Ho Chi Minh

A country that is getting more beautiful every year. It was our first visit, but according to a lot of reports and people we talked to the country about said, it developed so much. You can see millions of scooters in the city, it´s quite cool to see the traffic in Ho Chi  Minh City, amazing especially when all the scooters are waiting at the traffic light! On the way from the airport we noticed, that everybody their own traffic rules even when the traffic light is red a lot of people drive anyway! The best way to admire the traffic was from the top of our hotel!

We visited Ho Chi Minh for 3 days. On the first day we met two members of our family at the gate of the harbor, they were also in the City at the same time, we picked them up to start our trip through the city. We started directly in the city centre to visit the  local morning market. Through all the markets we have already visited we knew that the markets in southeast- asia are a little bit more exotic, because they eat nearly everything. After the market we visited the Cu Chi tunnels, which is really an amazing place. It is hard to believe what happened at his place during the war. We could hear everywhere loud shootings from guns, which was making it for us more real we can maybe imagine how horrible it was during the war. Before we started our tour we were watching a documentation and were listening to a survivor of the vietnam war, he told us about how the people were dying during these time and how people could survive through the amazing tunnel system of Cu Chi.

You can see there how tight they were building the tunnels

Kevin who is original from Vietnam could remember as he was a child how vietnam was, especially for him it was great to visit vietnam again! We were visiting the old temple which he visited with his mother as a child. The architecture of the temple has a lot of influence from china and is quite different then other temples in vietnam. We were filling out list with our wishes, they were hanging up the the list in the top the temple for maybe a week till it is destroyed by the smoke. Maybe all our wishes come through!

After we were done with the temple we were renting  us a bike taxi (with three wheels) and our driver drove through  the hole city. We had a lot of fun and were laughing a lot. Of course we had a small accident but nothing happened at all. Through the tour by the bike we had great overview and we think it is great to see the city in a different perspective. The city offers a lot of nice areas but also not so nice  areas, for us the best places were the Notre Dame and the Old Central Station with it´s great french flair.

Hoi An

The city is very interesting and has great variety. We started with our local guide through the city, our first was a local very famous sandwich place where we of course tried the great food. In Vietnam the food is very excellent, especially the amazing variety of delicious soups ! After lunch we were driving to the Kim Bong village by boot (Woodvillage) there we could admire what they were producing of wood like a whole boat made of wood and of course everything is handmade. The people from Vietnam have such great hospitalbility and they were so happy that we visited them to see their work. We visited a family, they were teaching us how to produce rice noodles and rice paper by them. For us it was pretty impressive what kind of old methods their were still using. After that we had a quick short stop at the fisherman and we were heading back.

Hoi An has a huge selection of cafes bars and restaurants and is of course famous for their amazing dressmakers shops. It is so nice that we could go shopping without end. Amazing quality for very cheap prices. The city offers a lot of great souvenir shops and so many tailors they were designing there own dresses and for sure custom-made suits. Who wants for example a great custom-made dress it is absolutely no problem it is very cheap and needs only 4-5 hours. It is so nice to walk through the small alleys especially during the night, because in every tree is a lantern, that is really amazing to see. Every street is decorated with nice and very colorful lanterns and whats really awesome is to see the small paper candles floating down the river.

Hue – The forbidden city 

In Hue is the forbidden imperator city and it belongs to the UNESCO World Heritage. It is a must when you are in Hue to visit the palace. From outside you can recognize how gorgeous the palace is. The place is surrounded by huge bulletproof walls. Our guide was explaining to us on a small model the structure and rooms of the palace before the Americans destroyed the palace.

Besides the palace Hue has a lot of temples and pagodas  and of course the grave of the imperator. These places are a little bit outside of Hue.

One of the most interesting imperator graves is the Imperial Tomb of Dong Khanh. The architecture is very impressive and also the work of gals and ceramic is amazing. For visitors with not so much time we recommend at least to visit the grave of Khai Dinh this grave is more than worth to see.

 Da Nang Tour – Marble Mountain & Lady Buddha 

The last things we wanted to see in Vietnam was the Marble Mountain and the Lady Buddha statue. The Marble Mountain belongs of course to one of the main attractions in Da Nang. There a lot of small streets which brings you to the Marble Mountain, on the way are a lot of small Budda shops. In these small  shops you can buy  of course Buddas in every size and color. To reach the top of the hill you can take the elevator which takes only a couple of minutes, but if you like you can also take the stairs.

First of all it was quite confusing for us, that on the Marble Mountain the Buddas are covered by an golden Hakenkreuz (Swastika), but of course it has a different meaning and has nothing to do with the “Nazi” cross. The cross is called Swastika and means luck they use it often in Vietnam. Most of the time you can see theses crosses in the hight of the chest of Budda.

It took us approximately 1,5 hours to visit the Marble Mountain. It was really nice and we can recommend when you are going to Da Nang. Actually in the Buddhism the female Budda doesn’ t exist but in Da Nang in Vietnam there is a small exception.

A lot of fisher boats are next to each other from here you had an amazing view of the beautiful landscape of Da Nang.

A lot of fisher boats with their flags

From here you can enjoy the fantastic view about Da Nang

Lady Buddha

Infobox

Hotels:

Ho Chi Minh : Hotel Pullman Saigon 

Hoi An:             Golden Sand Resort & Spa

Visa:

45 US-Dollar directly at the airport.

Don´t forget you photo for passports

Currency:

Vietnam Dong VND
The current course you can look up at Oanda

Language:

Vietnam

English

Local Time:

You can read the local times here.

High Season:

The best time for Vietnam here

Health:

The vaccination passport should be checked by a doctor and refresher courses such as tetanus, yellow fever and hepatitis A, B, C may be performed.

You can read more about this here.

Safety:

You can find all entry requirements at the listed embassies

Embassy:

For US Embassy: link
For UK Embassy: link
For AUS Embassy: link

 Information about the tour guide in Hoi An 

Name:

Man Nguyen

Languages:

English
Vietnamese

Contact:

manlocalguide@gmail.com

About Man

We had so much luck that we found such a great tourguide like Man, he was intend and was making everything  possible what we wanted to do. He is a very educated great english speaking Guide and he really loves his job so much. It made it even possible that he picked up to members of our family at the cruise terminal. Man is really such an lovely and competent tour guide and we can wholeheartedly recommend him, we had a awesome tour with him. He is very  flexible it is also possible to do a day trip  in Hot An when you are on a cruise. Thank you sooo much Man for the great time in Vietnam.

Saskia and Bastian

 Information about the tour guide in Ho Chi Minh City 

Name:

Cool

Sprachen:

Englisch
Vietnamese

Contact:

dinhkhuongtravel@gmail.com

About Cool

Cool has organized a great city tour through  Ho Chi Minh for us. Cool is also very flexible and he was picking up our family members from the cruise terminal to start a great city tour. We have visited with him the morning market and of course the famous  Cu Chi tunnels. If you are interested to do a trip through Ho Chi Minh City contact our friend Cool we can really highly recommend him. Thank you a lot for the great tour.

Saskia and Bastian