The beginning of our journey started with a 2¼ drive from home to Heathrow. While Nicole snoozed I enjoyed the radio commentary of what was a better day for England the last test match of the Ashes series. With the car parked in the long stay we made our way to our overnight accommodation at the Hilton T4. We spent a lovely evening in the hotel bar with a friend who lives locally before retiring to bed for the night. Cheers Jan!
Morning soon arrived and after checking out of the hotel we made our way to the check in desks for our Vietnam Airlines flight to Chi Minh City. I had previously enquired about an upgrade but the cost was far more than I was prepared to pay, so when we were offered the same upgrade for £150 each we jumped at chance. Before we knew it, we were on the plane and making our way to Vietnam, the extra legroom and a comfortable seat made it worth every penny.
We departed Heathrow at 11:30am Saturday with the flight taking a little over 11½ hours and with a time difference of 7 hours, we eventually landed just after 5:00am Sunday morning. I just wish we could afford to fly like this every time we do long haul. After meeting up with the APT rep we made the 30 minute drive to the hotel where not surprisingly at 6:15 in the morning no rooms were ready. We were prepared for this and had planned a tour on foot around some of the local sites. The only problem we encountered was nothing was open at 7:00 on a Sunday morning so it was just a case of doing some walking and getting our bearings.
Our first port of call was the Saigon Skydeck at the Bitexco Financial Tower were from the 49th floor we were able to get a great view of the city and pick out the locations of places we wanted to check out.
Today’s hit list included the Opera House, City Hall, Central Post Office and the Notre Dame Cathedral of Saigon.
They are building a new metro system which has resulted in lots of hoarding all over the city, this made some of the photo opportunities a little awkward but I managed okay in the end.
We were told that rooms might be ready from 11:00 so we headed back at 11:30 only to be told that they still weren’t ready. So a spot of lunch and a couple of cold beers helped pass some time. Eventually just after 2:00 we were given our room key, the wait was worth it. The room is amazing, spacious and really well furnished, not to forget the bath either. It’s just a shame we only have 2 nights here.
We are going out for a welcome meal tonight and I do wonder how we are going to cope given the long days we have all had.