles. It was such a hodgepodge of people and cultures that we pretty much had to end our night there due to sensory overload.

Plus, up to that point the only sights we had seen were the insides of bars through the bottoms of our own empty Saigon beer bottles. I’ll try to put up Day 2 tomorrow.

BD