The City: Ho Chi Minh City was formerly known as Saigon when it was the capital of South Vietnam. Shortly after the reunification of Vietnam, the city was renamed Ho Chi Minh City. The term Saigon is still in widespread use today and typically refers to the downtown, or city center, area.
Trip Details: Peep needed to go to Ho Chi Minh City to work at a Travel and Tourism Exposition promoting the casinos being opened in Laos by her company. Since I had never been to Ho Chi Minh City, I accompanied her and toured the city while she was busy at the expo. Along with the two of us, a second employee of Peep's company, Phout, came to work the expo as well.
Getting There: We started our trip by going to the Vientiane airport to board our Vietnam Airlines flight to Ho Chi Minh City. We had one layover, in Phnom Phen, Cambodia, along the way. Upon arrival, we made our way to our hotel, where they had lost our reservation. After some confusion, we eventually got checked in and went to our rooms to check the free in-room wireless internet connection we were supposed to have. As it turned out, we were unable to connect in our rooms and had to go to a lobby area on our floor to get a good connection.
Getting Phone Cards: We left the hotel in search of the Post Office, where we were able to purchase SIM cards for our phones, allowing us to stay in touch with each other while in Vietnam.
Dinner: After making sure our phone cards worked properly, we set out in search of a place to eat dinner. There are many hotels and restaurants in the downtown area, so finding a place wasn't difficult, although deciding on one did take a little time. While looking for somewhere to eat we passed the Opera House, which is currently being restored. We finally decided on a place and had a satisfying dinner.
After dinner we headed back to our hotel for the night. When we entered the hotel, we were called over by the desk staff and told that Peep and I would have to change our room three times during our five night stay, and Phout would have to change rooms two times.
Searching for a New Hotel: We spent the evening scouring the internet and making calls searching for a new hotel. Most hotels offering rooms for a reasonable rate while still offering free internet access were booked full. We eventually decided to go to a slightly more expensive hotel the following morning to check on the rooms before retiring for the night.