Ho Chi Minh City(HCMC) or Saigon

It’s Friday 1st February today which means it’s Iain’s birthday! I brought a card from home and made a dinner reservation in a swanky restaurant in HCMC.

Our flight isn’t until 2pm so we get the morning to enjoy breakfast and relax; most of the morning is spent packing and blogging from the previous day though. 

Sala and Mr Long pick us up for the 40 minute drive to the airport; they have gifts for us with our names embroidered. I think they are bags but hard to see in the plastic covering. It was very nice of them. It’s a chilly 20 degrees in Hue today but I’ve checked the weather in HCMC and its around 35 degrees and 65% humidity, eek! I also checked Edinburgh which was showing as minus 6 and snow!

We check our bags in and say our goodbyes to Sala; we have her email address so maybe she will send some Vietnamese recipes! Security takes all of 5 minutes and there are only 3 gates at the airport and not particularly much to do. A quick wander round the tourist shops, then its time to wait; after 2 hours, we decide its time for a local version of a cornetto, nice but quite chewy. 

We board the flight at 2.30pm ready for the short flight to HCMC; I called the blog HCMC or Saigon as a large number of people now call it Saigon, particularly the older people. When the city was renamed, people were banned from calling it Saigon but its now becoming more popular, plus it’s easier to type! Our next hotel is located on the banks of the river; its a 30 minute drive from the airport, even though it’s only 3 miles or so away! 

It was a bit of a culture shock landing in Saigon, there were just so many people! Leong picked us up at the airport, he is our new guide, and Mr Chinh is our new driver. We are staying at a newly built hotel; the room is pretty small but we have a lovely upgrade which gives us a view of the river rather than the city. As it’s Iain’s birthday, I booked a restaurant called Signature 23; its on level 23 in the Sheraton hotel and apparently has amazing views of the city....I’ll let you know what it is like tomorrow! 








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