We began exploring the city and since Ben Thanh Market is very near to our hotel, we went over to take a look.
Unlike some of the reviews that we had read, it was not crowded in the market when we were there. We were not sure whether it's because today was a weekday or many stalls had closed down since the number of tourists had significant reduced over the last 2 years. Anyway, we'll probably walked over again on our last day of the trip, which is a Saturday, to see if there is any difference.
From Saigon Centre where we had our lunch, we took a 5 minutes walk and arrived at Nguyen Hue Walking Street. On both sides of the street, there are many shops, restaurants and cafes.
There is one building along the street, which is a must-see for all tourists, called the Cafe Apartment. It's actually a very old apartment building but turns into many cafes, restaurants and co-working spaces. We will come back later to see the building lights up.
From the walking street, we could see one very prominent tall building with a helicopter pad near the top. It is called the Bitexco Financial Tower and there is actually an observatory there too called the Saigon SkyDeck, which we will be visiting in one of the following day.
We then tried to walk to a famous statue of a historic military leader (Trần Hưng Đạo) but the road is impossible to cross with all the bikes and cars around. We had experienced such traffic condition when we were in Hanoi previously so we weren't really surprised to see it here too. However, it's still quite fascinating to see how these cars and bikes maneuver on the packed roads without following all the traffic rules, if it even exist.
Now back to the Cafe Apartment. As the sky gradually turned dark, the building began to light up.
At this point, Tracy had a very back toothache. She took panadol hoping to relieve the pain. Fortunately it did, or otherwise if the pain persisted, we may have to cut short our trip and return home tomorrow. Once she felt better, we continued to walk along the walking street towards the City Hall.
There is a statue of Ho Chi Minh in front of the french colonial-style city hall.
On our way back to our hotel, we again passed by Ben Thanh Market and saw all the stalls were already closed. We then went to a pharmacy to purchase some gels that will help relieve toothache. As for dinner, we went to a nearby convenience shop to buy some instant noodles, biscuits and beverages.
That's the end of day 1 of our trip. Tomorrow will be an exciting day full of adventures. :-)
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