Brothers & sisters…., very early in the morning me and my whole family headed to the Jakarta international by taxi. Yes, it is a holiday season and we’re going to Ho Chi Minh city or formerly called Saigon. This is our first visit to Vietnam, so everyone is excited. We arrived at the airport 2 hours before our departure. After check-in and done with immigration, we looked for something to eat and drink just to fill up our stomach while waiting for departure. It was too early for breakfast but we didn’t want to fly with empty stomach either, so very light breakfast would be perfect.

After waiting for a while finally the boarding call. I had pre-booked the seats so we all can sit in the same row. Nothing to do in during the flight but to sleep. We did not have enough sleep last night so this is the time to repay our sleeping time. Our flight stopped at Kuala Lumpur, we had to get off the plane and wait for 2.5 hours for the next flight to Ho Chi Minh city. Now is the perfect time to have breakfast. I had noodles soup and a bottle of mineral water, simple breakfast but more than enough for me.

breakfast at Kuala Lumpur International Airport

Our two and a half hours passed and we were in the plane again heading to Ho Chi Minh international airport. The weather was great to fly and we landed safely at Tan Son Nhat International airport. After a brief immigration process and collected our luggage we headed out to find Mr. Du who will be our tour guide during our visit. There he is holding a piece of paper with my name on it. He is still young, a Vietnamese who speaks Indonesian very well. He attended a university in Jember, which is my home town, there he learned Indonesian language. He asked us to call him Wahyu (an Indonesian name), so be it we call him Wahyu from now on.

Since there was plenty of time Wahyu suggested we go directly to visit Notre-Dame cathedral, Post Office museum and take photos wearing Vietnamese dress at SKYhub Global lounge . These places are close to each other. We agreed, after all there is nothing to do for us for the rest of the afternoon.

Notre-Dame Bacilica of Saigon

taking photo accros the street of Notre-Dame Basilica of Saigon

Our first visit is Notre-Dame Basilica of Saigon. This Cathedral was built in 1863 by French government during French occupation in Vietnam. Then it was re-built in 1877-1880 and it still stand until today. I was told that all materials for this Cathedral were brought directly from French.

just four of us in front of Notre-Dame Basilica of Saigon

Right across the street is a huge Saigon Central Post Office. This post office was built during 1886 – 1891. A very nice and great building from the old days.

In front of Central Post Office Saigon

Next we went to book stores along side the road next to the Central post office. We did not buy anything just looked around if there is any interesting book to buy. Unfortunately there is none, so we just walked through and enjoy the scene.

Our last visit for today is SKYhub Global Lounge. Here we took some photos wearing traditional Vietnamese cloth. Very interesting for me, the only traditional cloth I ever wear is Javanese, I don’t remember of wearing any other traditional cloth.

Wearing Vietnamese tradional cloth

Me and my family wearing Vietnamese traditional cloth

With that we concluded our first day, we then headed to the Renaissance hotel where we are staying during our visit.