This is my last post on our trip to Ho Chi Minh City. It was the highlight of our trip – visiting the Bitexco Financial Tower.

It’s one of those buildings that you can see from everywhere you stand in the city centre.

I thought it looked magnificent from far. And when someone told me that we can go up and see the view of Ho Chi Minh City from its deck at the 49th floor, I was there in a flash. I’m a sucker for views!

It was gorgeous even from below. Very futuristic. This is the Vietnam I had expected to see. The vintage, old-fashioned lifestyle of the Vietnamese wasn’t what I had expected at all.

It was a commercial building, so the only place for visitors was the viewing deck. Right below that disc that stuck out of the building. That disc was actually a helicopter pad.

The view was spectacular. We could see the CBD, Saigon river and far beyond. It was a 360° view.

Built in October 2010, the Bitexco Financial Tower is the tallest building in Ho Chi Minh City. It has 68 floors above ground level and has more than 16 elevators that can reach any floor in the building within 45 seconds.

We discovered that they had just constructed a restaurant at the viewing deck. It was going to be opened end March 2012, but they were opened for drinks when we were there. This was the grand finale of our trip, so I had a glass of wine and we sat in the comfy air-conditioned restaurant and enjoyed the view.

Mom is an iPhone addict. You can see where I get my genes from. Heh heh.

If I ever return to Ho Chi Minh City, I would definitely come here again.

Each ticket to the viewing deck of the Bitexco Financial Tower costs VND200,000 (~SGD12).

Have a great weekend!
 

I’m not a big fan of led tours. But I have to say that when it’s non-peak season, and just Mom and I and a nice big car and own personal tour guide, it’s pretty cool. Especially when the guide barely spoke English and we couldn’t understand each other. His attempts at small talk with us eventually died down to peace and quiet for 3 hours in a nice air-conditioned comfortable car enroute to the Mekong River.

Here we are at the Mekong River. Our guide helps Mom into the boat. Yeap, Dad would not have been happy to see this. Our tour guide looked like a tourist himself. And he had a cheeky demeanor that came across as a little ham sup overly eager.

The Mekong River reminded me of the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok. It was lined with houses and businesses, filled with muddy waters and occupied by numerous boats. There was also a floating market.

The Mekong was no small river. It’s the 12th longest river in the world and runs approximately 4,350km across Vietnam, Thailand, China, Laos, Cambodia and Burma.

Although we saw that there was plenty of transportation done on the river, I learnt (from Wikipedia, not the guide) that the water flow is very seasonal and varies alot, causing lots of waterfalls and rapids to develop. This makes it hard for navigation in the river.

If the people truly did struggle with navigation, we didn’t feel it at all. We were going at a good steady speed along the river.

Our boat was driven by a lady! She may look soft and gentle, but she was pretty tough handling a large boat!

It was like a private tour for us on the boat. Just Mom and I.

Except that when we peered over the boat, there were people swimming and bathing in the water. Duh! The water looked so dirty and smelly!

Well, I guess it wasn’t that private after all. Haha..

Part of this tour including a Vietnamese lunch along the river. And we were brought to this quaint little restaurant called Mai Quoc Nam.

There was only one other (ang moh) couple in the restaurant with another tour. So we had practically the whole restaurant to ourselves. Mom was really skeptical about the food when it arrived. And the other couple looked like they were going to choose to starve as they stared at the fish head.

The food turned out to be yummy! We devoured the fish, while the ang moh couple stared at us. I don’t think they’ve ever eaten fish that wasn’t a fillet. Haha..

It was a pretty good day for us. We stopped by some of the villages along the river and did some shopping. The rest of it was a relaxing boat ride.

I do recommend the tour especially for non-Asians. There’s alot of traditional Vietnamese way of life, culture and artwork found along the way in the tour that would be fascinating for most visitors. There are tours with the options to hop from boat to boat, or to wear the traditional Vietnamese hat and ride a sampan, and some overnight options.
 

Every travel website on Ho Chi Minh city said the Cu Chi Tunnels was a must see. So Mom and I booked ourselves on a half day trip to visit the tunnels.

It turned out that we were the only customers for the day, so instead of a tour bus/van, a posh sedan came for us instead. We felt like royalty seated at the back. That was the only highlight of our tour.

