I woke up around 520 and Hunter shortly after woke up around 5:40 (October 21, 2023). When we woke up, we were in a cloud! I guess that's expected when your on floor 62!
We woke up in a cloud!
From the hallway you could see a bit better
We got around and packed a few things into my backpack then we're off for breakfast. To start, we decided to go to the main restaurant for breakfast, the Oriental Pearl. When checking in last night, we were told this one had more selection than the lounge. We got there around 7:30, shared our room number, and were given a lovely corner booth. We then went to explore our options, and they were amazing as always!
We always like to start with delicious fresh fruit
Local pho bowl
French toast and bread pudding
Pho and an eggs benedict
Delicious juices - always love a good watermelon or pineapple juice
Bánh mì
Toppings for the pho
The view from our seats
egg station
Western breakfast options
Miso soup and oatmeal station
Cold meats selection
Granolas
milk and yogurts
Donuts!
Bread selection
Pastries
It was amazing being able to see the city from so high up
They even have an outdoor seating deck
Entrance to the resturant
After getting a taste of deliciousness, we went to the lounge to see what was offered there. They had very similar offerings, but slightly smaller. I made myself a nice little meat and cheese plate and Hunter got us guava juice. After sitting a while I went to check out the bar for drink selections. They have many offerings, but it's all kept behind the bar so we can't stock up on diet coke like usual. I ordered a Vietnamese milk coffee with ice for Hunter and I each to enjoy.
Birds in a park
After our drinks, we quickly returned to the room before starting our day of adventure. Stop one was to the pool/gym level. It was extremely pretty and very quiet so early in the morning. They have a pretty good food menu as well. It's a bit expensive, but very cheap compared to US standard prices. After the gym, we headed down to the large riverside park adjacent our hotel. We kept seeing birds from our window and knew they would have to be huge to be seeing them the way we were, so we had to check it out. The park is called Vinhomes Central Park after the developer of our hotel and the surrounding area and has many nice walkways and greenery. There was a group of kids doing dancing lessons and then many others meditating since it was fairly early still. We made our way to this cute little pond with MASSIVE koi! I couldn't get over just how big they were! We continued on our walk, taking in the nice greenery and riverfront.
rooftop pool
Flowers in the lobby
Stormy always looks extra cute with flowers
Lower lobby of the buiding on ground level
The park sign with rules
Everything was so green and there were some pretty cool looking trees
We found a koi pond with massive koi, bigger than my foot!
Lizzard friend!
Identification found on each and every tree
Beautiful view of our hotel from the pond
Children at a dance group
Cool park toys for children
The river full of ships and floating plants
Bird of paradise
Vibrant flower
After walking a big loop, we headed back to the mall that was near our hotel as I forgot a rain jacket so wanted to see if there were any options there. We looked around quite a bit, but didn't find anything from the various stores we went to including Uniqlo, Calvin Klein, Gap, and a local everything mart! We did find a bunch of cold coke lite and Haribo candies instead! In the mall, there was also a real ice rink which we both found kinda funny. Hunter and I also went to an ATM to get cash, as Vietnam is still pretty cash-preferred and we had plans to explore. We tried to get some last night, but found out our USAA debit card was expired! Thankfully I had my debit card as well so we were able to use that and not have to have a cash advance on our credit card!
Icerink - there were some puddles
Snacks to keep Hunter alive
Funny ATM out of service sign
Our hotel from the base
Once we were done at the mall, we booked a grab to head to the botanical garden and zoo. It was about a 15-minute ride and very comfortable. Grab is the local version of Uber down here and we've used it before in Thailand and Indonesia. The best part was that it was only around $3 each way! Once we arrived, I got our tickets, which were $6 total, and we started our search for flowers! It's interesting that they combined the zoo with the gardens. Since I was wearing my zebra shirt, I wanted to see them, but unfortunately, we did not find them. We did however find the giraffes! We also saw a bunch of other animals before finally getting to the bonsai trees and orchids we came for, they were beautiful and there was almost no one there!
Driving to the gardens
Ticket time
Map of the Gardens and zoo
Love the care and detail that goes into trimming the hedges
Giraffe!
Real giraffe!
Rino
Unlear what animal this is exactly, but the one next to her looked zebra-like
Beautiful orchids hanging off an arch
This was the weirdest flower ever!
Flamingo!
Peacock
Pink Ibis
The peacock had an interesting friend
Scarlet Ibises a long ways from home
Giant catfish
Monkey exhibit that looks like it came out of a movie!
One escaped!
porcupine
Bonsai!
Amazing how big they have grown - we kept wondering how old they were
They had so many, it was like a bonsai nursary
Orchid greenhouse
It was massive and all empty
some orchids can be so small
These were my favourite, a mint and purple colour
baby dragonfly
After the orchids, we decided to keep walking around the zoo. Hunter wanted to find the reptiles, so we headed in a big loop around the zoo. We had a break at the elephants and drank our Coke lites. I was pretty hot so the break was much needed. As we were sitting there, a lady came by and offered to sell me a fan, which I had previously talked about wanting, so I agreed. She wanted 20,000 VND for it, which came to 80¢ usd! Best random purchase I've made traveling so far!
Iguanas!
They look so cool up close
Marabou Stork! It looks like a dino-bird!
This guy was ready to attack
More dino storks
Lion in the back
Deer animals with weird antlers
crocodile
Another fat croc
50th-anniversary inukshuk for Canada and Vietnam relations
Friendly giant
A great purchase to help cool off. I tried to translate it, but haven't been successful
After our break, we finally found the reptiles. It was quite the maze of exhibits they had! The lizards were quite impressive as were the turtles and massive king cobras! Once we finished with the reptiles, we decided to head to our next stop, which was about a mile walk.
