From Hoian I jumped a plane to Ho Chi Minh. My all time favourite city! I can't really explain my fascination with this city, most people agree it's nice but don't have the unashamed and unabashed love affair with the city. I just love it!!!!
Anyway, after 3 years, once again I was a little nervous to see what had changed and was thrilled to see almost nothing has changed at all. It is almost exactly the same. Same chaos, same people, same food, same traffic, same shopping just completely same city. I was thrilled.
I wandered about he old opera house and post office area, which is generally considered the 'center' of the downtown tourist area. Behind the post office, I found Book street which turned out to be a very quaint and chilled street of tiny shops and cafes. everyone was sat reading a book and enjoying the chilled atmosphere so I joined them and watched the world go by for a while.
I spent a few glorious days wandering about all my favourite old neighborhoods and eating as much of my favourite foods as I could.
In my final exciting news update, I found the new street food market. Last time I was here, Mam and Dad loved it and made fools of themselves dancing about while trying to eat. My first day in HCM I went to eat there are discovered that the original location had closed. Luckily the I found it on google maps in a slightly different area but not exactly far away. Now it is opposite the freedom palace.
I did however discover that the bar street has died a death. What used to be 2 or three neighboring smaller bars or restaurants have become these larger super club type conglomerates complete with fake leather sofas, people dancing outside on tables in their underwear and lasers into the streets. It was awful and very much not what it used to be.
It reminded me of an old school KaoSan Rd in Bangkok but before they cleaned it up. Never mind, I am a bit too old for bar streets on my own nowadays anyway.
My next stop in this summer adventure is to meet Dan and his girlfriend in Thailand for ten days. I haven't seen him in nearly 5 years and I had never met his girlfriend. I was a little nervous but had been assured that it would all be fine.
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