Holiday in Ho Chi Minh City (Day 2)

We started Day 2 with a quick breakfast of beef noodles (again!) at Pho 24. I really enjoyed the noodles this time - squeezed in 2 slices of lime, added cut chillies and some basil leaves. Yummy!

Then, it was off to our first stop for the day - Ben Thanh Market. It's basically a huge indoor market selling all types of goods, kind of like Chatucak market in Bangkok.

Exterior of Ben Thanh Market

Shops in the Market

Need to really bargain hard in the market! Lot's of stuff available. We didn't really had anything particular in mind to buy, but ended up with lots of kids clothes.

Some of our loot -

Polo Shirts for Elyssa

Pretty Dresses for Elyssa

Little dresses for Baby

I absolutely loved what we bought! Loved them so much that we went back the next day to buy more!

Had our lunch at one of the stalls in the market -

Seafood and chicken noodles
It was nice until I saw a baby cockroach at the table area - that affected my appetite!

Photo of the food stall

After lunch we shopped around a little more, then walked to a nearby ice-cream shop (the previous night, we saw that the shop was packed with customers)

Coconut Ice-cream and Avocado Shake @ Bach Dang

Ordered the coconut ice-cream cos I saw that most of the customers had this on their table the previous night. Ok lar..... nice but I'm not really a fan of coconut ice-cream. I enjoyed digging the coconut flesh more than the ice-cream itself! The avocado shake was nice and refreshing.

While waiting for our ice-cream, hubby took a photo of this electric pole with loads of cable running through. Looks pretty scary! Very common sight in the city.


After the ice-cream break, we walked back to our hotel to get some rest.

Hotel - for this trip, we redeemed our Marriott Vacation Club points for 4 nights stay at the Renaissance Riverside Hotel Saigon. A comfortable 5 star hotel but the absolute best part was its central location in District 1. We could walk to most of the city attractions (only took a cab on Day 3 to visit Chinatown) and I liked the flexibility of walking back to the hotel to take an afternoon nap and a nice shower before venturing out again in the evening :)

Hotel room @ Renaissance Riverside

After resting, we were all ready to go out again. Just couldn't resist letting Elyssa wear her new dress. Nice eh?

Elyssa at the hotel lobby

It was only 5+ pm, but we were hungry so decided to take an early dinner at a nearby restaurant that was recommended in our Lonely Planet guidebook.

Lemongrass Restaurant (Nguyen Thiep Street)

Grilled pork with noodles

This was soooo good!

Part of hubby's set meal
Prawn cakes, stewed pork in claypot, pork ribs, lemongrass seafood soup etc

After our early dinner, we walked over to the Tax Department Store. (no idea why it's called that - reminds me of our Inland Revenue!) We ended up spending almost 2 hours in the supermarket there! Wanted to just stock up on mineral water and Vietnamese coffee as souveniers but saw that the clothes were really cheap. Fixed price so we knew we won't be paying cut throat prices.

Hubby bought an elaborate dragon silk shirt for CNY. I bought some silk nighties AND I just couldn't resist buying more of the cute little dresses -

5 little dresses

And yup...... I went back the next day to buy more ;)

Shopping can be a tiring affair! We walked around a bit after then we started looking for food again. :)
Randomly walked into Sen Hue Restaurant serving Hue cuisine and again this turned out to be a fantastic decision.

Appetizer - steamed rice rolls, yam balls and prawn & pork cakes

This was absolutely YUMMY!!!

Spicy Black Fish Noodles

Superb!

Yummy Fried Spring Rolls

Yam Dessert

Exterior of Sen Hue Restaurant (Nguyun Hue Blvd)
Our bill was approx RM40. Very reasonable

Lots of good buys. Lots of good food. Yup, we were happy indeed at the end of Day 2 :)

-End of Day 2-