Vietnam Vacay 2008, Day 1

Cám ơn! This translates to "Thank you" in Vietnamese. First of all, I'd like to thank my family for an awesome, awesome time in HCMC. This was our first ever out of the country trip with all of us complete. Although we didn't really get to sample the bustling night life (I'm sure Macky will scowl at this sentence), it was good just seeing the sights, enjoying the view, shopping, and taking HCMC in.

Anyway, here are our trip highlights...

Day 1 - This trip came to be because of the Low Fare promo rates of Cebupacificair.com (free plugging!). Just to happened that we were also looking for something worthwhile to do for my Dad's 58th Birthday. We initially planned to go to Hanoi (in Northern Vietnam), but CebuPac cancelled all their flights to Hanoi, so we opted for Saigon instead.

Anyway, being a budget airline flight and all, we had the red-eye flight, scheduled to depart from Manila at 11pm, Friday evening. I still managed to work until 6:30pm! We were pretty excited because this was our first time at Terminal 3. And it's pretty!




Happy for the Seattle's Best kiosk close to the gate. This terminal is brimming with so much potential. I hope it gets utilized more soon.



The flight left on time (Yey!) but I could hardly sleep. The crew announced the food for sale, and I was intrigued by the hot chocolate for P80 a cup. So I gave in and tried it. It's actually good! Haha.




One of my favorite parts of any trip... Seeing the stamp on my passport. Haha.



We arrived in HCMC just in time. Their airport resembled Terminal 3. We had some money changed and we contracted a van to take us to our hotel. Our observations of HCMC when we arrived? It felt a lot like the Philippines, minus the tall buildings and the cars. The streets were relatively quiet and clean!



We were all pretty tired and excited to hit the sack.