Friday 19 July

32C Warm - Cloudy and showers (wet season)

I feel it necessary to add one extra day as we spent 13 hours in Ho Chi Minh City and enjoyed it very much. With our Business Class tickets we had the option to take a hotel for the day which included a city tour. The hotel is about 45 mins from the airport in peek traffic which we had both ways into and out of the city.

After a 2 hour rest we were picked up at the hotel by a tour guide and car and taken on a 2.5 hr tour. We visited Notre Dame Cathedral, Jade Emperor Pagoda and the outside of the Reunification Palace. We then spent about and hour at the War Remnants Museum which was very interesting but also very sad to see the photographs of torture and the effects of Agent Orange on the Vietnamese People and their children. This is a very large and busy city with 10 million inhabitants. Our guide was excellent and told us many personal stories about her own family and we were given an insight into Vietnamese government and the people of Vietnam.

After the tour we returned to our hotel for a couple of hours before being taken back to the airport for our flight home.