I don‘t know how much I like Ho Chi Minh City. The contrast between the poor districts and skyscrapers was intense. And the thousands motorcycles and traffic was a lot to take in.

The hostel room we stayed in, was in a very rural area. The hostel owner slept on the floor downstairs. He and his wife were the kindest people. On the streets there were many shops. Each shop selling something very specific. Office chairs. Washing machines. Wooden cabinets. It was nearly impossible to walk on the pavement because of it. But every night, every shop takes everything inside and closes like a garage. And the next morning, they have to put everything outside again.

What got me the most were the animals in cages. I saw multiple places with bird cages…and so many birds in one cage. And no space. Sometimes dogs or cats in cages. And one time a stall had water turtles in plastic cups. Each turtle in one. Half in water. And their head and front legs looking out of the cup. My heart felt like a stone.

And then there are the skyscrapers. The whole area close to the famous landmark 81 (the highest building in South East Asia) looked very clean and modern with park areas, outside pools for the apartments, elegant restaurants. And we saw one very pink catholic church.

We went up the landmark 81, but bc we didn‘t want to pay the 30€ a person (not exactly sure how much it would have been), we found out that if we go into some hotel entrance and ask about the sky lounge bar, we would be able to go to the 76th floor. And it worked!! The view was insane. Completely breathtaking. There was also a tiny outside bit. We took a seat and I ordered some incredible vanilla ice-cream filled with a maracuja-passionfruit-bit-surrounded-by-thin-dark-chocolate-which-made-it-look-like-a-coconut- dessert. And some matcha mocktail with vanilla which had a very strange taste.

Ooooh and of course I picked up my brothers from the airport. It was 1am and I got some desperate sandwiches on the way for them since nearly everything was closed. One baguette that I got from a very local stall for like 10ct was filled with something…not exactly sure what but mostly soja sauce. It was…very good for 10ct!

The next day in Ho-Chin-Minh together was very fun. I found a really pretty hand-made sketchbook. And we got some postcards inside an iconic old post office. We went up the landmark 81. And just everything we did. We laughed a lot. And then got the plane at 10pm to DaNang.