Our weeklong visit to Vietnam and Cambodia - Part 1

Last year, my eldest daughter told me that she and her family were planning to travel to Vietnam and Cambodia and she asked my husband and me to join them.  I said okay, although I was not enthusiastic about it knowing that the Philippines is more beautiful than the two countries.  Months passed by until the month of our travel came, and this time I was a bit enthusiastic, preparing our clothes and other things that we would bring.  I thought, it would be a welcome respite from the rigors of everyday life and the monotony of it all.

When we reached our first destination (Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam) and checked in at our first hotel (we stayed in three hotels), I kind of enjoyed it.  We were comfortable in the hotel and the buffet breakfast was superb!  We stuffed ourselves every morning so we could last until after noontime.  After roaming around the streets, visiting museums, experiencing eating in restaurants there, doing the rounds of the night market, I could relax in a fully air conditioned hotel room.  It was a real vacation for me.  I did not have to do any house work, just relax and go around the city, sight-seeing and in the process learning about the culture and history of the two countries.

However, although the hotel staff  speaks  a little English, most Vietnamese do not speak it, so we found it a bit difficult communicating with them.

On our first day,  we went to the War Remnants Museum where we saw the different kinds of US tanks  and artilleries and the guillotine.

The following day was a day-long guided tour of the Pagoda, the Mekong Delta river and other places.  My chatterbox grandson befriended Tom, the 25-year-old lady tour guide, and later, had a picture taken with a Buddhist monk.

According to my daughter, the best pho we had in Vietnam wasn't that at a posh restaurant, but this particular pho along the street of Le Thanh Ton. (right smack Ben Tanh Market).

On our third day in Ho Chi Minh, we went to the Independence Palace where a pretty Vietnamese guided us to the different rooms of the palace explaining in English what the different rooms were.   Bay had some questions so he approached the lady, but the lady never gave any response.  I was thinking that this was so because she didn’t understand the question, although she was speaking English when she was telling the story of the different rooms while we toured around the building.  I surmised that maybe she just memorized her part and could not really communicate.  The picture below is the room which the tour guide said is the most beautiful room of the Independence Palace.

One good thing that I observed in Vietnam is that air pollution is not much as compared in Metro Manila, and even though there were more motorcycles than cars, taxis or other four wheeled vehicles, motorists and pedestrians are disciplined.  I was just wondering if these motorcyclists had acquired their jackets through motorcycle jackets from compacc.com.  Traffic flow was smooth.  No overtaking, no zigzagging and they stay on their designated lanes.