Dining on the River

Our last night in Hoi An was spent in a restaurant overlooking the river that flows through the town. It had the most amazing desserts and that was the number one reason for choosing the place - Fred had the last say on this!

Vietnamese wine is not some of the best we have tasted so it was a pleasure to find a place that served foreign wines.


This morning we had an early flight to Ho Chi Minh City which was formerly called Saigon, even though the locals are hesitant to change the name.

We are staying in the heart of the city very near the market. We spent the day arranging tours to Cu Chi Tunnels and the Mekong Delta. We do the tunnels tomorrow and then on the 20th we leave for two days on the delta.

Vietnamese beer is excellent, but sometimes we would like a glass of wine (see above statement) so today we set out to buy a bottle. That was an experience in itself! Wine stores are relatively hard to find in this country so we decided to test the local knowledge.

We stopped at the market to ask a shopkeeper if they knew where we could buy wine. What a mistake....they told us to wait one minute - we did and eventually were presented with a bottle of local wine. Not what we were looking for, but we kept our options open. She wanted 480,000 Dong and we felt good bargaining her down to 200,000 Dong.

All was well and good until we were close to the hotel and we finally found a wine store and they had our wine for 60,000 Dong! Talk about losing your glow! Plus the wine is almost undrinkable, even with hours letting it air. Love it!!!