The early morning must be getting to me. Waking up groggy, I opened my eyes, and thought I saw snow on the grounds and roofs. Astonished, I immediately scrambled for my spectacles for a clearer view of the sight. Well, turns out that the whiteness of the scene was actually the work of the sandy dunes of Muine, and not the snow of Dalat, as I suspected. Such is the diverse landscape of Vietnam! It certainly doesn’t take much for me to appreciate the diversity since I hail from tiny Singapore!
Saigon is much like Singapore with its skyscrapers, departmental stores and KFCs. And well, people here are friendlier than those in Hanoi. Unfortunately, I was so badly conditioned by the attitude of Vietnamese trying to sell me things in Hanoi that I didn’t know how to respond to these new developments.
It turns out that most of the sights within Saigon city can be seen within a day, and hence, I bought my ticket out of Vietnam, spending my last night in a fancy hotel that cost US 15.
Sights in Saigon include the History museum, the water puppet theatre, Notre Dame cathedral, War Remnants museum, HCMC city museum, and the Jade Emperor Pagoda. The museums in Vietnam seem very thrown together, i.e. they just chuck the exhibits inside a building, and put a little tag below. The best organised museum is probably the HCMC City museum. One interesting thing about the HCMC City museum is that they have a double pricing system– one for visitors, and one for those wanting to take wedding photos!
I’m glad Vietnam ended well. My only regret was that I started from the North, rather than the South. Maybe my experience with Vietnam will be different, if I started on a different course.
Saigon in the morning
History Museum in Saigon
Goods for sale in Ho Chi Minh City
Wanderlust 