Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

A View of Ho Chi Minh City

I’ve been in Ho Chi Minh City for a number of days now and settling in before the start of my CELTA course on Monday 25th July.

The first impression is that this is a very busy city. It’s similar in a number of ways to Bangkok, the traffic is nuts, its very busy but it's easier to navigate and not as hot. I booked into my guest house which is a very nice place about 6 minutes walk (yes, I timed my walk!) from the training centre where I will be based for the next month.

The Beautiful Skyline

Before I start to relax I had a number of things to get organized. Unfortunately my laptop died about three weeks ago but I’ve managed to find a shop to get it fixed. I also had to go to a tailor and get some shirts tailor made for me before my course starts. The shirts cost $17 dollars each which is great since they're made to fit. This was just as well as it turns out that in the 10 weeks ive been traveling ive lost nearly a stone in weight and 3 inches off my waist. I think my old work shirts may look a bit too baggy if I’d brought them with me!



Lots and lots and lots of traffic



In the evenings Ive met up with a couple of people I met along my travels who happened to be in the city at the same time as me and ive also met a couple of people from my course. On Saturday night we had a BBQ so all the students could meet each other and the teachers. There are 18 students in total; most are American with three English guys, a couple of Australians and a few other nationalities too. It’s a very good mix.

There are surprisingly few sights to see in Ho Chi Minh City however I have now seen the main ones. I went to the top for the biggest skyscraper in the Ho Chi Minh which gave great views of city although the skyline is not that impressive it gave you a good view of the smog. I went to visit a very disapointing catherdral called Notra Dam, it was so disapointing I refused to take a photo of it. I also went to the war museum which was very good and interesting to hear Vietnams take on the war with America. Alot of the photos were again very graphic and some of the stories were not nice to read but again, like in Cambodia it’s very interesting and upsetting to learn about.

View from the sky tower

I went to the biggest market in the city but only lasted about 30 seconds. I, like most western men, kept constantly being goosed by the girls working on the stalls which is weird, not a sales technique that works on me and not as nice as it sounds, plus since im not a good shopper anyway I thought I'd get out of there and do something more fun with my time.

I went to get a hair cut yesterday which was interesting. Since being in Asia ive had some bad ones. You'd think you can't really go wrong when all you have to do is shave someone’s head but it turns out you can. Back in Laos I asked the barber for a grade 3 cut but as he didn't have a grade 3 he just went ahead and used a grade 0.5. He pretty much took all my hair off. I feared the worst when it was haircut time again however I was plesently surprised when for $5 I got my hair cut as I wanted, a wet shave with a razor, a manly face mask and my ears cleaned and trimmed. I only went in for the haircut but the chap just got on and did the rest. I wasn't going to complain and it was quite nice!

Fun time is over now and my course starts tomorrow!!!!