HCMC – Ho Chi Minh City – Saigon. We arrived around 7 pm local time. The sunset was 17.53, so we thought it was late. We took the first taxi to the centre without asking about the price. Lesson learned: ask about the price before taking the taxi. We paid 10 USD per person, whereas you could have taken the taxi for 8-10 USD for 4 people ( we paid full price 40 usd).
We arrived to 1st district of the city, to the hotel lien tien …. 35 usd per room, through booking.com, without booking you could get the same room for 32 usd. The room was clean and quiet, too quiet. Guess why ? No window. After, ain’t journey you don’t need any window too sleep well.
We went out to see the city and find ATM to get more VND. Jessa said that the worst currency ratio is at the airport. However, the ratio was 21,089 VND for 1 USD. It came out that it was quiet ok. In HCMC, all Vietnamese use VND and USD and they always accept dollars everywhere, but they offer 20,000 VND for 1 USD. So you loose appr. 5%.
Looking for ATM in the first night for a newcommer to Vietnam was a big adventure. We went out of hotel, and everywhere there are plenty of traffic, esp. plenty of motorbikes. It is difficult to cross the main street, it seems that people do not obey any rules and you would not cross the street. We went till the very busy street and we were afraid of crossing, so we decide to go to the ATM during the day. We went through the market, where everybody wanted to sell us things.
We saw plenty of food and especially fruits. The most smelly was durion. They say: you may love it or hate it.
Before going back to the hotel it was 22.30 (Monday) and close to our hotel we couldn’t find any open restaurant.
- Aperture: ƒ/2.2
- Focal length: 4.12mm
- ISO: 2500
- Shutter speed: 1/15s
