Hoi An to Saigon

4am: wake up to get ready for early flight to HCMC

4.05am: realise my tummy is still feeling unhappy after something I ate last night

5am: start bumpy bus trip to Da Nang airport

Good start to the day! After an unhappy flight (I asked the Jetstar attendant for some water just before takeoff and burst into tears at her when she asked me to pay for it, as my wallet was in the roof rack and it was all too hard) we did eventually get to HCMC without mishap.

Reunification Palace

En route from the airport to the hotel, we stopped at a couple of the big sights for a quick photo op – the others were all very understanding of my fragility and made it snappy (hur hur 🙂 )

Outside the post office, looking a little wan

Notre Dame

The hotel let me check in early, and I retired gracefully (relatively) to chew quick-eze and try to sleep my nausea away, while the others headed to the War Museum and the Cu Chi tunnels. And apparently had a go at shooting various Vietnam War-era guns!

By mid-afternoon I felt human enough to attempt lunch, so I ordered what sounded like a lovely bland meal from room service – steamed tofu and mushrooms, and a side of steamed rice. Unfortunately what the menu didn’t mention that it came with a really tasty satay sauce with chilli! I did taste a tiny bit before isolating the blander elements, and it was really good.

The food was what I needed, and restored to health, I had a quiet couple of hours pottering around the hotel doing washing and organising my many purchases from Hoi An.

We tried to have dinner at a local beer hall, but decided to go elsewhere – the music was loud and they turned it louder despite our requests to lower it, the food was expensive and the killer — they had no cold beer! So we headed across the park to a place T recommended which offers some local specialities.

Rice pancake

After a delicious entree of rice pancakes (which were like poached egg-shaped cakes of rice batter with prawns and pork on the top, which you ate wrapped up in lettuce leaf with some herbs, and dipped into the usual dipping sauce of lime, fish sauce and herbs) R had the pork tongue, and I asked for the snails, but apparently they’d run out. I swapped to crab vermicilli in a clay pot, after being assured that yes, they were in possession of crab, vermicilli and a clay pot 🙂

P’s Pineapple Fried Rice

The standout meals were those served in fruit! P had pineapple fried rice, which arrived in a pineapple! T and T both ordered the prawns steamed in coconut juice, so they were presented in a coconut shell!

We head out to the homestay on the Delta tomorrow, so we decided on an early night.