I've always had a dislike for packaged tours mainly because I'm a free person. I don't like to be controlled unless there's a need. And when fun and travel comes in, it's definitely not good to be restricted in my opinion. But, since it's a family trip, it would really be better with a packaged tour. So no squabbling and arguing where to go you see. Everything is fixed by someone else. Hah!
25 Nov (Day 1) - A maxi cab came for us for departure at Budget terminal. It was the first time I'm there and it's really budget. Kind of like the feeling of walking down the strip directly. Haha. What I'm apprehensive was, smaller planes tend to jerk harder in times of turbulence, but I'm REALLY GLAD that Tiger Airways had really good pilots. The pilot is hilarious the way he made his introduction. Somehow it made me relaxed a little. I've always had this fear about flight ever since the trip to Taiwan on China Airlines when the plane dropped for that few seconds! Gross.
Reached Ho Chi Minh at about 5pm their time. The sky was getting dark already. Time is 1 hr behind Singapore's. The streets were full of motorbikes. It's really scary. I don't think I would ever dare to cross the street alone because it is just not possible. To cross the road, think people actually biked it across! No one heeds the traffic lights, and they just squirm in and out as they like and sometimes against traffic too! Amazing. With that amount of traffic, of course it's polluted!
We were taken to a water puppet show, which was in Vietnamese. I was almost dozing off. Didn't think it was interesting enough to capture my attention but the concept was interesting in a sense. Puppets playing on water. Not an easy task.
Our dinner was on board a ship and there were vietnamese singing cantonese, chinese, korean songs. I guess the ship is more for tourists. I must say koreans are very enthu people. They danced and sing along and it was hilarious. Had the first of authentic vietnamese food. Not too bad except there's alot of friend stuff and I really didn't expect to see the snort and ears of the suckling pig presented to us for consumption. (Usually restaurants will remove them and just leave the meat around the body area.) The singers were constantly looking for guests to join them in the singing. Gin was asking me what song they were singing so I explained to her by singing along. Imagine my horror when the singer started advancing towards me. I quickly turned away. Gross. We finished our dinner and was waiting to head back to the coach and guess what, the ship started moving!! So we were kind of stuck with the crooning...
26 Nov (Day 2) - First destination was some temple. Then we took on a long drive to Mekong Delta. First we took a bigger boat in a group to a little island, where we were shown how coconut candies were made. Interesting. The people were fast! Then they try to psycho us to buy some tea which tasted weird in my opinion. We walked down the little street with makeshift stalls and I got a nice hot pink hammock. Hopefully can integrate into my new home! We were treated to fruits and I realised Vietnamese loves salt! And salt goes with everything. Best part, the salt is spicy.. Nice! We then take a mini boat ride. By mini it means 4 person max to a boat. Our captain (the front rower) was a granny looking lady and she was super fast and strong. She even caught up with the boat in front of us. I really admire her strength! Both physical and mental man... The boat ride was interesting. We went through narrow rivers with mangrove at the side. Along places which looked like crocs invested. Haha. Then the tiny river opened up to the sea where we came from. And we got on the bigger boat and headed back to the shore we came from.
Lunch was some elephant fish which was a delicacy. There's this meat which they served and tasted really good. I was happily eating when my bro said perhaps it's dog meat. I got a scare and puke out the whole thing. The worse part was at the restaurant, I actually saw dogs in cages and they looked half dead. I asked the tour guide if we were served dog meat and he said it can't be. Said dog meat was super expensive. To play safe, I didn't dare to eat any other meat during the trip. I really got scared. With Tasha's death, the incident somehow affected me more. Hai.
We headed to the presidential palace next, which really didn't look too fantastic. I am rather surprised it's not as grand as it should be. It looked rather retro and outdated, probably because they only had like 2 presidents before and that was a long time ago. The tour guide talked about the president with much dislike. Mentioning how corrupted they are.. well well. We visited a laquer making factory as well. Most of the employees there are handicapped. I'm shocked to find it's so much work to do up at art piece! Of cos Bangkok sells it cheaper but still, it's a really labour intensive job. Some had to be done using duck egg shells and they crushed it according to the art piece they are working on. So it's really time consuming.
We visited Notre Dame Cathedral and Old Saigon Post Office before heading for a dinner which served Hue Imperial Delicacies. It is a nice dinner actually, especially the last dish. This simple soup noodles. Once the chilli and lime were added, the taste was impressive! Thinking about it made my mouth water. Haha. The chilli was so spicy a drop of it would be more than sufficient. It's pretty scary stuff. But nonetheless, delicious!
Some of us went for massage after. I was shocked when the masseuse came. They were dressed in super short skirts at first glance then I realised there are tights beneath. But still, it looked sleazy to me. My session is more of a pinching session than massaging. I came back to the hotel feeling worse than ever. (Not forgetting my legs were still in pain so I went to check my ck levels!)
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