📍Dalat & Ho Chi Min, Vietnam 🇻🇳

Day 1: We took an early flight to Da Lat. Randomly, Selina and Matthijs (friends we met in the beginning of the trip and traveled with throughout our time in Vietnam) were also on our flight. Even more randomly, their seats were directly beside ours. Lucky them! We got to the city and checked into our hotel, Dalat Stream Hotel. The hotel is run by a really cute family and the guy plays the piano, which was lovely.

When we arrived in Da Lat, we got checked in, had some lunch, and then went to the Crazy House. This is a working hotel that the designer wanted the visitors feel that they were in nature. The name does not lie.

We kept up with the unique places theme and went to the Maze Bar. It was a maze with a few different bars throughout. If you get through the maze, you end up at a rooftop overview. You also cannot enter until you buy a drink at the beginning (they make sure they get ya feelin a lil saucy before ya try to find your way out of this wild place).

We all went to dinner at a Vietnamese barbeque and somehow ended up back in the Maze bar for “one more drink.” Naturally, it turned into many more drinks and we found the TV at the bar to watch Netherlands play Ecuador in the World Cup (good time to mention all of our friends are Dutch).

The bar closed (at midnight!?), so the entire bar moved to another bar that was on the 6th floor of a random building. Like an office/warehouse building. When I tell you 500 people piled into one car, you coulda made an entire football roster with the riders of said car. We decided to wait for a less crowded car, which was still jammed packed. The next bar got a bit fuzzy so those pictures will go directly to the bloopers.

Day 2: Needless to say, we slept in a bit. Once we (some of us) got our lives in order, we began making the trek to Pongour Waterfall, which is about an hour outside the city. We got an Uber, picked up Matthijs and Selina, and we were on our way.

Because we were far out of the city, the Uber driver was kind enough to wait for us. While he was driving us back to the city, he asked if we were hungry (clearly he did not know us). Obviously, we said yes, so he drove us to a local bahn mi place and it was by far the best bahn mi we’ve had.

Our next stop was the Alpine Coaster. It is a mini rollercoaster through the mountain. You get to decide how fast your individual cart goes and we got stuck behind a cart that must have set the record for the slowest time to get to the end of the ride.

The bottom of the coaster had some sculptures, flowers, and a mini little waterfall.

We dropped off Matthijs and Selina and relaxed for a bit. We had been eating a lot of Vietnamese food (as we should), but decided we wanted something different for dinner. We found a very highly rated Italian place and we were on our way.

Day 3: While Selina and Matthijs went off on a wild repelling journey, we stayed back to explore the town. We made our way to the Clay Tunnels and were not disappointed.

We tried to go to the Flower Garden, but turns out it wasn’t quite the season for that.

We went to find a local snack at Bahn Can Nha Chung. The snack is an egg and meat puffy thing and it tastes lovely. You dip said snack in the sauce pictured below and then take a minute to appreciate it.

Eventually, we met up with Selina and Matthijs for a goodbye dinner that turned into a lil tractor ride, game night, and waffles for dessert.

After a successful time in Dalat (which I haven’t mentioned, it was by far the coolest climate we were in and that was refreshing), it was time to start profusely sweating again in Ho Chi Min.

Day 4: We landed in Ho Chi Min, which was our final stop on our Vietnam adventure. Our apartment wasn’t ready to check in yet so we Ubered to some address the host gave us to put our bags down. We ate, printed some pictures (see next blog for more on this random tidbit), and by the time we were done, our room was ready. We grabbed our bags and Ubered to our apartment. It was on the fifth floor, with no elevator. We’re like really strong now.

We decided to start at the War Remnants Museum, which is the Vietnam War Museum. It was a heavy first start, but I learned some things and it is an absolute must see. The images in the museum are extremely intense and some were too hard to even look at.

We spent a few hours in the museum and then went to get some street food. We walked through Book Street, went to see the Reunification Palace (which was closed, but we could still see it), and J had some interesting juice at a market we came across.

Day 5: It was an early morning for us as we were on the way to the Cu Chi Tunnels (these are the tunnels the Vietnamese lived in during the war). On the way to the tunnels, we made a stop where people affected by Agent Orange from the war are employed to make art. The art was made from sea shells and egg shells and 60% of the proceeds go to Agent Orange victims. We got ourselves a nice piece of artwork, in case anyone was curious.

We then made it to the tunnels, which were absolutely insane. I learned that the people lived in the tunnels for 17 years. 17. The tunnels are designed with multiple layers, where woman and children lived on one, medical services on another, and then military men would stay on the top layer.

The tunnels were incredibly small to the point where I had to turn around after taking a few steps in. J and the rest of the group made it 100 meters but the tunnels they went through were made 30% bigger than they were during they war. They had increased the size for tourists to go in and actually fit.

There were still areas in the jungle that you cannot walk through because there are still active traps.

After the tunnels, we had some lunch and then headed to the Mekong River. Our first stop was a bee farm (random, I know) where they make fresh honey. The honey was very good, but the highlight was easily the puppy that graced us with its presence.

We then went somewhere that is best described as an outdoor restaurant, but randomly had very personal live music performances.

Our final stop on the tour was the actual Mekong River. The only downside of the whole day was that we got to the river when it was already a bit dark, so it was not as picturesque as it is supposed to be. I guess that just means we’ll have to go back to investigate.

After the river, we made our way back to Ho Chi Min. It was a long day, but we had some exploring left to do because somehow we only had a day left in the country (but how?!). No surprise to anyone, our exploring led to a random noodle bowl in the middle of the red light district of Saigon and a beef bowl from Yoshinoya (if you haven’t been there, go). Side note, the red light district was no joke.

Day 6: Our final day started out well. I locked Jeyzel in the apartment with no way of him getting out and I didn’t have my phone on me for an hour and a half. Apologies. The apartment had one main door and then a gate in front of the main door, I assume for security. I had left the main door unlocked, but had locked the outdoor gate, whichhh he could not access. Once he escaped (if you need a locksmith, or wanna rob someone, apparently you can call J), we met up for a celebratory lunch at The Secret Garden. (For the record, I was getting my eyelashes done, which is why I didn’t see his text.) Good news: the lunch was amazing so no one was upset about the previous captive tenant.

We then went to the famous Post Office and then to the Temple of 10,000 Buddha’s. There are actually 10,00 Buddha’s (let’s be honest, I didn’t count but there were a ton) and it was the most impressive temple I saw on this trip.

The next stop for us was Walking Street and Letter Café. Walking Street is, well, a street for walking. It’s a pedestrian street where vendors have shops, people perform, etc. Letter Café is an apartment building that they made into little cafes that overlook walking street. Apparently it’s not exactly legal, so they may get shut down soon, but for now, it was nice and open.

From here, J went to get his final massage (things didn’t go as planned at first) and I went with Anais to get manicures and pedicures and then to the street food market. As far as J’s massage, there was some language barrier and the masseuse left mid massage with no instruction. After waiting for a pretty long time, J walked out (leaving some money on the table). He then went to another place which was a much more pleasant experience.

For us, the street market was a great ending to the trip. We tried a bunch of different snacks, but I ended up getting a lobster for $7. When we were leaving, I wanted to try this Vietnamese pizza (picture 2 below). I either had to break a large bill or was slightly short with the small bills I had. A nice Vietnamese couple in front of me was helping translate for us, so they saw my very small dilemma and they covered the difference for me. What a gesture. And on that note, our amazing three weeks in Vietnam was over.

Bloopers…