Day 47 of The Big Adventure, according to Parker.

 Alarms went at 9 am (mainly so we made brekkie which finished at 10!). I had had a rocky nights sleep, only getting to sleep about 7, excitement getting the better of me perhaps!!
Anyway, showered (which get amazing after being gross from 24 hours of travelling). Poor Saus had the shits so we left her in bed and went down for break. I opted for banana pancake whilst Freya and Lau opted for omelette. All delicious (although I think I won with the pancake choice!).

  

   

 We were planning to do a walking tour starting at 2 which i’d signed us up for whilst awake in the night so in the morning we decided to sort out booking our trip to the Mekong Delta and buses for the rest of our trip.

  
We went to a couple of travel agencies and found the best deal and booked – nice to have it sorted.
As a treat for booking I got one of the DELICIOUS fresh fruit shakes I had loved in Thailand and was so excited for! I opted for a mango one and introduced Freya to the delight. YUM.

  
We went back to check on Sarah before heading to the independence palace for the start of our tour. Once we’d eventually found a taxi driver who understood where we wanted to go (worrying) we made it there an hour early so headed for the air conditioned haven of the coffee bean and tea leaf for an iced fruit tea(/coffee for dawg). Refreshing although we could have been anywhere in the world !!

  

  

We got to the palace entrance for 1.50 to try and find our guide. We waited, and waited, and asked, and waited some more – no guide to be found 😦 So we decided we should admit defeat and go into the palace and look round and do a self guided tour as we had the route and Lauren had her Vietnamese sim 3G to guide us with. 

  
The palace was quite boring and understated really. 

  Not very grand at all, perhaps as built quite recently. We latched on to a group of Chinese people for a bit to listen to their guide but actually it wasn’t very interesting and we were not very conspicuous! 

  
Independence Palace ticked off, we headed to the cathedral (Notre Dame Basilica) – it wasn’t open but it was a grand building and according to the Internet we were lucky to see a wedding photo shoot outside. 

 
Next, the post office – a grand building designed by the man who had designed the Eiffel tour and the Empire State – arguable less impressive than these I thought!!

  

  

Next the opera house and the people’s committee hall (lots of gunmen outside!).

 A cheeky stop on Maccers for the toilet and mcfluz for Lau – a disappointing selection of just Oreo. The McDonalds was hilarious as they thought they were a restaurant so had people on the door and were advertising a live music night – LOL

  
We then went to our final stop, the Ben tanh market – a big market selling all the fake designer, elephant tat you could wish for!
From here we meandered back to the hostel. It was about 5 when we got back so we decided to chill for a big and then go and get our nails done! Such gourmet gals.

  
I had never had my nails shellaced and it was a much more painless experience than I expected with all the skin trimming, filing etc involved. The ladies were so sweet and it was soooo nice and relaxing, I could have fallen asleep! Of course Freya decided to get her toes done as well and she was a moron and kept smudging it and her lady was a perfectionist so we had to wait an hour after mine and Lau’s nails were done for Freya’s to be finished! To be fair I didn’t mind too much as the ambience was very relaxing and we weren’t in a rush!
We finally got back to the hostel and it was past 7 ie. FREE BEER O CLOCK! I’m not normally a big beer fan but when it is 38 degrees outside and the beer is ice cold it’s just Perf, so refreshing. 

 

We showered and freshened up for dins – we had found a place nearby very highly rated for Pho and we were all keen to try the local delicacy (bar Sarah and her sensitive tum…) so headed there.
Freya and I went for the highly rated beef balls pho, Lauren went for chicken and Sarah a bread roll. It was delicious!! But eating noodle soup with chop sticks was extremely challenging!

  
We went for a wonder along the road and given it was 10 already , all exhausted and we had our trip to Mekong leaving early the next day we decided to go to bed.
Great first day!