Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

While spending almost a week in the Go Vap District we had ventured to District 1 a few times for dinner but hadn’t done much exploring. That was all about to change as we moved 10km into the heart of the action, where a familiar face from home was waiting for us – Karen’s mam Helen! We were spoiled rotten as Helen put us up in the fabulous Elios Hotel and showered us with tea bags, biscuits, magazines, face creams and all kinds of lovely stuff!

We only had a day in District 1 but we were determined to see all of it. So after a breakfast on the rooftop overlooking the city (told you it was a fancy hotel!) we set out our mission:

12 Hours in Ho Chi Minh City

10am: Cyclo Tour

What better way to get a whistle stop tour of the city than on a cyclo, a three-wheel bicycle taxi (that kind of makes you feel like a baby in a buggy). We were nabbed by 3 cyclo drivers outside our hotel and bartered a deal for a tour. We explored pagodas and temples, sheltered from a rain shower in a tiny local cafe and got to see loads of the city and the people who call it home. If traffic seemed scary before, it was nothing compared to going around a roundabout in a rickshaw!

11.30am: War Remnants Museum

Any tour of HCMC must include a stop at the War Remnants Museum. The war is such a huge part of Vietnam’s history but it doesn’t feel like “history” when you are there, it’s like the wounds are still fresh. The museum itself is wholly impressive even if its contents are hard to take at times with graphic photographs and harrowing stories from survivors. The stories about Agent Orange really hit a nerve for me, having met children in the orphanage in the days before who are still suffering from its effects.

12.45pm: Got ripped off by Cyclo Drivers

Despite being very clear when agreeing a price with our charming Cyclo Drivers at the start, they insisted that the price they gave us was for 1 hour and we had been gone for almost 3. There was no arguing with them. Our blood was boiling but they knew they had us because we had a tour to catch at 1 and had no time to lose, so they wouldn’t drop us back until we paid them. Lots of people told us about similar scams they fell for but it was the first time we had been caught out in over 4 months travelling - and we were ragin’!

1pm: Cu Chi Tunnels Tour

You can book tours to Cu Chi Tunnels everywhere but we got lucky with An Tours (on Pham Ngu Lao Street) because our guide, Tong, was the best you could ask for. Tong was 68 years old and had fought in the war from start to finish. He showed us a huge scar on his arm where he had been shot and forced to live underground for over 3 months while he recovered. His stories were honest and terrifying.

After crawling through one of the tiny tunnels I asked him if the soldiers ever panicked down there. He said they were constantly terrified, they never knew when they were going to die and to keep on fighting was their only hope. I found it fascinating that he remembered the noises of the different types of bombs and guns and could mimic them so clearly, but it makes sense when you realise that they fought in darkness and could only hear their attackers.

He may have been 68 but there was plenty of life left in Tong! He spent the day telling stories, singing songs and filling us in on his antic with his much younger wife and his 6 year old son! I think he was actually a bit mad, but it suited him.

The tunnels are quite far from the city and the bus takes over 2 hours, plus it stops at a craft workshop for at least half an hour. You can choose to do a tour earlier in the morning or do a longer tour that includes more stops.

8pm AO Show / Opera House

After being dropped back to the city, getting slightly lost and horsing down some noodles, we found the Opera House just in time to take our seats for the AO Show. (We had bought our tickets earlier in the War Remnants Museum as they are much cheaper to buy there. It’s worth it to pay extra for better seats or you could end up watching a wall).

The AO Show is like Cirque De Soleil with a very Vietnamese twist as the acrobats use only bamboo sticks and baskets and traditional Vietnamese music. There was music, there was dancing, there was people flinging themselves all over the place – I loved it!

9pm Ben Thanh Market

I’m not sure how Helen wasn’t dead on her feet at this stage, but we still had some energy left for a wander around Ben Thanh Market on Le Loi Street. It was surprisingly a lot tamer than markets we had been to in Indonesia but nice for a stroll and some great street food. Same rules apply though: don’t make eye contact or you’ll buy a handbag!

10pm Elios Hotel

When we returned to the hotel we stood at our huge window overlooking the city in our fancy robes with a cup of Barry’s tea and gave ourselves a pat on the back - not too bad for 12 hours in Saigon!

