Day 16! Today’s my last day in Ho Chi Minh City and tomorrow I’ll head out on an adventure of a lifetime…

Well, I have to be honest… I slept terribly last night.

On top of my stomach issues, there were people constantly coming in and out of the room, and the bed above me was working on her computer till early in the morning!

(I found out later she is working remote (nights) from her job back in Colombia 😅)

I was able to get some sleep here and there… but not as much as I had hoped.

I DID wake up feeling much better!

I went for a short walk to a cafe nearby to get something light for breakfast.

Throughout Ho Chi Minh City you can see the impacts of French colonialism through the architecture and the food.

For example, Banh Mi, it’s a baguette with Vietnamese food and seasoning inside it… or the Notre Dame Cathedral.

This cafe had some very large and buttery croissants!

My stomach seemed to do okay so I ended up getting another one. In total it cost around $3 which is more than I’d like to spend on something without protein or very filling.

But I definitely wanted to take it easy this morning!

I then went and laid down and waited for a traveler named Jonas to come and pick me up for a test drive (and potential purchase) of his bike!

He ended up having a late night, so he was later than expected but by 11:30am he was at my hostel door ready to go.

Jonas is from the Netherlands and he biked from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh (the opposite direction of me).

He was a very nice guy and it was great getting to chat with him about his journeys, the suggestions he had for me, and everything he learned about biking across Vietnam!

After making our way through the busy streets, we found a VERY quiet road (literally empty) that was wide and perfect for me to test drive on.

I actually picked up the semi automatic quite quickly and the bike was working perfectly (from what I could tell). So we negotiated a little bit and I ended up buying the motorbike for €280!

The bike has seen a few lengths of Vietnam so I’m hopeful it’ll get the job done and keep me safe!

I now have a vast pool of solo travelers who are and have biked Vietnam so I can reach out to them with any questions, problems, or concerns!

If all goes well, I might even bike into Laos and Cambodia too! My options are now endless and I’ll see so many parts of these countries I would have completely missed!

We came back to my hostel and said our goodbyes and then I got lunch with another traveler at my hostel, Jaden from Philadelphia, who I’ve been hanging out with the past few days.

He’s getting his doctorate in astrophysics at Stanford and we had some great conversations about what he’s researching!

For lunch I decided to test my stomach out and we went back to a Banh Mi place I had with Sam a few days earlier.

I got a vegetarian Banh Mi this time and it was filled with tofu, some sort of sweet nut, and a good mix of vegis all mixed in some delicious sauce!

After lunch I waited till around 3pm to head to a mechanic to make sure the bike was in fact all good!

This was my first taste of actually driving myself in the crazy streets of Ho Chi Minh… and honestly, it was a lot easier than I expected!

The streets look hectic and crossing them is a nightmare… but as long as you don’t make any sudden movements everyone will move or let you in. Also the traffic moves very slow since there are so many people!

This was definitely the confidence boost I needed for my upcoming journey!

The mechanic confirmed that it’s working fine, he did say I might need some work in the future but it shouldn’t be expensive (I was already told to stop at a mechanic at every city I go to).

I also bought a much better helmet, a phone holder, and a few bungee cords for my bag!

After that I ran another errand to get sunscreen and snacks for my ride! I also found a snack I LOVED in Thailand, cheese wafers (it sounds weird, but trust me they’re really good)

After that I relaxed for a bit more at the hostel, ate some cheese wafers and shared them with the other travelers and hostel owner in the lobby, and then set out to find dinner!

It took me a lot longer than I planned to find a place to eat. Most places were more than I wanted to pay and I also don’t know Vietnamese food well enough to know what I’m in the mood for.

Eventually I stumbled upon a restaurant called Mama’s Thai and seeing by this point I was very hungry and willing to eat anything, Thai food sounded great!

I ventured into unknown territory on this meal and tried fried chicken feet for the first time…

I’m not really sure what compelled me to do this but I was feeling a bit crazy anddd I was not a fan. I have no intentions of trying them again.

The Thai holy basil fried rice with beef was excellent though and it of course came with a fried egg (I’m very much looking forward to being back in Thailand in a few months)!

After dinner I ran my last errand to prepare for my first bike journey tomorrow. I went and filled up my bike at the gas station.

It cost 40,000 dong to fill it up tonight which is just under $2… so I’ll be curious to see how much it takes for a full fill, but that’s really cheap!

I’ll be waking up at 5:30am tomorrow and hopefully setting out by 6am to Mui Ne! It’s about a 3-4 hour bike ride but I’ll definitely be stopping along the way to stretch, snack, fill up the tank, and take pictures of the view!

Wish me luck!

– Elie