Turtle!
Red and blue iguanna
More crocs
King Cobra!
Another cobra
Creepy elephant statue
heading back to the entrance to leace
This is the history museum of Hi Chi Minh City which is inside of the zoo/gardens as well. We did not have time to visit as we were headed to a few other places.
Zoo entrance with the famous sign
Our next stop brought us to the original post office as well as the Notre Dame de Saigon Cathedral (unfortunately under construction with many scaffolding). We did take a small detour to a book alley which was very hip! We enjoyed the historic post office very much, and it's still in operation today! Hunter showed me that the benches in there were used by letter writers who were employed to write correspondence for illiterate members of society so that they could still send mail. Fortunately, we are literate so we wrote our own letters.
Walking past a tank from the campaign museum
Pro-America propaganda signs
Utah is just a state of mind man
Endangered pangolin signs telling you not to eat them- Hunter and I really wanted to find one, but so far no luck
Entrance to the book street
Many people were selling things off the back of their bikes
The famous old post office!
Entering the post office
Portrait of Ho Chi Minh
Beautiful original interior of the post office
Writing letters!
Cool Vietnamese stamps
Map of the Mekong Delta that is a historic part of the museum
Map of old Saigon with regionally significant clocks
Notre Dame de Saigon Cathedral
Hunter and I were both pretty thirsty, so we walked around a little bit trying to find somewhere reasonably safe to buy water. As we were looking, we stumbled across a Circle K! I went in to get us a cold water, and the only cold one in their coolers was a 1.5 L bottle. It was 12,000 which was only 50¢ USD! Incredible!
Once we were satiated, we started our walk to the War Remnants Museum. It was only a 1 km walk, so not very far! On our way there we also passed the Independence Palace, formerly the seat of the South Vietnamese government and now a museum.
Passed by the Canadian embassy on our walk to the museum
Ho Chi Minh's 135th Birthday celebtration
Independence palace
Random restaurant with a funny logo
Once we got to the war museum, we were met with a line of what seemed like 500 schoolchildren. Thankfully, a guard saw another foreign couple and us, and sent us to the front of the line to get tickets and enter around the side from the school group. It was 80,000 to enter, which is only ~$3. We started by walking through a yard of captured US equipment before entering the tiger cages area which described the conditions North Vietnamese prisoners were sometimes kept in by the South Vietnamese. These inhumane and massive prisons were used to attempt to control the Viet Cong fighters who were captured.
Bird Dog Observation Cessna
A-1 Sky Raider
Torture devices
Sign describing the tiger cages where Vietnamese prisoners were held
Artillery and bombs including the famous Daisy Cutter
Coconut prison in Phu Quoc, also future site of our hotel later in the trip
Agent orange dispersion
Articles about the My Lai Massacre
We then moved on to the second floor of the former US government building turned museum where we visited exhibits about the war's origins and French colonial past. We then reached the especially harrowing section on the lingering effects of Agent Orange, a chemical defoliation agent, on the Vietnamese people. It was very emotional to see the lingering damage but, fortunately, the US and Vietnam are now much friendlier than in the past and the US has sent aid and experts to finally help clean up some of the most polluted sites. Ultimately, the impacts were brutal across generations and societies as the exhibit pointed out there were plenty of American and Korean victims too from their time in Vietnam.
As we made our way through the 3rd floor, it was almost 3pm, and we were quite fatigued. The third floor was primarily devoted to a massive and interesting tribute to the war photographers from all sides of the long conflict who had risked their lives and in many cases died to ensure public reporting. Hunter pointed out that the Vietnam War was one of the first to be reported with photographs in real time and his college political science professor would stress the impact that had on public perception. The Vietnamese clearly agreed with tributes to photographers who exposed ugly truths like the massacre at Mai Lai. It was a sobering and exhausting experience to tour the whole museum and while it definitely wasn't the history we were used to it was good to see. We had walked almost 20,000 steps so far and our feet were feeling it, so we were ready to leave! We decided to hit the restrooms and then catch a Grab back to our hotel. The ride was pretty quick and we even got to see a super cool fish tank with koi on the way back while waiting in traffic.
Local school children
Fortunate son intensifies
Some of the US combatants
Phantoms during Rolling Thunder raids
This is one of the aircraft carriers my dad served on during the war - USS Constellation
A Huey left behind, some were also pushed off carriers into the ocean during the final airlifts
Once we got back to our room, we were feeling pretty icky since we were covered in sweat! We decided to take a quick shower to rinse off and then go to the pool. After showering however, we decided to hit up the lounge first because it was happy hour and I was feeling kinda hungry, plus we wanted some caffeine and a Vietnamese milk coffee and coke light were just what we needed! While in the lounge, I also caught up on my blog writing (since I'm trying very hard to stay on top of writing them so I ensure I include all the details).
Sunset as a storm rolled in from Stormy's phone
Sunset as a storm rolled in from Hunter's phone
Diet Coke and iced coffee!
Local and American drinks
Stormy skies
An absolutely beautiful and delicious cake
Delicious!
After we were done, we finally made our way to the pool. It was beautiful but quite cold so we didn't stay in the outside infinity pool long. However, in the changing rooms, we had noticed beautiful but separate jacuzzis so we went back to them and soaked in the warmth and the views for a little while before we got lonely and decided to head back to the room together for the night.
Mens hot tub
Delightful but separate hot tubs
The pool was pretty cold!
Amazing, if chilly views
Date: October 21, 2023
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