Did you know what happen? I had write a beautiful entry on my ho ho ho trip last Sunday but somehow I lost it and I am very frustrated until now. I wrote my entry at my phone and after a lots of beautiful paragraphs I decided to save it as draft then continue later. But then I don't know what button I had pressed wrongly and all my beautiful karangan disappeared!!! (sorry perasan beautiful, you won't know anyway ;p).
So here I am again, trying to redo my essay on 'Percutian saya dan keluarga ke Ho Chi Minh'. No mood. Seriously. But the show must go on (really?). I had skipped my Bandung and Singapore reviews so let's do justice for this once and for all. All for one, one for all....hehehe
Ok I think I gained my mood already but I'm warning ya, this entry won't be as beautiful as my previous draft which had disappeared (annoying kan to read the word beautiful again and again, and there you go again ;p)
. Well let's start now. For now no photos will be uploaded since I was too busy with my
shopping meeting hence no time for photographing. Not to worry, i'll hijacked hubby's photos from his camera and phone. He took quite good photos actually. Not much but enough to get the essence of Vietnam, particularly Ho Chi Minh city itself. Good job darling :)
Now only I want to start my story-telling. Just to brief you, it was just a 3-day trip and it's my business trip actually. Hubby and Izma tagged along and they got to enjoy a little bit more of Ho Chi Minh while I'm enjoying myself with my meetingsss. Yes I have 2 meetings on a 3-day trip. So can you imagine where I got the time to even shop? Hehehe you'll be surprised ;p So our flight from KL was on Tuesday, 15 Feb (yes, that's like one month ago ;p) afternoon and we reached Ho Chi Minh city airport at around 5pm local time. Hubby's uncle's driver picked us up at the airport and we reached Sheraton Saigon Hotel & Towers at around 5.30 pm (btw Saigon is the previous name of Ho Chi Minh city; sometimes they still refer to Ho Chi Minh as Saigon). And without further a due, we got ourselves into a taxi for our first shopping trip at 6 pm! How efficient! Despite the super duper nice room (we got a room at the tower side since the standard rooms are full), we still managed to keep the shopping spirit high! (note: we = I, me and myself) Ngeh ngeh ngeh. And the best part is we have a very good tourist guide for our trip, who happened to be my boss actually, remember it's my business trip...haha he had been attached to Vietnam office for 6 months in 2008 if I'm not mistaken and so yeah he's the expert. He still remembered all the streets and places by heart and can even pronounced the street name perfectly. We are so lucky!
Izma's third trip to oversea!
Welcomed at the hotel by this traditional 'band' on their traditional costumes (haruslah super duper slim to fit into that Vietnamese suit!)
The hotel
So our first shopping heaven was Hong Anh Collection boutique at Ly Ty Trung street (pronounce: Li Ti Ceng - learned from my boss..hehe). Summary of this boutique: full of Malaysians!!!!! They even have signboard in Malay languange like 'Sila simpan invois pembelian anda'...huhu seriously...so it's like a mandatory pit stop for Malaysians that visit Ho Chi Minh. They sell telekung, baju kurung pahang, baju kurung moden, pretty jubah, long sleeve blouses, baju melayu, tudung ariani, etc. Bottom line is all their clothes line are so close to Malaysian hearts...haha and the most important part is they are so so so cheap! Maybe a little bit pricey if you compare to the other stores in Ho Chi Minh but they have a good quality of stuff. So it's really worth it! Got myself a baju kurung pahang, a few blouses, a glamorous jubah with a matching baju melayu for hubby. Really nice the baju melayu although the cutting is a bit off but still can wear...anyhow he'll wear it once je kut for his cousin's wedding soon. So penjimatan yang terbaekkk :) And I also bought a few telekungs for my office colleagues. None for myself coz not really to my liking. I prefer telekung from Bandung :) Oh also, Hong Anh closes at 7pm so just imagine us bought all those in just 45 minutes! Expert level!!!
After shopping spree, went back to hotel, change into my new blouse (ehem2 tak sabar2 ;p), had dinner with hubby's uncle. He is the project manager in Vietnam office and her wife just joined him there that very week. So we were lucky to see both of them. We had dinner at Four Seasons restaurants. Not to worry peeps, halal restaurants are everywhere in Ho Chi Minh city especially at the Sheraton Hotel area. There is a mosque beside the hotel and along the way are mostly halal restaurants :) Back to Four Seasons, we had a la carte dinner consists of rice (wajib), ikan siakap tiga rasa, ayam goreng kicap, telur dadar, kailan goreng ikan masin and satay. Yes the menu stated exactly those menu in Malay language. Rasa macam mkn kat Warung Dusun gearbox and tomyam in Bangi...hehe but the taste not as good as back at home. Then went back to hotel, hubby went to change our USD into millions of VND (Vietnam Dong). Who wants to be a millionaire? This is the place besides Bandung :) Multi-millionaires in fact *ka-ching*
So second day, after breakfast I went to PCVL office for my meeting. But somehow our counterpart is having another meeting so we went back to the hotel and decided to come back after lunch for the meeting...weehuuuuu shopping time!!! We managed to had a walk around our hotel area, bought some souvenirs and had lunch at Saigon Halal Restaurant. I had nasi lemak (cam xde bende lain nak mkn kan ;p) and hubby had nasi goreng kampung. But I tried an interesting drink here which is the lemon soda. They just give a can of unsweetened soda, slices of lemon and a small jug of syrup. Mixed all together into an iced glass and there you go! Yummeh!!! Hubby also love this drink and we ordered this for every meal (except breakfast ;p) ever since :) Then later I went back to the office and had my meeting...bla..bla...bla...
