HCMC

It was an unplanned trip with 2 friends up to visit another friend of ours. I only had like half and hour to decide if I wanted to go or not! Nothing was planned and we didn't do much reading up, except of course, where to get the best pho.

It was suppose to be that historical trip for us, but alas, Ken can't make it. But I guess it might be a good thing for him. We were shopping so much, it would have driven him up the wall. There is always always another time I suppose.

Right. The shopping. The amount of fabric available in HCMC is mind boggling. ( I mean compared to Singapore) We had a field day buying up fabric. I cannot imagine if we were to go up to Hoi An, we will be tripping all over ourselves. Mon bought some bed side lamps and we manage to haul everything back. I think we are the only ones who went over to shop. I didn't really had the intention to shop, not knowing there are so much to buy. I thought all the fabric was in Hoi An, and all the handicraft things are up north!
Elaine bought more fabric than anything (and anyone) else. I bought some embroidery stuff for home, some fabric, and coffee of course.

We had only pho twice. Twice! I thought it would be more than that. Unfortunately, there isn't a lot of time and also fortunately, so many other things to eat. The first thing daing said was, there was a cholera outbreak in the city. Immediately, I thought of the novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Love in the Time of Cholera. I have always been wanting to read that book, after A Hundred Years of Solitude That sure dampened our mood a little. We were told not to take ice and avoid street food. It turned out to be easier than we thought. The street food look too scary for us to even consider consuming it.


So what did we do in Ho Chi Minh other than shopping?

Eating! And drinking iced coffee!

Yes, there was the war museum that we were all pretty keen on, but, it seems a little too depressing. We did consider going on a day trip, either to the Mekong delta or the cuchi tunnels. Nope, didn't quite make it so far. I am guess a day trip will cost a lot less than a day shopping. The only touristy sights were the Notre Dame Cathedral and the Post Office. Mon wanted to go for the Sunday mass, but guess what, we all overslept and then we spent the rest of the day shopping that she kind of forgotten about going!

That pretty much sums up our trip. Eat, drink and shop. We are doing what we always do in Singapore but in another country!