So anyway, as we had to transit in KLIA and take a connecting flight to HCMC, we were all up in the wee hours of the morning (4.30 am to be exact) as our flight from Penang Airport to KLIA was at 7 am.
We arrived at HCMC at around 10 am local time and there was a bus chartered to take us from the airport to our hotel. The firm put us up at Sheraton Saigon Hotel & Towers, not as fancy as the Four Seasons in Bangkok but still pretty nice. The location of the hotel was really good, as it was right in the middle of town, and just down the road within walking distance was the Saigon Opera House, Notre Dame Cathedral, Central Post Office, not to mention a fancy shopping mall (Vincom Center) and all designer shops lining the streets.
After checking in, we took a stroll down the road to look for some lunch and took some pictures along the way. The Saigon Opera House was just nearby and we even saw some of the performers in costume walking around outside.
HCMC is surprisingly advanced, and the architecture of many of their buildings are really nice, as you can see from the background.
LV!
We had to head back to our hotel for training after that.
After the training, we got ready for dinner hosted by our Vietnamese colleagues at this restaurant called Hoa Tuc. All the food was very good, and quite authentic Vietnamese.
One dish in particular was quite interesting for me. It was a vegetable flower, stir fry with garlic. In Vietnam, it's called "thien ly".
Later on, we headed up to our hotel bar and restaurant on the 23rd floor to get a drink and to catch the view. I was pretty full so I didn't have anything, but the guys tried the local beer - Saigon beer. The view was pretty nice too, and we could get a glimpse of where our HCMC office was located - the Bitexco Financial Tower (the tall one lighted up).
The whole of Friday was packed with training, but our other colleagues arrived about lunch time, so we all had lunch together at this French restaurant near our hotel. The food was really good, but we learned a lesson that we should always ask them to split the bills, otherwise calculating the figures would be a real headache. (RM1 is equivalent to about 6,500 Vietnam Dong)
In the evening, we had our Gala Dinner, where there were prizes for the best performances (every branch and regional office) had to do a performance. In the end, the prizes were won by the Myanmar/Singapore combined performance in first place, KL office in second place and HCMC in third place. The KL performance was simply hilarious and they deserved their USD1,000 win. First place won USD1,500 and third place won USD500.
The theme of our dinner was "Starry, starry night", so everyone was mostly dressed in black.
The hotel also decorated the ballroom according to the theme, and it was so pretty.
On the far right and far left are two of our Vietnamese colleagues who were such wonderful hosts.
There was no "after party" for us as we were just too exhausted, so we slept until the next morning. Also, we wanted to get up early and enjoy breakfast at the hotel. The breakfast spread was very good, and they had really excellent pho. Most of us ate it every morning. I'm not much of a beef eater, but this was really too good to pass up.
After breakfast, it was time for the "Amazing Race"! We had heard that the first prize would be USD2000 so it was good incentive for us to participate. The teams were mixed up from different offices so it was a good chance for us to get to know one another. As part of our strategy, we had hired a driver to take us from place to place (apparently it only cost RM80) and we were later glad that we did, hearing some other teams' horror stories on taxi drivers.
What I liked best about the race, however, was that since we had so little time for sightseeing, in the 2 hours of the race, we covered almost all the sightseeing spots in HCMC. First stop for us was the Saigon River, and then we needed to take a photo with a "cyclo" (some sort of trishaw) in front of Ben Tanh market.
Along the way, I also managed to snap pictures of the Notre Dame Cathedral, Central Post Office, War Remnants Museum, Reunification Palace, and HCMC City Hall. Pictures below are in order as listed.
After a two hour exhilirating race, we made it back to the hotel in good time and waited for the other teams to arrive. When they announced the results, we won first place! It was great team work and we had an excellent team leader. We divided the prize money among us, and we had a special surprise for our driver who was still waiting downstairs for us. We gave him the good news and he was really genuinely happy for us, and then our team leader presented him with USD100. I think he must have been pretty shocked as in Vietnam, that may well have been more than his monthly salary. He had proved a tremendous help however, as he had even given us answers to the questions and also called up his friends to ask for the answers. Others even joked that he was the 10th member of our team, so we felt that he indeed deserved to share our prize with us.
Finally, after all the training and activities, we had the whole afternoon to ourselves without any programme lined up. We had lunch at a little Italian place near our hotel, Ciao Bella and after all that running around, we were super hungry. It cost 210,000 Dong for a 3 course meal (around USD10) which was really worth the money.
The firm had organised a tour to Cu Chi Tunnels but we were glad we didn't go (I tend to be claustrophobic) so that we could have more free time. We walked around, had a good rest and headed out for dinner to a little Japanese restaurant. So in total we had sampled Vietnamese, French, Italian and Japanese cuisine in HCMC and all of them were really good!
The next morning, after breakfast, it was time to head home. I had chosen to take the early flight so I could be home in time to celebrate Hannah's birthday with her as it was her actual birthday.
Bye bye HCMC, but I hope to be back sometime in the future! :)
