Shelby's Travels

Too it easy this morning before my flight out of Da Nang. Read my book with a matcha while it rained!

Flew to Ho Chi Minh City, also known as Saigon.

Checked in at my hostel (my first hostel experience ever🫣)! Then walked around for a bit. It always takes a few hours to orient yourself and understand where you are compared to all the things you want to see and do.

Dinner! This market was kind of like the food area at Chelsea Market. That’s the best way to describe it.

Explored another market catered to tourists 🤪 called Ben Tanh Market. This one was a little different than the one in Da Nang. There are a lot of clothes, a lot of glass kitchen items, and coffee. Whereas the one is Da Nang especially has a lot of candy.

Needed to chill and kill some time so I went to grab a cocktail across the street from the market. the staff were very friendly! A guy from the UK, who now lives here, chatted with me for a bit while he smoked on the balcony. He got out a map and explained to me the different districts of the city in addition to things I should or shouldn’t do on the trip. It was a nice way to be welcomed to the city on my first night.

I ended up going back to the hostel and went to hangout on the roof, then find a group of people playing card games. I joined in a had some laughs. The group was heading to grab food then drinks afterwards, so I tagged along (I was happy to make friends😅).

I actually don’t think I’ve met any Americans on this trip yet. The people I met at the hostel are from Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Australia, and France.

Then OMG, there is this one street that is like a combination of Vegas + Bourbon Street + Red Light District and I’ve never seen anything like it! Lots of loud music and drinking and flashing lights and girls dancing. Check out the video below, but it doesn’t even fully capture it!

But we hung out on the side walk and had a couple drinks and chatted! But I know my limit and the kind of trip that I want to have… so at midnight, after 3 drinks for the whole evening, I went back to the hostel while the rest of them stayed out. It was a lot of fun but I want to get some sleep and not do anything crazy!

Anyways… lots of fun! We will see how this hostel thing goes. I bought some cheap shower flip flops and put in my noise cancelling ear buds for the night. 🤞Doing this for the sole purpose of making friends 😝