Holiday and business trip to Saigon
We were in Saigon for a five-day trip in March 2000, where Jari had three meetings until Saturday. So most of the time Sini enjoyed the hotel's food and Jari sat at the desks. Luckily, we got almost two days to ourselves.
We had a great time at the swimming pool, although we also had to be careful of the sunlight. The pool was really nice, although there was also some traffic noise. We also had a good view of the pool from our room, as we were in the second highest apartment on the top floor.
The pool was also full of service and we had octopus rings (at least Jari) and other things suitable for a small appetite. The hotel's room service was also quite good. So, all in all, the opposite of our own apartment in Hanoi (that is, Somerset West Lake at the time).
The photo series also includes two nice photos of Sin, as Jari managed to sneak to the other end of the pool with a camera while Sin was swimming. And when he caught Sin's attention, Sin was really a bit out of it and when I watched the video afterwards, it got a kind of paparazzi-like atmosphere. Which of course here turned into a happy expression instead of an angry one.
There were also Aurinkomatkat tourists in the hotel, some of whom we met, including at the Swiss-German Bavaria restaurant near the hotel.
We had eaten delicious Fondue in the same restaurant on our previous trip less than a year ago, but we didn't dare try it again, because
Sini's problems started the next day with prolonged constipation. But the steaks were delicious too.
The hotel was nice, with large marble columns in the lobby, and an Indonesian orchestra played every night in the Lobby Bar, whose guitarist immediately connected me to Finland's Jari Litman.
Our room was a junior suite, with its own entrance at the end of the corridor. And the interior was really nice, a living room, a bedroom and a decent bathroom.
We suffered a bit from the undersized air conditioning in the living room, which got too hot during the day. The hotel had four top floors of executive level, and we had our own reception and breakfast service.
And every evening there were free drinks there for three hours. And I can believe that they never visited them.
The last pictures show the return, which this time was an hour
late. However, they knew about the delay
in advance and Jari's secretary
announced the change early in the morning and we were able to move
our departure to the airport accordingly.
In the last picture, to the left of the soldier, you can see our driver Thang, whose cheerful appearance always welcomes travelers home. In Hanoi, the recipient normally has to wait outside and the suitcases are always checked, i.e. out just by showing the luggage tags. That it doesn't happen like Jari did in Finland, when he brought a stranger's bag all the way to Lappeenranta.
← Back to the Viet Nam pictures homepage