We would be staying here by ourselves with no translator. Which worked out well since the city is where the most people speak enough English to converse. This is also where many of the colleges are located and many of their students wander the city looking for foreigners, mostly Australians, to practice their English. In Vietnam knowing English equals a better paying job.
We stayed in District 7, which is one of the safer areas of town and we were blessed enough to find a hotel right across the street from a park. This allowed the boys to get out some energy and surprisingly enough there was even a splash pad there. It also made for a great meeting place for Mitchell to meet with some contacts we had in Ho Chi Minh.
We spent our days here in meetings, walking and playing in the park and wandering the streets to get a feel for the people. Vietnamese are very friendly and will openingly come up to you and start speaking. In one restaurant the waitress actually picked Isaiah up and walked around with him.
Ho Chi Minh was also a chance for us to eat some comfort food. We had pizza, burgers and even Mexican food. Were they as good as back home? Did some of the recipes get lost in translation? No comment. But I do have to say I was pretty impressed by their attempts using what they can get here.
Our last day in Vietnam, Mitchell's aunt took us to a nice grocery store so we could see what items we would be able to purchase there. I was pleasantly surprised by what we could get and the price of the items. Most of them were about the same as America which is very expensive for here. Probably not going to be buying maple syrup here since it ran $12-$15 dollars!
Here are some photos from our stay in Ho Chi Minh City:
