Kuala Lumpur - Saigon (Day 1 11-Feb-2010)

Trans Indochina 2010 Journal

Day 1 (11/2/2010 Kuala Lumpur – Saigon)

It was a great day indeed….everyone wake up on time exceptionally unbelievable especially Kelvin whom normally has difficulties to wake up early in the morning. By 6am we were already on board sky bus to LCCT terminal in Sepang. The journey was smooth and we all arrived at LCCT terminal at 7am. Checked in our individual back pack at the check in counter…..without much hassle but then….our first hiccups along the many on the way happened! Kelvin lost our journal log book…….but thanks god we eventually found it on top of a baggage x-ray scanner! We had out very first Trans Indochina breakfast at Old Town White Coffee…..but we made a big mistake….service was bad, food sucks and waiting time is long!

We walked past the immigration counter without much hassle and soon after we are already in the departure hall waiting to board our flight on 9am. Next we are informed that the flight is delayed due to some technical fault on board the new Air Asia Airbus A320-200. We only manage to board our plane after a 30 minutes delay…..happily enough we are on our way now to Ho Chin Minh City or Saigon. A country made famous by years of war with the Americans. We reached HCMC International airport approximately 11.30 am local Vietnam time. We collected our luggage and passed through the immigration counter without much delay and soon the first culture shock of the day occurred……….in waiting us in the arrival hall is thousands of Vietnamese waiting for their relative, friend, tourist etc etc! My team mate Ong roughly estimates the strong crowd at five thousand! For me it looks for like a demonstration or protest! We then board a taxi to our pre booked hotel Duc Voung hotel in District One or the backpacker’s district! Here there are plenty of guesthouses, backpacker’s lodge, and small hotel to cater for every individual backpacker! Our hotel was great, clean and service from the staff was compliment able! We take a short rest and take our bath before embarking on our mini city tour!

My first impression of Vietnam….a communist country with red flags hanging all over the city. A country with millions of motorcycle zooming all over the city but surprisingly accident is very rare! Indeed if I can recall well enough….I don’t see one! The sign of poverty is obvious and beware of snatch thief and pick pockets. We had our lunch at a local restaurant……noodles and rice. The weather is extremely dry and hot….I reckoned it at 36° Celsius. We relax our self after the lunch on top floor of the restaurant and admiring the daily life of the locals. After lunch, we walked again to the famous Ben Thanh market. It was similar to jatujak market in Bangkok but in a very much smaller scale. We do spend some time visited the Independence palace and witnessed the history in the past! Almost everything inside this place is kept as what it is since the end of the Vietnam War! After much walking…we decided that we need a nice place to chill out for the evening. We went to Trung Nghu Yenh cofffe shop. Coffee and cake is okay…..service is top notch…..price is equivalent to Starbucks! We spent almost the entire evening here chatting and discussing about our trip. Before we heade back to our hotel, we do a detour to a local saloon to have our hair wash, facial and massage. We badly need one as we roughly had a mere 2 hours sleep last night! By the way RM 1 is roughly equivalent to 5000 Vietnamese Dong. After the session at the saloon, we are rejuvenated and heading for our dinner at a local side street stall. Pricing is above average but food was so so only! Maybe we are tourist…..so what to do? Pay only la! After the dinner we walked back to the hotel and take some own sweet time relaxing, bathing, chatting and surfing on the net! We did had our supper at a beef noodle restaurant……..It was superb and xtralicious! I still remembered the taste till now…..if I ever go to Saigon again….I’ll go again for the beef noodle…..the stewed beef noodle taste is totally out of the world! We dozed off at 12am as we have a long day tomorrow! A one day Mekong Delta tour……here is where I am going to lost my camera Tripod…..all because of ??? To be continue on day 2 of our Trans Indochina 2010 trip!