HAPPY HALLOWEEN! We had a low start to the day, finished cooking up our eggs and toast for breakfast and had a few coffees on the balcony before setting out. We first set off towards the Independence Palace or the Reunification Palace, depending who you ask. It was about a twenty minute walk. The palace is historically incredibly important as this is the place where the Vietnam/American War pretty much ended when two tanks from the Northern Army drove through the gates of the palace, and the last of the Southern Army fled. Entrance to this monument cost us 65,000 dong each, or about $3.60 Canadian. 

We toured the main building on our own, seeing various state rooms, reception halls, offices, private residences etc. My favourite part by far was the seemingly endless bunker tunnel network under the palace, where communications and operations were centred during the war. The bunkers looked untouched, like they stood frozen in time after the war, a 60’s and 70’s time capsule with rotary phones, radios, and maps, all in the colours of the era. The building itself was such an interesting mix of 60’s and 50’s modern architecture and traditional Vietnamese influences. It was really lovely and worth the visit for sure. 

We then checked out the tank and plane replicas on the grounds. They have a replica of the two tanks that stormed the gates on April 30th 1975 as well as a replica of the infiltrating pilot’s plane that successfully bombed the palace near the end of the war. 

We then crossed the road and had a beer at the little night market looking area that we had gone to to escape the rain the day before, as it was the hottest day we had had so far in Vietnam and we needed to escape the heat. Afterward we walked to a craft brewery called “Heart of Darkness” on our way to Little Japan. We ordered two craft beers, a lemongrass ale and an IPA. We also got food, Jives got vegetarian tacos and I got a falafel burger with fries. It was delicious! We kept making these little stops to try and avoid the rain, but the rain kept holding off. 

Next we explored Little Japan. Little Japan was a tiny neighbourhood of tiny alleyways off of the main road. It felt like we were in Japan. It was nice to be able to read and understand some signs and language as I don’t speak any Vietnamese. The area mainly consisted of bars and restaurants and a few “massage” places in between that do not seem very Japanese… A lot of shops were decorated for Halloween. We then walked to a brewery nearby, but it must have shut down, as we could not find it. 

We then walked back to our place to wait out the eventual rain. We sat on the balcony and enjoyed some snacks. Later in the evening we headed out to the pub street for one last Vietnamese dinner. We chose a little shop and sat outside. I ordered a curry with rice and Jive got Vietnamese pancakes (savoury). There were four sort of creepy British expat men at the table next to us being weird and yelling at ladies who came by to sell things (fans, bracelets). We also split some vegetarian spring rolls and a beer. The restaurants kept playing BTS songs, presumably just for me (I joke)!! We then walked to the actual pub street and sat at an aunties drink stall between two huge garish places, on little chairs at metal tables. The lady gave us peanuts and said to me “free!!” She was super cute. We headed back to our room pretty early as we had to pack and get to sleep early for our flight. 

We did see a few kids dressed for Halloween (one as a milk carton)! 

Nov 1

We woke up at 5am. We hadn’t been able to check into our flight, which proved problematic later… I set up “Grab” on my phone to call a cab to get us to the airport.. We definitely couldn’t flag down a cab on the street at 5am. I called a cab using the wifi at the airbnb and Jives waited on the street to flag it down. I stood on the balcony and he waved at me as the guy arrived. The drive to the airport took about 30 minutes, not too bad, and cost 300,000 dong which was pretty cheap, so we paid the guy the last of our Vietnamese Dong 400,000.

We figured out we were at the wrong airport pretty quickly… but thankfully we could walk to the international airport. We then waited in line to check in to our flight. Everyone had huge boxes to check as luggage, I have never seen that! One lady had four carts full of boxes to check in. We finally were able to check into the flight, but the guy that checked us in unchecked the “vegetarian” option as there “wasn’t enough time to prepare it” before the flight…. 

The flight left a little late, but our layover in Tokyo was long so that was ok. We had three seats to ourselves at the back of the plane. When the food came around they only had beef left,so I asked for the sides only, but they were frozen solid. In true Japanese hospitality style (it was an ANA flight) the flight attendants offered to cook us two special vegan curry dishes later on … and those were incredible!

In Japan we had to go through security again, but once we were through we found a place to buy a Shonan Jump (weekly manga magazine) and some strong zeros that we enjoyed while watching the prettiest sunset.

Our flight to Toronto was very delayed, and the wait was pretty brutal. We enjoyed some vegan ramen in the airport again, as we waited. The Air Canada portion of the flight was pretty shitty. Air Canada isn’t great. Two kids sat behind us and kicked our chairs for twelve hours straight (like teenage kids). We had out seat changed which sucked and we arrived three hours late which meant that my mom had to wait a long time to pick us up from the arrivals gate!