Next Stop: Hoi An, Vietnam 

Go Vap Orphanage, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

If there is one thing we are used to in Ireland, its rain. But even 26 years of conditioning couldn’t prepare us for the heavens that opened as we arrived in Ho Chi Minh City. It is rain like you see in movies, rain that floods streets in minutes and soaks you to the bone in seconds. Also, unlike Irish rain that comes at you sideways in icy stabs, Vietnamese rain is warm!

In fairness, the rain is biblical and the thunder and lightning storms are literally electric, but they only last for an hour or two and the rest of the days are quite lovely... once you acclimatise to the humidity. 

This is Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, in October, coming into the end of its wet season.

While most backpackers head straight to District 1 (while making jokes about the Hunger Games), Karen and I took a detour and were set for a very different experience in the Go Vap District. A Vietnamese friend of ours had kindly arranged for us do some volunteer work at Go Vap Orphanage. He also provided us with some invaluable information for arriving to Ho Chi Minh City – only use Vinasun and Mai Linh taxies as others will rip you off, and for godsake be careful crossing the road!

Even still, nothing can prepare you for the traffic. Apparently there are 37 million motorbikes in Vietnam but in HCMC alone it felt like there was more. They are everywhere, going in every direction and more than likely carrying something they shouldn’t be. I have seen entire generations of families on one moped, a man driving while holding a door, another man driving holding a windscreen and countless women driving with tiny babies on their laps – nothing surprises anymore.

Thankfully we arrived to Go Vap in one piece and stayed in Hon En Hotel close to the orphanage, which is cheap, run by a lovely family and just what we needed for a few days.

It sounds dramatic to say, but the next few days genuinely changed my life. We spent just under a week working with the amazing carers in Go Vap Orphanage who look after 280 children. The majority of these children have special needs, while the rest are perfectly healthy little babies and toddlers. All of them are equally capable of stealing your heart.

When we first arrived we met the inspirational lady who runs the orphanage and were taken to the Baby Room. It is lined with cots and there are, as you would expect, babies everywhere. However, there was no crying and no chaos and the place was spotless.

After lunch and a nap (which happened everyday while the kids all slept) a lovely American volunteer named Sarah showed us around the rest of the orphanage. I don’t feel it fitting to go into details but suffice to say that some of the wards were hard to see. I can’t commend the carers and volunteers enough who spend their days with some very sick children.

Karen and I were assigned to divide our time between the babies and the toddlers. We started work at 8am wherever we were needed, usually helping to feed the babies and being there to give them a cuddle when they woke up.

Afternoons were mostly spent in the toddler room, entertaining a room full of tiny tots who were mad to play but craved nothing more than to sit on your knee and have your attention.

The older kids were always waiting for us to arrive to their floor, to take us by the hand and show us around. Or just to sit beside us and take some selfies!

It was extremely hard to leave Go Vap and the children behind. There are so many little faces and personalities that I will never forget, and one little girl in particular that broke my heart to leave behind. Seeing two little girls get adopted and meet their new families in the time we were there made it easier, as does knowing how well they are looked after. I cannot stress enough how kind and admirable the orphanage director and carers are. They treat the volunteers like family, and truly love the children they look after like mothers. It is an experience that will stay with us forever, and planted Vietnam warmly in our hearts.

I would wholeheartedly recommend volunteering in Asia as there are so many worthwhile causes. It somehow makes you feel closer to the place you are staying too as you get a sense of the people and the real culture, not just what the tourists see.

Unfortunately, I have heard some less than pleasant stories from other travelers who intended to volunteer in orphanages in Vietnam and Cambodia. Generally, you should never have to pay an orphanage to volunteer there and the only expense should be your food and accommodation. They should also be reluctant to let you volunteer there for just one day. As long as you make sure to research a project and the host before you sign up, volunteering will be a huge highlight of your travels.

Next Stop: District 1, Ho Chi Minh City

Ubud, Bali, Indonesia

Ubud is a place that worms its way into every one of your senses. It has its own tapestry of colours, its air is heavy with incense, and gongs and bells tinkle in every temple. 

As we drove through the town after being picked up from the ferry in Sanur, I finally felt like I was in Bali. This is what you read about and see in pictures, every inch of Ubud feels ornate and steeped in culture. Our driver dropped us off in the centre of town and told us it was a short walk to our accommodation. It was not a short walk (especially with a 20kg backpack) and when we arrived we were sure that we were in the wrong place – it was way too nice for what we were paying! 

Sania’s House Bungalows was a great find. It is a family run place in a very decadent Balinese setting. Everything you touched was beautiful, every detail down to the door handles. The staff couldn’t do enough to help and it was fascinating to watch the older ladies of the family make their daily offerings around the bungalows.

