Sightseeing in Saigon

Today we got to our last stop in Vietnam. We got a flight to Ho Chi Minh, formerly known as Saigon at 10:10. We got picked up from our hostel at around 8:15 by an airport shuttle that took around 45 minutes to get to Da Lat airport. We checked in and whizzed through a very relaxed security check. The flight took about 40 minutes at most. The bus would have taken six hours and after hearing reports of a horrendous journey we thought better of it. It was 34° when we landed. We were picked up from the airport by a shuttle from our hostel and we arrived at around 12:30. We had to hang round for a bit before checking in as the rooms weren't ready.

Once we eventually had checked in, we planned our two full days here, booked some trips and headed out for food. After eating we headed to the big market in the centre. Or at least we attempted to but we couldn't find our way despite having a map. We obviously looked lost as some nice girl who was visiting the city stopped to ask if we were OK.  We told her we were looking for the market and she told us to follow her. On the way we passed to other girls who also looked lost. I told them if they were looking for the market then to follow us as we were headed that way. It wasn't actually that far to the market, just down one road. We thanked the girl and said goodbye. The market was rammed and very stuffy. It was full of stalls selling clothes, shoes, coffee, food etc etc. We wandered round for a bit before I had to leave as the lack of fresh air and the heat was making me feel ill.

After the market we headed to the reunification palace. It was first built in 1871, but after being bombed in 1962 was rebuilt with a different design. After looking at pictures of both designs, we concluded it was more fancy before the bombing and now just looked like a big posh hotel. We wandered round the rooms and the gardens and then headed up to the roof. We sat for a while to cool down as we were very hot, then we headed on to the next sight to see. 

Just down the road from the palace was a fairly big church with a big statue of Jesus outside. It was right next to the post office, which was quite a grand building. Then we wandered down to the committee building which is basically the town hall. It was very fancy, more so than the palace. Out the front was a statue of the man himself; Ho Chi Minh.

After seeing all these sights we wandered back to the hostel, absolutely knackered, and collapsed onto our beds.