Our arrival in Ho Chi Minh City (or Saigon), was pleasantly greeted by sunny weather (something we hadn’t seen in days). The largest city in Vietnam (and former capital of The Republic of Vietnam), is home to about 9 million inhabitants. Seeing the city from the airplane painted a clear picture of this massive urban jungle. Side note, apparently there are 4 million motorbikes in the city which make traffic a legendary nightmare.

The 16-hour overnight train ride to Da Nang (en route to Hoi An), was not bad. We managed to get a few hours of sleep so we were ready to face our first day in the historic city. Hoi An first popped on our radar several weeks ago as a result of meeting a lovely lady in Turkey. She had visited Vietnam a few times in the recent past and spoke very passionately about the country and of course Hoi An.

The next stop on our trip was Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital and home to 6.5 million people. As the plane descended upon the sprawling city an un-erasable grayish haze appeared beneath the clouds. And so the rainy season had finally caught up with us – it rained with purpose during our first night.