Welcome to Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam

Xin Chào (hello) and welcome to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam! We arrived in the most populated city in Vietnam last night. The lights as we descended, as well as during our ride through the city, were spectacular. Ho Chi Minh City is still commonly known as Saigon, but was renamed Ho Chi Minh after a war hero of North Veitnam in 1976. The city has a population of 14 million, with fifty percent actively practicing the teachings of Buddhism. The residents are highly reliant on motorbikes, which was very evident during the Grab ride to our Airbnb.

I love the first glimpse we get of a city when we arrive, so I was a little bummed not to see it during the day. It was fun waking up this morning though and not knowing what we would find!

Our Current Home Away From Home

Our condo is on the 9th floor of a 30 story building. There are eight identical buildings in this complex, each with various restaurants, cafes, and stores on the first floor. There will be no shortage of delicious food to try! This place feels like we are living in luxury after Manila. The condo is almost three times bigger and the kids have their own bedrooms. We are all excited about spreading out! The ant situation is giving us flashbacks to Costa Rica (tiny yellow ants in the kitchen), but we’ll get it under control.

The kids both wanted the room with the spectacular view of the skyline and Temple. Braxton has it for now, but they may switch halfway through the month. The other windows and balcony have a variety of residential and commercial buildings to look at. Alexis and I love all the unique houses!

 There’s also a glimpse of the Siagon River (Sông Sài Gòn) and we can see boats going by constantly. The river is Ho Chi Minh City’s main water supply and host of the Saigon Port. This port is used for both commercial and passenger purposes.

Finally Exhaling in Vietnam

The first day in a new place is always a lot. We need to unpack and get our bearings. Everyone is pretty exhausted after traveling and adjusting to a new space can feel hard. Today however, felt more like we could finally breathe. There was still all the work that a new place involves, but it all felt a little easier this time around. We are back to using Google translate when grocery shopping, but we’ve encountered several people already that speak very good English. Dave and I have both tried out our Vietnamese skills. So far all we’ve said is “thank you”, but even that feels a little intimidating. New languages are hard!

We ate at a Vietnamese restaurant just below our condo building for lunch and it was delicious! We all tried something new and everyone loved it. The cost was great too, at a total of 304,000 Vietnamese dong, which converts to a little less than $12 USD. This will be the weirdest conversion so far to get used to with 1 USD ~ 26,000 VND. The dishes were a little spicy, but in the best way. We were all excited to get back to using chopsticks again!

As we were eating we all agreed our first impressions of Vietnam are extremely positive. In the afternoon everyone enjoyed some time to ourselves as we spread out around the condo. We had our traditional family movie night while trying out local snacks. I can’t wait to see what adventures we have as we explore this new country!