25 Oct
After changing our flight times several times, finally Tiger Airways fixed our flight to Ho Chi Minh City at 03:35pm. 4 of us who wanted to explore Ho Chi Minh City before going to Tra Vinh left. We booked single room at Vy Khanh Guesthouse. The hostel is nice and clean and Ms.Vy, the owner of the guesthouse is very friendly and helpful to us. It is a family-run business. Ms. Vy and the family are staying in the same building.
 |
| Vy Khanh Guesthouse room |
 |
| Ben Thanh Night Market |
After checking in and booking tour for the next day, we went out for dinner at the place suggested by Ms. Vy. We went to Ben Thanh market that night. It's only 10 minutes walk down. Ben Thanh night market sells various things at bargain-able price. It looks very touristic to me and they tried to sell as expensive as possible. Some of the stuffs there are of good quality though. Hence, the key is you need to know how to bargain and understand the quality of the stuffs you are buying.
26 Oct
The second day we left pretty early in the morning to join the tour group to Mekong Delta. It was indeed irritating when we needed to wait for around 15 minutes because some people were late. We went to the jetty and took 2 hours boat to Mekong Delta. We visited their bee farm, coconut plantation and tasted their tropical fruits which were nothing but papaya, mango, pineapple etc. There was a boat rowing session in between.
The tour was a bit disappointing to me. There is nothing really great to be seen. Lunch was included in the tour, but it was only rice, a piece of chicken and some overcooked veggie. The rest of the stuffs we needed to buy including drink. It was raining near the end of the trip.
 |
| Mekong Delta View |
 |
| Boat Rowing |
After the tour, again we went to Ben Thanh market, we managed to catch a glimpse of their day market before closing and strolled down in the night market again.
27 Oct
We met the rest of the group in the airport in the morning and ride the bus to Tra Vinh. The journey took around 5 hours and we reached the school in the late afternoon. The students welcomed us and we distributed some gifts for them. They looked so excited in welcoming us even though we hardly could communicate with them.
 |
| Sunset at Tra Vinh |
 |
| The students welcomed us |
After dinner at Cuu Long Hotel, we walked around Tra Vinh city. It's a small and quiet town, we bought grilled sweet potato on the street. And it was really nice.
28 Oct
OK, the hard work began now. We went to school early in the morning and the students welcomed us at the gate by marching band. We were divided into 4 groups and each were assigned a room to whitewash and paint. I realized that painting is not an easy job. It is really back breaking and tiring. The teachers cooked authentic Vietnamese food for our lunch. Our group managed to finish the painting by the end of the day.
 |
| Welcomed by Marching Band |
29 Oct
Another half day of hard work. Our focus today was to clean the floor from paint drops. It was a tedious work too. We needed to scrub the floor basically. During lunchtime, we gave talk on hygiene to the students too. The whole event was closed by performance given by the students and teacher.
 |
| They performed for us |
We left Tra Vinh after lunch. I was very tired and slept almost the whole journey. We reached Ho Chi Minh around dinner time and straightaway went to Ben Thanh market AGAIN for dinner and shopping. I bought two sets of adidas training attire.
30 Oct
Today is free and easy program. We went to War Remnant Museum first. Seeing the pictures of Vietnam War's victims made me so sad. How can be human beings so cruel to each other. Next we went to Independence Palace. Nothing much to see here, it's a pretty modern palace. The design is impressive though. We tried to go to Notre Dame Cathedral but we didn't go in. I had my lunch in a traditional market, thanks to Jac, my Vietnamese friend. It was the best food I had in this trip. After lunch, I went back to airport to fly back to Singapore.
 |
| War Remnant Museum |
 |
| Independence Palace |
 |
| Notre Dame Cathedral |
 |
| Best Food for the trip |
