A Hot, Relaxing Day in Saigon

By Justin Hayes & Lauren Gerzina

Soup, Snails, & Cocktails

After yesterday’s 12+ hour adventure, we needed a day on the chiller side.

We woke up for breakfast and had some soup (of course). This morning was like a seafood Pho - still very good. We spent most of the morning relaxing, prepping yesterday’s blog post, and trying to figure out what to do in town. With our private tour from 2 days ago, we had hit all of the major land marks in town so we decided it would be fun to do a bit of shopping and eating!

We asked the concierge desk for some recommendations of nice souvenirs, and they provided some locations to buy pearls and crocodile leather (we ultimately did not buy either). We wandered around a bit in District 1, but it was blazing hot (the “feels like” temperature was 103!) so we tried to stick to places with A/C or fans.

We decided to grab lunch at a restaurant called The Secret Garden. It was, unsurprisingly, hidden in an alley way about 3 or 4 stories up a flight of very hot stairs. But the restaurant itself was very pretty and had plenty of fans. We ordered some grilled pork spring rolls, Vietnamese pancake with pork, and some snails with minced pork in a lemongrass broth (the Vietnamese like pork). Justin liked the snails, but it wasn’t Lauren’s favorite — she has received a bit of an overload on lemongrass and basil. We started looking up some other types of food to have at our next stop in Hoi An to change things up a bit. Turns out there’s a Mexican place there that actually looks pretty good.

Afterwards, we walked to the Saigon Central Post Office to grab some postcards, and then we headed back to the hotel. We let some storms pass and then headed up to the rooftop pool. It was a bit windy but Justin still took a quick dip while we enjoyed a tasty mocktail called The Green Mile with ginger ale, passionfruit juice and mint.

After a short rest in the room, we headed to Den Long - Home Cooked Vietnamese Restaurant for dinner. The reviews said that the restaurant was mostly for tourists, and they were right — most people there were not locals. However, they served many traditional Vietnamese dishes, and the cherry on top was that Justin found it because they had a gluten-free menu.

We ended the night at a cocktail bar called Qui Lounge. It was located in what appeared to be Japantown given the numerous Japanese restaurants and bars in the area. Although it wasn’t busy when we arrived, we could tell they were preparing for a Halloween party because all of the bartenders and servers were getting face paint and wearing blood-stained clothing. The cocktails were pretty good and the mocktails were way too sweet, but it was fun to hang out in a place with some Halloween vibes since we weren’t home for the holiday.

Thus concludes our stay in Ho Chi Minh City as we’re off to Hội An next!