TRIP TO HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM - PREPARATION

I went to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam for 6 days and 5 nights, it was a #stuccoemtrip, I was doing a trip with my office team. We left Indonesia at 29^th of April 2019, we flew in the morning from CGK airport, landed in KLIA for transit, and then we arrived at the final destination in Tan Son Nat Airport, HCMC. Why Ho Chi Minh or Vietnam? In the first time we discussed about the trip, either Bangkok-Thailand or Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), I was interested to vote HCMC as our destination. For me, Vietnam would be unique country to visit and for being my first country to visit. Moreover, I often found many videos about travelling in Bangkok on youtube, but I could not imagine being a tourist in HCMC.

As a muslim, before I went to Vietnam I did a small research about the country, especially about the food. We have known that muslim is a minority in Vietnam, I assumed that found a halal food was a little bit challenging. A browsing with 'halal' as a keyword on google maps would be helpful, moreover we could adjusted it with a location where we stayed. The maps would showed that there are many restaurants or food stalls which sell halal food. Another tips is packing some snacks that we could ate when we craved for the food yet we couldn't found any halal food. Yes, because it was a group trip, we (I with a friend who a muslim too) had to adjust our needs to the others, including about the halal food.

In term of money, I did some research about exchanging IDR to VND. Some articles suggested that bringing USD then exchange it to VND as soon as we landed in Vietnam is better than we do the exchange in Indonesia. The other way is that we could make the withdrawal through the ATM in Vietnam local bank, Vetcomm Bank would be recommended because it has used 6 digits pin like in Indonesia, some others are only accessible with 4 digits pin. I thought by bringing cash which is in USD was easier and not so risky so 1-day before I went to Jakarta for staying near by the airport, I did the exchange from IDR to USD. I decided to bring USD 50 for the 'light' transaction, such as buying foods, etc (all I am saying is not including the accomodation). I also prepared amount of money in VISA card, so whenever I found a store that can use VISA for the the payment, I would prefer to use it, fyi Jenius account would be helpful, I had proved it. I prefered not to make a withdrawal from the local ATM because the minimal amount in one withdrawal is quite big, it should be around 500,000 - 1,000,000 VND.

view from the balcony

first day, first night

29th of April 2019, 2 pm, we arrived and we were ready to explore Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The next question is about the itinerary, where we stay, what we did. Meet in the next. xx