  

One of the first things we did in Ubud was seek out a traditional Balinese dance performance. We found a Legong and Barong show taking place at Ubud Kelod Community Hall (every Wednesday at 7.30pm, 75,000RP). Suffice to say that Community Halls where I come from do not look like this one! 

 

This performance was accompanied by Gamelan music, which is also unique to Bali and definitely like nothing you will have heard before. The stage was set as men in traditional dress sat on the floor and took up their positions at instruments that resemble drums, bells, gongs and xylophones. 

Then the dancers take to the stage to tell their stories and fulfil their rituals (most of Bali’s ancient dances are connected to Hindu rituals. Some dances worship ancestors, some dancers act as vessels for spirits, and some welcome and entertain visiting Gods). These girls dance all the way to their toes and fingertips and shifting eyes, it’s mesmerising to watch. 

The next morning, with bells still ringing in our ears, we rented bikes (25,000RP) and cycled to the Monkey Forest Sanctuary (30,000RP), home to over 600 long-tailed macaques. I’m not going to lie, I needed a lie down after this one! These monkeys are bold! As we were walking in, one monkey was banging on the roof of the toilets just to mess with people’s heads. Plus, if you have food on you they WILL find it and beat you up for it. But actually if I’m honest, if you don’t have anything of interest they really couldn’t care less about you and will leave you alone. Some of them fight with each other, some of them are happy out washing stones in a puddle and most of them are busy looking after their teeny tiny babies. It is a really nice forest for a walk around and it’s refreshing to see how much free reign the monkeys have there – but it’s definitely their turf!

Our next stop was a place we had been looking forward to for some weeks now, The Yoga Barn. The Yoga Barn does classes, workshops, retreats, detoxes, meditation... it’s impossible to leave there without feeling healthier! They also have a really sweet little cafe where you can relax with tea and all sorts of weird and wonderful natural foods. We booked a package for 3 classes (285,000RP) and chose to do Meditation, Intro to Yoga and Healing Yin Yoga over the following days. 

First up was meditation and our teacher was named Punnu, who has a very impressive but distracting beard. He was great and thought us all about our energy and chakras and what to expect from the meditation. Then we all sat in a circle and held hands while a woman chanted “1,2,1,2,1,2” and we were instructed to breathe in on 1 and out on 2. It sounds simple but she was going so fast that everyone got dizzy and felt like passing out after a few minutes, plus we all had dead legs and pins and needles in every extremity... but after some encouragement from Punnu (“don’t panic, it’s organic”), things seemed to settle down and everyone got really into it. The whole experience was very intense and it’s very hard to describe how you feel afterwards, but I definitely recommend giving it a go. Our other 2 classes were more about learning the basics of yoga, stretching and relaxation and were just what the doctor ordered after almost 4 months of travelling.

For our last day in Ubud we booked a tour with an operator called Jalan Jalan Wisata (“Kintamanu Volcano Tour”, 150,000RP). Our first stop was at the Elephant Cave, which despite its name is not home to a single elephant, but a cave there is. 

My favourite part was watching men building a new structure just using bamboo and string and balancing on a tiny frame as they did it.

We visited the Rocky Temple which is very beautiful but not one for the faint hearted (or the lazy) as there are thousands of steps to get to it,

And we made a stop at a coffee and spice plantation where they grow and roast their own coffee, spices and chocolate entirely by hand. 

The rest of the day was spent touring temples with picturesque gardens and ponds brimming with catfish, as well as rice paddies stretched out for miles. 

What really made the day fun was a school tour of local kids who happened to be doing most of the same stops as us. They were so happy to be let out for the day and loved practising their English with us and asking us for photos (on their smartphones!). But while we were in an air conditioned people carrier, they were having way more fun in their school bus:

Other Bits and Pieces: 

There are spas everywhere in Ubud. Some are good and some are not so good. There is one called “Bodyworks” which is supposed to be the business but you need to make an appointment there. Avoid “Magic Fingers”... I don’t want to talk about it!

All tour companies appear to do the same tours around Ubud, but ask for a group tour rather than a private car and it will be cheaper.

Pretty much every evening in Ubud we ate in a Warung right beside Sania’s House called Warung Lokal. It may be crawling with lizards but they have the best sweet and sour chicken in Indonesia and everything costs around 30,000RP.

Next Stop: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam