My Exchange Semester in Taiwan: Week 20: Ho Chi Minh City (19.1

After the semester I had planned to stay two weeks longer in Asia to do some traveling. In the first place I was not really sure where to go but at the end I decided to go to Vietnam. The flights were not the cheapest ones but Vietnam was one of the places where I wanted to go and so I thought that this would be a good opportunity to go there.

I flew to Ho Chi Minh City on Monday morning the 19^th January. The temperatures in Taipei were around 16 degrees and when I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City at midday the temperatures were in the range of 30 degrees. So I went back to summer from the Taiwanese winter.
In Ho Chi Minh City I did some sightseeing on Monday and Tuesday. I visited the Bitexco Financial Tower viewing platform (entrance costs 200’000 VND = 9.4$) the view from there was quite good. And then I visited the most interesting buildings. The traffic in this city was sometimes crazy, there are many motorbikes and when crossing the streets it was necessary to keep an eye to the things what happens in front and back of you. Usually the motorbikes just passed you but the cars were sometimes a little bit dangerous. But I got almost hit by a motorbike twice. Apart from the traffic I liked the city, it has not so many things to do and the most interesting places are quite close to each other so it was possible to walk from one place to another. Or if you don’t like walking you can take motorbike taxis which are waiting for you at almost every corner.

On Wednesday I did a half day tour to the Cu Chi Tunnels (located 1.5h bus ride outside of Ho Chi Minh City), this are the tunnels which were used by the Vietnamese soldiers during the war. It is possible to walk through a 90 meters long tunnel, I did the first 40 meters and then I left. For me it was a little bit small and I didn’t like it that much. Otherwise there the tour guide showed all the different traps which were used during that time. I thought the tour was pretty ok if you have one day too much in Ho Chi Minh City and don’t know what to do but they were not that special that I would say that everybody needs to go there.

One thing that I found a little bit annoying in Vietnam was that there were so many people who tried to sell you something or offering motorbike rides and most of the time the prices they asked for were really expensive. So you have to try to make a price with them for everything or you end up with paying way too much.