Ho Chi Minh City Reviewed

I got asked many times on my trip to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). Some people wanted to know if HCMC would be a must-visit city.

For a place that I visited for the first time ever, I actually enjoyed my trip to HCMC. It was my first experience in a capitalist country, so I was expecting it to be a run-down country with minimal or no development. As soon as we left the airplane, I was actually quite impressed with the new airport terminal that welcomed our visit. I left me thinking how come the International Airport in Brunei could not be that impressive; all you had to do was build a new terminal complete with the modern amenities and bring it up to the international standards. I expected to be hassled to be able to enter the country, but perhaps because Brunei and Vietnam are members of ASEAN, entry was smooth.

The airport was a good thirty minute taxi ride away from the city centre. As soon as youexited the arrival hall, please be aware of taxi drivers offering you a trip to your hotel. Be sure to agree on a price. We were approached by this taxi driver and he mentioned USD5, which we thought was the total fare. When we arrived at the airport, he actually meant USD5 per person. Our guidebook actually said that the trip would normally cost USD5 per taxi.

The trip from the airport was something that I would not forget easily. We passed through the suburban area, which was dirtier and looked quite disorganised. HCMC was developing fast and it was quite evident. Most roads had works being done on them and buildings were being erected at a hastened pace.

Scooters or mopeds were one of the main mode of transport in HCMC. On the road everywhere, we were getting swarmed by scooters/mopeds. Traffic here can be described as chaotic, insane and dangerous. Because of the sheer number of scooters and mopeds which seemed to have overtaken the whole road, drivers (of cars, buses and even scooters/mopeds) used their horn a lot. On the trip from the airport to the hotel, our taxi driver seemed to honk his car horn all the time. There were also some instances where there would be a ong line of cars and buses and the ones behind a slow-moving vehicles would display their displeasures by honking their horn and I was wondering why they would do that as I would not think the slow-moving vehicle would actually move aside and let the others go. I noticed that in HCMC (or perhaps the whole of Vietnam), it seemed that the only road users that obeyed the traffic rules were drivers of bigger vehicles such as cars, buses and lorries. If the traffic light turned red, the car, lorry or bus drivers would be stopping, while the scooters/mopeds would pass through the red light. Crossing the road in Vietnam was not for the faint-hearted. At the beginning, we had difficulty to cross the roads as mopeds and scooters would be there on the road as they would ignore the red light. We read the guidebook that advised the readers to 'just cross the road'. So with a bit of courage, we followed the advice given and in no time, we were masters at weaving through the sea of scooters and mopeds.

How to cross the road in Ho Chi Minh City?

For Muslim visitors, finding food might be a problem. One of the secretaries at work had been to HCMC before and she passed me some info on some of the Halal food establishment there. Also, it would be a good idea to look for info from websites such as http://www.islamicfinder.org/. I am a big fan of Japanese food, so I dined in Japanese restaurants too and it was not much of a problem either.

The hotel that we stayed at was rated three stars. It was clean and came with good amenities. American breakfast was provided. Free wireless internet was free, which most modern hotels in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur could not even offer.

Vietnamese Dong is the currency of Vietnam but US Dollar is widely accepted and preferred here. I am nit an economist, but there would be an economic impact that two currencies are used in one country, wouldn't there? It must probably feel like a small victory to USA to know that US Dollars are preferred in Vietnam, despite losing face in the Vietnam-American War.

Would I visit Ho Chi Minh City again? Yes, I probably would.