Vietnam/Cambodia Day 1: Arrival

Thursday, February 5, 2026

After passing through customs, we were met by Jayden, a representative from Lindblad Expeditions. He coordinated with a driver to take us to our hotel, the Park Hyatt Saigon. Along the way, he gave us some orientation to the city and practiced his English along the way. He also told us that he had written a summary of the Vietnam (American) war from the Vietnamese point of view, which he sent me on WhatsApp to review.

The Park Hyatt is a gorgeous hotel, situated amid an interesting shopping district and across the street from the Opera House. We arrived about 11 am, got settled, and reviewed the itinerary that had been left for us. Later, we went to the lobby bar for a small lunch, then visited the Lindblad desk in the hotel to say “hi” and see if there was anything else we needed to do right away (there wasn’t).

Lindblad offered an excursion to Ben Thanh, a local market, for those of us who arrived early. The market was like others we had visited in other countries: crowded, with a wide variety of items we really weren’t interested in. Nevertheless, it was a good opportunity to explore, catch something to drink, and perhaps meet some of our fellow travelers.

Traffic in Saigon is insane, discouraging us from walking around as usual. Nevertheless, we wanted to be outside to help recover from jet lag. Fortunately, Kenna noticed a Muji store and a Uniqlo on the same block as the hotel, so we were able to visit those without crossing any streets.

Dave and Jan, who had taken a pre-trip excursion to Hanoi and other places in Vietnam, had a delayed flight from Hue and were further delayed by Saigon traffic. After they arrived and settled, we had a very pleasant Italian dinner with them at the Refinery Restaurant across the street from the hotel.

This article is part of a series about our recent trip to Vietnam and Cambodia. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.