After arriving with the train at 11:30am, my brothers and I directly went to our hostel. Konrad met up with a friend and Karol and I explored the city. I was on a mission to find a shop that can fix my sandals, I wanted to try the famous egg coffee and check out an art supply shop. Other than that, Karol wanted to see some old buildings and if we are lucky, we would see the train passing through tiny cafés. Actually - in the morning - we WERE the train passing through the tiny cafés. We saw many people standing and taking pictures.
Back to my mission:
- The sandal shop was tiny and he offered a good price but I wasn‘t completely sure so I decided to check out some other places later and maybe come back.
- The egg coffee was amazing. It felt more like a dessert, the consistency was thick but interesting. I really liked it. And the recommended café (that exists for over 50 years now) was in a small dark alley between big cafés. Easy to go unnoticed. And easy to be skeptical about walking through it.
- And the art supply shop simply didn‘t exist. But next to it there was a huge market with so much fresh food. And also fresh sea food. And turtles…again…
Karol and I were very lucky. Just 2min before the train would pass the cafés, we arrived there and could take a seat. Apparently a train only passes by like 3x a day. And we stayed at the café for maybe 3h, relaxed and painted.
At 5pm Konrad joined us and we went to see the Ho-Chin-Minh Mausoleum. It was a huge area and the building looked very dramatic as it was lit up in red and there was a huge flat grass area in front of it. To walk through the area we had to pass a security check. I had shorts and the guard suggested to use a jacket to cover my knees. Unfortunately Karol wasn‘t able to pass through because he had binoculars with him and the guard looked very sorry. He seemed like he really wanted to make it possible that we could walk there. So, Karol went around the park and we met up on the other side.
Walking back to the hostel, we got some baguettes with egg. First only 2, and then another one, and another one and another one. They were really really good. The best ones!