Bill and I at the Majestic Hotel Ho Chi Minh City

Dancers at hotel

This is called the fan dance

Menu I tried it all except for the rice pancakes

my special spring rolls minus crabmeat

Dessert the fruit was great

David and Collen singing in the Ave. Saloon it was a hoot

Ho Chi Minh City Formaly Saigon

Sunday March 4, 2012

We docked in Vietnam around 10:30 am today.  We took a shuttle into town.  We were on a quest to find this cigar store so Bill could buy some cigars.  We were dropped off by the famous Rex hotel which was where all the American Servicement and Journalist came during the war.  There was a mall and we went in.  Nothing bigger than a size 10 shoe (Bill’s a 12)  didn’t even look at the women’s clothes.  We then set off with map in had for the cigar / restaurant the Concigere found for us.  It was not in the nicer part of town and Bill kept saying this place smells..........  So after he got his cigars we started to walk back to the shuttle but stopped by a hotel instead and took a cab.  It was $10 american money not bad.  These people are terrible drivers.  The motorcycles don’t stop for red lights.  I was told you just keep walking and they work around you.  Anyway we made it back to the pier and they wouldn’t let the taxi in.  He told us it would cost $2.  so we gave him the $2 and waited. Finally a shuttle van came and we were told to get in that.  So Bill asked for his $2 back.  Most people don’t speak English and they don’t like Americans just our money.  We headed back to the ship had lunch and relaxed until it was time to go on our “Saigon by Night”

We headed down outside where there is a market set up and James said they were using vans.  He put us in the first van and it filled quickly and off it went  We had cocktails in the rooftop bar at what use to be the Rex hotel but is now the Majestic.  They put on a lovely show of dancing and music and it was much better than Indonesia where theu only knew two notes and kept repeating them all the time.

After our cocktails we came out ad got into vans and they drove us all around the city which is really pretty at night and we went to a restaurant for dinner.  It was called Manderine and I tried almost all of the dishes.  I am going to post the menu.  I eve used chop sticks!!!!!!!!  It was a great  time.  We were back to the ship at 10ish and were met by Augusto our head waiter who told us he missed us at dinner.  We then headed to the Avenue Saloon to meet up with Carol and Harold.  It was a hoping place.  David was there and I got Collin to play Happy Birthday and everyone in the place sang   it was fun but all good things must come to an end.  Bill went for his cigar, Harold has golf at 7am and we have a 7 1/2 hour tour tomorrow so I came up to work on this blog.

Tomorrow we are doing a Ho Chi Minh Discovery and I just noticed that it includes a pedicab so that should be fun.  More to follow tomorrow or nor.  We have to meet ouir friends in the Ave saloon tomorrow as they are going on the evenign in Saigon tomorrow.  

Another wonderful day.............

Going to bed have a great day