We took the Philippine Airlines flight from Manila to Ho Chi Minh and arrived in Vietnam on December 25, 2005. We had no reservations at any hotel (which made the anal obsessive-compulsive nerd in me go bananas), having decided to just play it by ear and hopefully find a nice hotel to spend Christmas night in. I was, however, already having nightmares about knocking at each hotel and being turned away at every place we tried and having to spend the night in some manger or in our case, some drafty old parking lot.
The first hotel we checked was The Grand hotel, which was already fully booked except for the really expensive suites that we weren't quite willing to splurge on. So Fritz went hunting around some more and we ended up in a spacious, old-fashioned suite at the Riverside Hotel with a gorgeous view of the Saigon River.
After unpacking a bit, we immediately started off exploring the city, and it was certainly a beautiful city to explore. We had already been warned about the thousandsof motos that we would encounter, but nothing anyone could have told us could have prepared us for the actual sight of a moto-to-moto traffic jam. We made our way to the city center and checked out the Continental where we asked if they still had available rooms. Turns out they did, so we made reservations there for the next night.
We spent the rest of the evening walking around the city and sampling the cuisine (including the bia, of course).
Funky noodle house. I can't get over the fact that the neon sign is as big as the front of the shop! I thought it made for a great photo-op.
