Vietnam: Milano Coffee & my First Instant Cup Noodles after 6 years

                                                    Day 2 of Ho Chi Minh Trip ^_^

Continue from last post...... After visiting Poshanu Cham Towers and a wrong trip back to guesthouse, we headed back to Phan Thiet City.

The driver dropped us at Lotte Mart when we reached Phan Thiet City because we had no idea what to see in Phan Thiet City. We never expect that we have time to explore this place. But well, exploring shopping mall seems like a good idea as the streets look pretty much the same as Ho Chi Minh city.

Lotte Mart is quite a small shopping mall, which has limited choice of restaurants. We were looking for food to fill up our tummy for dinner and at last we had Lotteria as dinner. Lotteria is a chain of fast-food restaurants that was founded in Japan and then expanded to Korea and other countries. Since it is something new to us, no harm trying although it is fast food. XD

Lotteria

I ordered a fish burger and potato shake. 

To me, it is nothing special as compared to other fast food restaurants.

While eating, I saw a cafe opposite Lotteria which looks pretty nice. Of course, I will not missed out the chance to try Vietnam coffee. The cafe looks pretty tempting and I requested to try it out after dinner. =) Grateful that my friends agreed to go with me! Thankful!

Milano Coffee! It looks so classy and they have different kind of seats for us to choose, which are mainly outdoor. Their tables are generally small and hence we have to bend our back while drinking. 

It is quite challenging to order coffee in Vietnam. Their coffees have different numbering, which I have no idea at all. After explanation, those are different coffee with different taste. Some are milder, some are strong. We asked the waiter to get more ideas on what to order. To play safe, I ordered Iced Milano Milk Coffee while my friend ordered Coffee No.3. 

Ta-daa! Here's my cup of coffee. 

In Vietnam, don't be too surprise if you order a cup of iced coffee and your cup is only half-filled. This is because the coffee is too rich and you need to wait for the ice to melt in order to get a cup of coffee with great taste. Need some patience.... =)

After our coffee tasting session at Milano Coffee, we went up to the mart to get some dried fruits as souvenirs. Then, we decided to head back to the guesthouse to pack. Surprisingly, the taxi driver that fetched us to Phan Thiet earlier of the day was still there waiting to drive us back. W-O-W. So, without needing another round of chicken-talking-to-duck kind of conversation to go back to the guesthouse, we decided to take the previous cab back. 

About 10.50pm, we checked out of the guesthouse and headed to The Sinh Tourist office at Mui Ne to wait for another sleeping bus to head back to Ho Chi Minh City. This time, we are all well prepared for the sleeping bus. For me, I cleaned up and wear my sleeping pant to get on board. XD As we need to go for Mekong River Tour 2 hours after we reach Ho Chi Minh, we have no time to check in to our AirBnB in Ho Chi Minh early in the morning. Hence, we packed our toothbrush, pants to change, any make-up material with us to be used in the morning to clean up at the office. We are all pro now. Haha.... 

Me in my comfy sleeping pants and top to be wear to Mekong River tour. 

XD

The bus reached Mui Ne office late! We were suppose to take the 1am bus, but it came around 1.40am. We were all worried that we missed the bus. Luckily it was just late. The whole journey from Mui Ne to Ho Chi Minh, I lost myself in my sweet dream. I have no idea what happened until it reached Ho Chi Minh at 5.30am. Deep sleeper. 

Then, the view in front of me made me stunned for a minute. The office opens at 6.30am. OH NO~ All of us have our luggage with us and there are no place for us to hang out apparently. The street was really quiet at 5.30am. Thankfully, there's a Family Mart beside and they have indoor seating! YEAH! 6 of us moved our luggage and went in to Family Mart and rest. Of course, we looked for food to feed ourselves before the day tour. 

I wanted to get some bread as breakfast but those that were available on rack did not attract me. Hence, I follow the others and got myself a Vietnamese cup noodle.  

Here's my first cup noodle after 6 years.

I had stopped eating instant noodles for a long time. After 6 years, I finally decided to break my plan. 

Vietnam: Ham Tien Market & Poshanu Cham Towers

Day 2 of Ho Chi Minh Trip ^_^  Part 2

After visiting the sand dunes (click here to read my blog post about the sand dunes, very interesting!), we were really hungry. However, we have no idea where to hunt for food and hence we decided to visit Ham Tien Market to check out if there's any interesting food to try. 

Ham Tien Market 

Ham Tien Market is also being called Mui Ne Market. It is a quite happening market where the locals will be here to buy their goods. There are wet and dry markets in within but it is consider quite a small market. 

This is my first time seeing people sells seafood like this! All spread out on the floor. Interesting.

We went in and walked a round but found nothing interesting to eat. Hence, we decided to walk out and look for restaurants beside Ham Tien Market. Simply find a decent restaurant and went inside for lunch.

I ordered a fried pho with seafood. It is really nice as there are lots of vegetables and the taste is something different from Malaysia-style fried noodles. 

After lunch, we went back to Diem Lien Guesthouse to rest. We spent too much time traveling around and our body need some rest. We were really lucky because when we were taking nap from 12-2pm, there's a heavy rain outside. When we were ready to go out and explore Phan Thiet Poshanu Cham Tower and Phan Thiet City, the rain stopped. (To be honest, I didn't know that there's a stormy rain when I was taking nap. It's my friend who told me. Really amazed by my sleep -- loud voice can't wake me up!)

At first, we wanted to take local bus to Phan Thiet but due to the hot sun, we decided to catch a cab. We requested the driver to stop us at Poshanu Cham Tower before heading to Phan Thiet City. Poshanu Cham Tower is located about 15km from Fairy Stream, nearer to Phan Thiet City as compared to Mui Ne.

Poshanu Towers are one of the most precious and important cultural vestiges of the Champa Kingdom. It was built in the late 8th century, which worships the Shiva Genie, who is highly respected by the Cham. Inside the main tower, there is an altar, on which a couple of Liga-Yoni, a symbol of the existence of the Shiva Genie, is worshipped. Besides these towers, there was once a temple, but it has been buried in the ground for more than 300 years. This group of tower templese was constructed using HoaLai art architecture -- one of the Champa Kingdom ancient art architectural manners. Poshanu Towers are among the oldest Champa towers that are not much damaged. (information from muine-explorer)

Poshanu Cham Towers (The 3 Towers)

Typical tourist photo