Cambodia & Vietnam - February 2019 part 8

day 10
this day is all about the places i missed seeing the earlier day.
first place to go to is the central post office. now you might be wondering why a post office. below is the post office. this has become a very popular tourist attraction for tourists because they get to send home past cards of their visit to vietnam.

 this is the inside of the post office.

right next to the post office is the notre dame cathedral. it is now under renovation.

 next place to visit is the independence museum also known as Reunification Palace. It was the home and workplace of the President of South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. It was the site of the end of the Vietnam War during the Fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975, when a North Vietnamese army tank crashed through its gates.

the next series of pics show the inside of the palace.

 a theater inside the palace

 there is a bunker inside the palace in war situation. the entrance is from the top floor and once we enter inside we have no idea how the layout of the bunker is but end up coming out of the building from the back side after looking through different rooms and control room that were there. below are those pics

 a shooting range nside the bunker

back side exit of the palace

after this it becomes too much of history, so end up doing shopping at the ben thanh market, the most popular market for the city

next to visit is the up market area called nguyen hu. this is the long road laid with tiles with a fountain in the centre of it. the timings for the fountain is not known, hence can be seen only if you are lucky. on either side of this road are upmarket restaurants cafes business buildings etc

 a statue of ho chi minh is kept at the end of the road

the tallest building on the right side is the bitexco tower which hold the heineken experience on the 60th floor.

back to the hostel, it was valentine's day, so it got a little active at the hostel. people were playing beer pong

 had a walk to the walking street called bui vien where all the pubs and discos are.

 back to the hostel beer pong was still on.

 a raffle was conducted and i won the first round and the prize was 2 beers and two chocolates

that was the end to my last day in vietnam.

i returned to phnom penh the next day. and two days later i returned back to chennai.

it was a very new experience for me travelling outside of india. letting go was very difficult for me before this trip even for small things but this trip taught me how easy it was to travel alone and let go of things and just be able to go with the flow without stressing too much about schedules and plans.