#oh and apparently zara home left our country too?

[vole-mon-amour]

I miss Ikea in my city, I miss Ikea in my city, I miss Ikea in my city, I kiss ikea in my city, I mi— 😭😭😭

Their bed sheets, bed linen, all of their stuuuffff. Somebody eliminate P*tin, I am begging.

[warehousestevesworld]

28.8-1.9.18

Ho Chi Minh City!!

Sooo, this was to be our final destination in South East Asia before jetting off to New Zealand...for now anyway. We’d both got to the point where instead of enjoying the places we were in, we were just rushing through them, not fully appreciating where we were. This was just down to travelers fatigue, being constantly on the move and having no routine...which for some parts was good, especially in the beginning but as we made our way through the different cities it all just started to feel the same and lost it’s appeal and we knew that we should look at slowing the pace down a little and finding that routine, that happy medium. I for one had started to get really frustrated with the culture side of things, as good as it is for the most part, it just started to wear on me, the hustle and bustle, the intense traffic, the market sellers in your face every two seconds, i’d just had enough. Oh and the small matter of the humidity, I was just sick to death of sweating..HAD ENOUGH. 

But before we said goodbye to this country and this part of the world we had to try and do this place some justice. It was just as busy as the busiest places we’d been, just as stressful, and BIG. We not only had to contend with the scooters as usual on the roads, the sound of their horns blasting every 2 seconds but here we also had to deal with them on the pavements!! They would just weave in and out of you as you walked, not a care in the world, pedestrians didn’t exist as far as these drivers were concerned. We’d decided to just try and see some of the main sights, but not push for too much more, and to just enjoy the final few days before escaping into the relative peace of Auckland in the next few days. 

As usual we tried to find our share of coffee places to get our daily fix and it definitely didn’t disappoint, they were everywhere. One place in particular which was a favourite of mine was the chain Trung Nguyen which were all over the place. They did a special ginger coffee which I couldn’t get enough of, really small but the taste...special indeed. 

Coffee shops were in abundance but we couldn’t find any decent street style restaurants, we seemed to come across more traditional sit down ‘Proper’ restaurants which we didn’t want really as we were already thinking about New Zealand and saving. However, we came across an Asian style fast food restaurant called Com Tho Chay which we basically called our ‘Local’ the food was really good, and so cheap...so why go elsewhere? A great find. 

As far as the sightseeing went for Ho Chi Minh, we didn’t do a great deal. We had looked up a few places which we were going to try and make but in a strange way, neither of us were too bothered. The cities main Post Office building was quite impressive and we spend a little time in there posting some cards back home and admiring the building itself. We also came across a large shopping mall which came as a refreshing change to the local culture, it had the usual suspects in there, HM, Zara etc etc, and so we spent a fair chunk of time in here trying to pick up some cheaper clothes before moving on to NZ. After we’d spent long enough in the shopping centre we walked on in search of some food! As usual we were struggling to find anywhere and eventually settled on this rather expensive looking spot above a Christian Louboutin shop, which should have told us all we needed to know really, but we or should I say I was starving. We sat down and looked at the menu and instantly realised it was miles out of our price range. Having already ordered our drinks, we decided to just order some tiny soup between the two of us and try get out as fast as possible. 

Once we’d escaped from the robbing restaurant we picked up some cheap wraps from a street kiosk and headed to the city square where there was apparently a really big and important football game being shown. There had been people handing out Vietnamese flags, clothing, banners, basically anything with the national flag on as it was the Vietnamese national day on the 2nd of September which was 4 days from now. We got to the square and it was absolutely packed with red shirts and Vietnamese flags flying. There were many huge tv screens lined up along the square showing what we found to be the Semi final of the Asia Cup between themselves and South Korea. There was a real party atmosphere all around and I was keen to stay and watch the game unlike Ria. She only stayed to watch because they were giving out free bottles of Coke, and anyone who knows Ria will know that she would never turn this down. A huge storm blew through the square at one point but no one really moved...until the heavens opened and unleashed an almighty downpour upon everyone. We all ran into nearby shops and sheltered there until the storm eventually eased off. It had damaged some of the screens so that part of the picture was missing, but this still didn't dampen the spirits of the local fans. Vietnam ended up losing the game 3-1 but the fans seemed to have enjoyed every second and were proud of their teams efforts. 

After this we called at the night market, had a couple of drinks, and left for our hotel. 

The rest of our time here was here was spent just like the first day, coffee, drinks, food and walking around the city. 

We felt ready to leave South East Asia for now, and looked forward to our New Zealand adventure!