So we flew from Da Nang to Ho-Chi-Minh City, also known as Saigon. We were here from 28.04. to 01.05. Since we started with a little delay, we were under time pressure.
On Sunday evening, finally (from Jeff's point of view 🤩), a football match ⚽️ took place! Sai Gon FC and SHB Da Nang faced each other. The best football weather with a warm 30 degrees promised a football feast. Due to the flight delay, we missed about 10 minutes and the 1-0 for the Sai Gon FC 🤬 On the way to the stadium, we wondered why none of the many signposts asked for an entrance fee. Nobody came during the game either, so we watched it completely free of charge. Finally, the game started. The home team immediately pressed on for the 2-0, but did not play its attacks purposefully enough. The strong striker Pedro Paulo was repeatedly sought after. After Da Nang - led by German midfielder Dominik Schmitt - surprisingly scored the 1-1, a lively back and forth ensued. The game went into the locker room with a 1-1 draw. After the half-time break, there was a lot of patchwork for a long time. It became clear that the Sai Gon FC wanted the win more and deservedly took the lead in the 80th minute. Completely logically, the best man Pedro Paulo 🇧🇷 scored his second goal for the final score of 3-1. Unfortunately, Jeff did not get his desired jersey, as the fan shop had already closed.
We were hungry after the match, so we walked through the center of Saigon and accidentally came to Bui Vien Street, which totally amazed us. Loud music echoed from every bar outside: from deep Techno to Vietnamese folklore. Some bars had live bands, opposite the electronic basses were pounding. Everyone wants to win you over to their bar. On Saturdays and Sundays, it is a pedestrian zone only, which made it more tolerable. All in all, this is probably the craziest street in Vietnam! We took a walk through the city on the second day after getting up. In a park on the way to Reunification Palace, we experienced an orchid festival. A true delight for plant fans 🌺🌹🌷🌸💐🌼🌻 We did some sports for a short time... We only admired Reunification Palace from the outside. Notre-Dame was not far from here either. The Vietnamese have it wrapped up as a precaution 🤪😅 In the city where everything is possible in terms of culinary delights, Jeff remembered his home and checked if there might be a German restaurant. Around the corner from Notre-Dame, there is the restaurant "Brotzeit". After more than 4 weeks, the cheese and ham sandwich and the wheat beer tasted great - absolutely fantastic 😃🤩 On April 30th, the day of reunification finally arrived. We quickly changed the hostel and then took a rickshaw ride. We had definitely planned for that. Unfortunately, it turned out to be the worst experience of our trip. We asked about the price for an hour through the city. They quoted us 150,000 Dong (about 6 euros). We visited few spectacular places during the ride... After about 45 minutes, we returned to the starting point. The drivers asked us to stand in front of a gate to avoid the sun, and suddenly demanded 1,500,000 Dong - that's 60 euros per person. One of them suddenly held up a card where this price was also written. He had apparently forgotten about the 150,000...😡 Completely stunned, we paid the price. Both drivers disappeared in a flash and our day was ruined. We were hoping for some kind of parade for the reunification later, but when we arrived at the palace in the afternoon, it was already over. It matched the day 😅 We didn't really warm up to Saigon, not only because of the bad experience with the rickshaws. Too big, too much hustle and bustle - considering that we were on a small, simple island just a few days earlier. In Saigon, they definitely know about electricity 😜