In the mean time, back at the hotel hubby took a cab and went to Hard Rock Cafe with Izma and got themselves nice Hard Rock t-shirts. Sooo jealous!!! Izma was enjoying herself walk walk with ayah until she felt asleep during their trip. So they went back to the hotel and waited for the shopping queen to return...hihihihihi
Then later that evening, we went to Hong Anh...again...hehe bought a few more blouses then went to Saigon Square. But not much catch here as according to my boss Ben Thanh will be more interesting so I'm saving my energy (and money) for the Ben Thanh trip the next day :) However there is something interesting as well here in Saigon Square which is the Russian market they call it. I'm not sure whether the whole Saigon Square is the Russian market or only the upper level as we saw the signange RUSSIAN MARKET and there was an arrow pointing towards the upper level. What was interesting at the Russian market was that they have a lot of branded stuff and they are all original and the most important part is they are very cheap!!! Hubby found this Timberland shoes and thought it was a fake. But he got a closer look and lifted the shoes and told me it is certainly an original Timberland shoes but soooo cheap. The thing is most of the US branded stuff are made in vietnam so that's why they are cheap. Not sure about the quality but who cares right? It's original so the quality should be there. And it's cheap so don't demand much on the quality la kan. Besides Timberland, they have lots of kids' branded apparel like Gap, Osh Kosh, Guess but most of them are for kids and only a few for babies. And I think it is boys' heaven as I found a lot of nice boys' shirt but none for girls. Very hard to find Izma's size as well so she just got a few t-shirts...fuhhh selamat! ;p
After that we excused ourselves as my boss continue his spree...hehe hubby's uncle invited us to have dinner at his service apartment. Forgot the place name but I really like his apartment. Quite spacious with 3 big bedrooms and spacious living room. We had Viatnamese signature dish, the noodle soup with beef and lots of i-don't-know-the-name veges...hehehe seriously lots of them. No wonder the Viatnamese are all slim. Veges and fruits are abundant and fresh and very sweet. Hubby's aunt made fried rice on top of the noodle...huhu lots of food...burppp kenyang*pengsan*
So the next day a.k.a. our last day I still have my meeting in the morning. Our flight was at 4pm that evening so I was very panic! Panic of thinking that I might not be able to have my visit to the most important part of the trip (besides the meeting of course ;p), the Ben Thanh market!!!!! So I plan with my boss to finish our meeting by 11am and leave the office immediately, by hook or by crook! Semangat! But guess what? I was the one who prolonged the meeting until almost 12!!!wawawawa why la me so semangat?huhuhu so we were rushing back to the hotel after the meeting coz haven't check out yet. Arrived hotel, do my final packing, checked out and had our lunch at D'Nyonya Restaurant just beside the mosque. It is another Malaysian restaurant and we had our lemon soda for the last time...sob..sob...i'm missing my lemon soda now...
After Zuhur prayer, we kept our luggage at the hotel concierge and went straight to Ben Thanh. So my first mission was my kain of course! Hadn't got a chance to buy any for the past 2 days. I aimed for the Vietnam silk that is. This is to cater for the 'orders' from my friends. To tell the truth I didn't have any idea what type of material that I should buy and how's the price gonna be. But I knew that they are cheap according to word of mouth...hehe so there we were stopping at the first kain shop that we found. And the only kain shop that we managed to stop by actually. And yes they are certainly cheap for a good and nice material. I bought around 8pcs if I'm not mistaken and mine is actually only 1 pc from those. Yes more reason to go there again...and again ;p
After finished my important mission, we follow the leader (my boss ;p) to the nuts' stall. Bought cashew nuts and dried jackfruit for our office colleagues. They are so cheap!!! But due to warning from hubby on our potential extra baggage I managed to grab only 1kg of cashew nuts and 1 kg of dried jackfruit...sob...sob...I really want those pistachios and the other nuts there but what to do kan...next time la hubby k? :) Then our last stop in Ben Thanh was at the shop that sold smocking dresses for kids. I love love love this!!!! Rmabang mata tak hengat looking at those beautiful and colourful dresses and cheap$$$$$!!!! 1 dress is just USD8 which is equivalent to around RM25!!! Cheap cheap cheap!!! Izma was the happiest girl as she got 4 of them!!! And they are all so adorable :) And we also bought Izma a Vietnamese suit...a pink one! :) (since the Mama takde size nak beli kan so Izma on behalf la ;p). And that's it. A really sweet ending to our shopping spree experience in Ho Chi Minh city. Definitely will come back for moreeeeeee!!! :))
Then we went back to the hotel to get our things and repacking to make space for our Ben Thanh stuff. Proceed to the airport and welcome back to Malaysia home sweet home~~~
