So. The day after I arrived by plane, I spent the whole day exploring Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City.) It turns out that most people who live here still call it Saigon, even though the official name is HCMC. Some people (like my Viet American friends) say it’s because Saigon fought for the south, and never wanted to be communist. But most people I ask here just say that Saigon is easier to pronounce, it’s shorter, or it sounds prettier. I would have to agree with all of those views.
I woke up early and met my honcho (tour leader) in the lobby at 9AM. There are 4 people in my tour group. I met the two Australian girls, Amanda and Julia, who are both really nice. Amanda is 29 and Julia is 34, but they are both single and we have a lot of fun. The Scottish guy, Mark, refused to wake up that early. When we left on Monday night we learned that he had spent the whole day sleeping until 7 AM. He’s a strange character.
So, our honcho took us on a walking tour of Saigon. First we went to the Reunification Palace, a huge beautiful building first built by the French, then bombed, and rebuilt with a more Vietnamese style. It’s an important building because when the communists took over South Vietnam, the plowed through the gates of Reunification Palace with a tank, climbed up the facade, and planted a red flag at the top of the building.
Here are some pictures from the walk:
Why are there so many wires, you might ask? At first we thought it was because they never take down the old ones, but our honcho told us it’s because Vietnam does not have an underground wire system, so they are all tethered to the telephone poles.
The French colonial influence is very much alive in Vietnam. A lot of the buildings in city centers are huge European palaces painted in bright, tropical colors, especially yellows and oranges.
The Reunification Palace
I had some fun with the color accent photo on my camera to make only the red flags stand out.
One of the fancy meeting rooms in the palace. Makes you wonder what kind of crazy discussions occurred here during the “American War.” On that note, while of course I recognize that the Americans made many horrendous mistakes during the war, I think it’s unfair to call it the “American War” because it started out as a war between the north and south. I guess the government probably wants to forget that the South was resistant, though.
There were war rooms in the basement with way too many telephones, in my opinion. I think the basement was a bomb shelter for the Americans during the war. There was also a helicopter pad on the roof for emergency evacuation.
American tank at the War Remnants Museum. This was one of the times I told people I’m Canadian. The museum had a very anti-American focus, with a huge gallery of photos of people with mutilations from bombs and Agent Orange. It was so sad. White guilt definitely set in. On the flip side, there was no mention of North Vietnamese torturing American soldiers, but I guess I couldn’t really expect that.
Then our honcho took us to look at Notre Dame Cathedral and the Old Post Office, which were both French. We had lunch at a local restaurant, which was delicious. I had fresh mango juice, beef with vermicelli, and shrimp vegetable rolls. Next, we went on a cyclo tour, which I will describe in my next post.