Our guide turned out to be a middle aged Vietnamese man who spoke little English. We struggled trying to understand his commentary and he could barely understand us when we had questions. We finally gave up and just followed him everywhere he wanted to take us to, and depended on Google on my iPhone for the rest.

Cu Chi Tunnel was ridiculously commercial. I’m doubtful how much of what we saw was 100% original. This used to be the Viet Cong’s base in the 1968s when they fought the Americans. There were life size mannequin-dummy dolls to illustrate the lives of the soldiers in the war and booby traps demonstrations.

Tunnels were opened for visitors to climb into for an experience of life underground. And there was a live rifle firing range if visitors wanted to try shooting with some AK-47 machines.

We would have stayed here underground forever if we had a choice. The outside was SO hot that day! But it’s not comfortable at all to stay for more than a few minutes in the tunnels. It was not easy to maneuver through these tight spaces. It was pitch dark in there, except for our torch lights. We were panting by the time we completed a 40m journey.

Probably the most interesting feature for me was the rice paper making segment. See, I did say this place was completely commercialised.

A lady demonstrated how the Vietnamese rice paper that is used to make fresh spring rolls was made. There was a solution of finely ground rice and water. A thin layer was spread on to a flat surface to create a crepe-like piece.

A lid was placed over the sheet of rice paper to allow the paper to be “cooked”.

Then a rolling pin wrapped in a soft wet cloth was used to roll over the rice paper to lift it off the stove.

The sheet of paper was then gently lifted and then transferred to a cane panel.

Now I know why rice paper always have those lines on them. They are from the cane panel surface! The rice paper was then left in the sun for 24 hours to dry.

So much work goes into one piece of rice paper!

So yeah, go visit Cu Chi Tunnels if you have time to spare and don’t mind a 3 to 4 hours journey (to & fro). If you like commercial gimmicks, you will also like taking photos with a bomb blast crater or posing with rusty tankers and mannequin soldiers. No judgement here because I do quite alot of weird and silly things every day too.

Just remember to slap on your sunscreen and mosquito spray! I was badly feasted on by the mozzies on the tunnel grounds. That was definitely a mood killer!

A good way to see Cu Chi Tunnel with a tour is to combine it with the Mekong River tour. We did a full day Mekong Visit and it was great. More later..
 

My cousin, whom I posted about earlier here, finally got married.

Weddings are so stressful. So much preparation goes into one single day. It’s no wonder even the bride with the best temperament turns into a bridezilla on her big day.

Removing the veil because it was time to change into the Chinese traditional kua outfit after less than 3 hours in this beautiful wedding dress. Photo credit: ♪Clarice’s

For the Chinese, it’s extra torturing because there are so many Chinese traditional customs to abide by. First of all, there’s the golden hour. The groom must receive the bride at an auspicious hour for good luck. In our case, our day began at 5am. Which meant I woke up at 4am to dress in white (which meant I scrambled the day before to find a white dress) and put on make up to cover my panda eyes, and knocked down some Red Bull to keep those eyelids up.

But this was the effort I would make for a very special cousin, V. She was the first kid to be born at the time I was getting to be old enough to appreciate little kids. Her arrival was like sunshine pouring into our lives. Her sheer presence lighted up every room. She had the widest, roundest eyes and the cheekiest grin.

All of a sudden, she’s a grown up!

It was a beautiful day and all the bridesmaids were decked in white. Everyone looked beautiful. But I had a silly giant camera in my hand. And I carried a large camera bag on my shoulders instead of an elegant hand clutch bag. The woes of a DSLR user – see again Why you should NOT buy a DSLR.

Stealing shots throughout the day. Photo credit: ♪Clarice’s

Yes, the groom had Eason Chan hair. Gotta admire his guts!

It was a huge wedding as hundreds of friends and family came to give the couple their wishes. In true Chinese fashion, the parents invited everyone they knew to the wedding. In a traditional Chinese wedding, the bride and groom are usually strangers to at least half the people at their own wedding.

Our boy was my plus one, since the hubby couldn’t get away from work. This, by the way, is a good face to him. Duh.

And yes, I’m doing a crazy fashion breakthrough and wearing bright red lipstick. It’s MAC’s Russian Red and I am loving it!