Today we toured some of the HCMC sites. The map available from the front desk of the Somerset is actually pretty good. My little walk with Loan yesterday from the Consulate to the Market had given me some perspective of how small an area the centre of District 1 is. So I took a cab (with Trinh of course) to the Reunification Palace to start our tour at about 10am. What a place! Turns out there was a Vietnamese traditional music concert at 11am. We had just enough time to view the many rooms of the Palace before the concert. 3 talented musicians demonstrated many traditional instruments to a very small crowd. They must get tour groups occassionally to make their concerts, 4x each day, viable. Trinh sat up and paid attention and it was quite enjoyable (and air conditioned!). Afterwards we were able to buy some of the smaller instruments, mostly percussion type, for probably escalated amounts. I am a bit of a sucker for this kind of thing, and given the small turnout and low fee for the concert felt obliged to buy a few items. The kids should like them!

We went from the Palace to have lunch at a restaurant Loan recommended and that I had read about on C's blog: 'nha hang ngon' at 160 Pasteur, very close to the Palace. The best way I can describe it is as the Marche of Vietnamese restaurants. Around the perimeter of the open air restaurant are different stations where the food is prepared. Main difference is you order from a menu and your server goes to the stations to get your food. Added bonus...this is the first place in Vietnam I have found the washroom had adequate diaper changing facilities. I had a green mango salad, beef bbq with a salty/spicy dip and for dessert the coconut icecream in a coconut (very yummy and I don't even like coconut that much).

Next we wandered over to the Old Post Office and then Notre Dame Cathedral. There were some interesting souvenirs in the post office, some of the usual but enough different to be worth the trip. Some neat stamp sets for collecting...cheap. The Cathedral was closed so we may try that again another day. Outside the Cathedral I was approached by a cycle driver who spoke good English and convinced me to take the ride back to the hotel (120,000 dong or $6 vs the 40,000 or $2 it would be for a taxi). It was SO COOL! Faster than a taxi and really fun to be in the mix of the traffic. And no, I didn't feel we were in any danger...but it was 2 in the afternoon so not too busy.

GOt back to the hotel in time to go over to the tourist shop that is next to the hotel that my parents liked so much when we were here in 2007. It is as I remembered. Nothing in particular I wanted though.

By this point Trinh was ready for a proper nap. She woke up at 4:30, we went for a swim. Got cleaned up and went down for supper. I thought Trinh would be awake for a bit due to the late nap but I was wrong. Ended up having dinner sent up for me and got Trinh to bed by 8pm.

In paperwork news Arn is having to go back to the passport office as they refused to fax his form to the number we required and insisted on sending it to the number they had on file instead. Hopefully now that he has an email from the officer in charge of our case specifying the fax number they will oblige.