Nirva and I decided go on a 3 day trip to Ho Chi Minh city, aka Saigon in Vietnam. The whole thing came about because Nirva had a business trip planned to Saigon and we thought that it would be best to extend the stay and make it into a holiday as well. So Nirva flew on business to HCM city on 1st April and I joined her on the evening of the 4th. My plane landed at the Tan Son Nhut airport at about 5pm and by the time I cleared immigration and collected my baggage, it was around 5:30pm. I got a prepaid taxi from the airport to drop me at our hotel (New World Hotel) which costed me 12 USD.
During this taxi ride, I got my first taste of Saigon. I was absolutely amazed at the traffic - it was chaotic and crowded. And the number of 2 wheelers just blew away my mind. All I could see on the road were people on scooters or motorcycles at every inch (even on the pavement). And I was surprised by the number of women riders - I was positive that I saw more women riding the 2 wheelers than men. And the traffic was a crawl at certain places - on one of the long stretch of roads towards the hotel, my taxi would barely move for 15 second before coming to a halt for 4 minutes. This pattern repeated for at least 10-15 times on that road and I was wondering if I would reach my hotel by that night. Finally, at about 7pm I arrived at the New World Hotel, with Nirva waiting for me at the entrance with a worried look.
The hotel looked good and so did the room. We chatted for a while before we decided to head out for dinner. Nirva had found this nice restaurant about 5 minutes from the hotel that served amazing vegetarian dishes at crazily cheap prices. After a quick freshening up, we walked to the restaurant while trying to cross roads amongst heavy and chaotic traffic. The vehicles would just come at us from any direction. I was kind of transported back into India where I was used to such traffic patterns. But despite the chaotic and undirectional traffic, the people seemed nice - no one seemed to unnecessarily raise tempers at the pedestrians or fellow riders for cutting lanes and crossing roads. So after an adventurous 5 minute walk, we were at the restaurant - Bi & Bee Saigon.
And boy did it live up to Nirva's word. The food was really excellent - and it was really cheap. We ordered vegetable tempura for starters, crispy fried noodle with vegetables and a mixed vegetable braised claypot for main course. And we ordered a couple of cocunuts to have the coconut water. The portions were huge! And it was such a gastronomic affair - the braised claypot dish was especially tasty with its own spices. The chilli sauce that they had was yummy as well - we immediately decided that we will buy a bottle of that chilli sauce from the local supermarket to take back home. And all of this came to only 8 USD. I couldn't believe that we hogged such tasty food for just 8 USD. Needless to say we left as very satisfied customers and decided to come back for more meals while we were in HCM city.
After dinner, we decided to go to the famous night market - about 15 minutes walk on the other side of the hotel. 
The market had an interesting array of roadside shops selling all kinds of paraphernalia imaginable - there were pirated Prada, Gucci and other branded bags, clothes, soft toys, wooden show pieces, purses, decorative items, shoes and what not. We went to several differnet shops and Nirva bought a nice handbag for 10 USD. We made a mental note to buy in the following days many of the things we saw as gifts for our friends and relatives. We wanted to check out the day market as well before making our purchases because it was supposed to offer a better array of choices. Having spent about an hour at the market, we walked back to the hotel. I was tired of the flight and walking, so we decided to call it a night and start the real tour of Saigon from the next day onwards.
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