Ho Chi Minh 2

We spent 3 days in Ho Chi Minh City. The first day was the excursion described before. But then we had two more days with additional excitement.

Joachim Scherz, the ship’s General Manager, organized a special event for the 93ers. Those are the 25 people like us traveling from Auckland to Vancouver which is 93 days. So we went to the Reverie Hotel for a tea. The city is an hours drive from the dock. This hotel is by far the most over the top hotel I have ever been at. And talk about tea!

The lobby. Do I need to say anything more?

Three photos of the buffet that was included in the tea. There were sweets, savory and traditional foods plus a lot more. And there was hot tea, cold Jasmine tea and peppermint tea. The tea lasted 2 hours. Plus we walked around the hotel looking at the artwork. Most of the large colorful panels were stained glass mosaics. Obviously I loved those and took many photos.

The restaurant even had decorations besides the food buffet. These are dragon fruits and some other tropical fruits that I can’t identify.

We sat with our new friends Vicki and Gene. I took a photo of Kathy and Vicki with our server next to one of the huge marble pillars.

From the swimming pool on floor 6 we could see much of the city around us. This building is a major financial center called the Sky Deck Tower in English. There is another name in Vietnamese that I can’t pronounce. Notice the funky part of the building near the top. It is a helicopter landing pad. There must be money in order to fly to work and land using a helicopter.

Don’t think the entire city is very modern and high tech. This is a photo of one of hundreds of side street. Two lanes with cars going both ways. And the motor bikes everywhere not paying any attention to sidewalks or lanes on the street. And the telecom wires! Notice there seems to be no logic how they are organized.

The last day in Ho Chi Minh City we took the shuttle Bus to city center which meant stopping at the Opera House. But we wanted to go to the Ben Thanh Market which is huge. We walked for perhaps an hour up and down the various lanes. And we bought a few souvenirs. But it was hot. I sweated a bunch. So one lady trying to sell a tee shirt called me Buddha because my stomach was completely wet. This market was great for tourists but is really mostly used by the locals. There is a huge food section which we basically avoided since we couldn’t buy anything to bring home. Obviously this photo shows an area mostly with fabric. But there was everything in this place. As I said it is huge!