Today we docked at Phu My which is the port for Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).
Let me start out and say this is a commercial port where you just can’t get off the ship and go ashore. You have to take a shuttle bus to the entrance to the port. The next thing there is nothing at the entrance except taxi cabs. A word of warning here, it is about a 2 hour drive each way to/from Saigon. I will say this anything you have seen on TV about the driving in Vietnam is nothing compared to really being there. I would call it a very craftily orchestra on wheels.
So the plan was to see what there was to see from the Taxi Drivers. We sent the pit bull Claudia in for this task. After trying to haggle a price she was told we would need 2 cars. Her persistence paid off and we had a Van for 8 of us. There was originally only 7 of us but a ships photographer was also trying to find a deal so we invited him along to make the 8. The price Claudia negotiated was $220 USD for the day to Saigon. It would include several stops along the way with the driver waiting for us.
The first stop was a Temple in Thein Vien Thuong Chieu which when you drove in had this very nice Arch with the temple behind it. We had roughly 1 hour here to see the Temple. You walked up the stairs to the entrance and removed your shoes and headed in. Once walking in there was a big Gold Budda greeting you. The floors were marble and various kinds of wood were well carved. Walking through this temple was a second Temple with another Budda with large vases on each side of him.
Enterance
Then continuing on there was a third Temple with 3 wooden carved Budda statues.
From here it was walk around the outside to see many more buildings and what appeared to be a residence for the Monks.
Notice how they get smaller as we change Temples
From here it was a interesting drive into Saigon. Once arriving in Saigon we were dropped at the Main Post Office which is a very unique design when you walk inside. Across the Street is the Norte-Dame Cathedral Basilica of Saigon, which funny enough is still under restoration completely covered in scaffold. I was last here about 7 years ago and they were just starting this project.
bikes everywhere
Post Office
The “old” phone booths
inside the Post Office
inside the Post Office
From here it was a walk down through Union Square and Parkson Saigon Tourist Plaza which has the Saigon Symphony building. Then a walk to City Hall. From here is was a stop at Viacom Center to find some food.
Louis Vuitton
Bitexco Tower- That is a Garden off the one side
Saigon City Hall
That is a park on the building
Ballet/Symphony Building
Walking around we soon found some Vietnamese where we stopped in and ordered some great dishes and drinks. Now word of warning here, if your order shrimp rolls in rice paper be prepared to the shrimp cooked but intact with shell, tail etc.
While sitting there our Vietnamese Pancake took a little longer to cook so we had the waiter call our driver to let him know we would be 15 later than our planned 2:00 PM pick-up. No problem we heard back.
Well we arrived back a the pick-up point to find the other 3 we were going to meet not there. After 10 minutes we soon found ourselves in a bit of a pickle to say the least. We tried to call our driver on the What’s App with no success. There were 3 little taxis sitting there who tried to help us also with no success and now we were getting worried. What happened to our 3 friends, where’s our driver? Soon another bus from the ship stopped by and the guide was of no help. Can’t get on his bus back to the ship because we were not part of his tour. He told us to get to work right away to get back to the ship because yesterday several people missed the ship.
A little more worrying and trying then the big problem was trying to find out exactly where the ship was docked at as Phu My is a huge port and just saying Phu My doesn’t get you back to the ship.
A call to the Port Agent really didn’t help either.
One of our group had a copy of the Contract and went into the Post Office to Tourist Information and success was had with the company getting in touch with the driver. We finally got picked up at 3:00PM and the other 3 were in the van. The driver waited until 2:10PM and left to go back to the ship despite them saying there were 5 more to come.
This was when we all realized the first big mistake was not having a driver that could not speak or understand any English.
You also have to understand that we had a crew member with us who had to be back by 5:00 PM. We pulled into the shuttle bus area at 4:50 PM and all was good.
There was a Senior Officer by the gangway who asked us how things went. Well I said do you really want to know? He said yes of course I do. I explained things to him with the preface that we all knew the risks BUT stopping a Princess Tour asking for help and no help could be had was not cool despite seats available to take us back. He took our cabin number and would look into it as he was a bit shocked this happened.
The next thing I kick myself for is not making my GPS with a ships location on the map. When I Geocache and leave the car one of the first things I was taught is mark your starting point. This is the first blunder of the day I made.
So the lesson of the day is mark the location of the ship and find a driver who either speaks English or understands it. Google translate does work, but is not always correct.
Overall the day was a success in what we got to see and experience. The cost for the Van for 7 hours was $200 USD. The ship wanted $100 USD PP to take you to Saigon and drop you off and be on your own. So our cost for the day was $30 PP plus food which was $28 for 5 of us.
Overall we had the much better deal and saved a ton of money.