Ho Chi Minh City, or perhaps more widely known as Saigon.
It is certainly not in my list of country or places I wish to visit before I die.
But I am glad to come here for a short trip. Suppose to be a business trip but I have the weekend to explore the city on my own.
A little background of this city and country. Although not that clear, Vietnam is a Communist country. Ruling party have huge power to decide a lot of things. And the country itself is in rapid transformation and modernization after years of civil war. Now Vietnam is one of the highest growing country in the world.
So that means lot of business opportunity for Foreign Investor.
It is a surprise to me as I find more foreign traveller in the same flight with me going to Vietnam. And even more when I reach the Vietnam Airport.
The Airport itself is not that huge. Unlike other major Airport such as our own KLIA.
Vietnam is the first country that I visit without need to fill up any immigration card or apply visa.
I just answer a few question on what is my purpose of the trip and where will I be staying and they grant me to enter the country. But once I am out of the airport I start to feel the passion of the Vietnamese, at least 5 guys look at me and then come forward to me to offer carry my luggage and send me to Hotel.
Being first time to HCM, I got cheated. The guy charge me Vietnam Dong 300,000 (About RM45/USD 13) for the ride on a lousy no air-cond car. And later I find out a normal taxi with air-cond is only Vietnam Dong 180,000 (Less than RM30/USD 10).
Reach my company office, around 11am. After settling down, my colleague suggest to go for Lunch Meal. They inform me in Vietnam, it is best you go punctual or very hard to get place and nice food anymore. First meal at Vietnam and they bring me to a very authentic local Vietnam restaurant.
The Restaurant is at the RoofTop of a building and it is call SH Garden. A very nice ambience and I like the lift that take me to the top. It is old antique kind of lift that you can only see this in a movie.
Classic
The Restaurant is called SH Garden, and as you can see it is very traditional style with cane type of table. The table is very low and make me feel like kneeling to eat. I guess it is common in Vietnam people to do so.
A few different type of way to prepare the famous Vietnam Spring roll. Fried version, Rice Paper version and the soft rice dumpling type. I find the rice paper a bit hard. It really feel like you are chewing on paper. My colleague say they make it a bit hard today. Usually it is not that hard. But it is not real paper but made of rice. So 100% can eat it.
My favourite dish. Catfish(鲶鱼) cook in clayport. This is a very common dish in Vietnam Household. In Malaysia, we normally call this fish as 塘虱.
The Vege soup with minced meat. I am sure this is just minced meat as I have tell my colleague not to order weird things such as dog meat, frog meat etc.
The restaurant did not provide a bowl of rice for each person but a claypot of rice is left on the desk. You can take the portion you want and this pot is shared.
The only dish of the day that I hate. Coz I don't eat any liver or inside of animal things. Like the chicken liver. Plus the vegetable is also another type that I won't eat.
Day 1 | Day 1 - Hotel | Day 2 | Day 3 & 4 | Day 5
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