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Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

We spent today in Ho Chi Minh City (aka: Saigon). We had a brief overview tour of the city in the morning, driving through different areas of the city on our way to the hotel. Saigon is a mix of brand new high-rise buildings and old, run-down buildings mixed in with well maintained French construction from 100 years ago. We stopped at the Opera House and the Saigon Post Office, both of which are built in the classic French colonial style. We also saw the Notre Dame Cathedral, although it wasn’t open at that time.

After lunch we went to the Presidential Palace (aka: Reunification Palace). This was the home and headquarters for the South Vietnamese president. It is probably best known in the US because of a picture of a tank breaking through the gate of the palace during the fall of Saigon. We got to tour through formal meeting and dining rooms, the living quarters, and a basement bunker with emergency backup radio equipment.

We also went to the War Remnants Museum. This used to be called the Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes. I didn’t see any current mention of Chinese, but the museum was about the French and, mostly, the US. Now, we have been to a “similar” museum in Nagasaki that was very even handed in it’s commentary. This was not the case today. Definitely a communist take on the evils of the US and the innocence of the North Vietnamese. Interesting, but some definite rewriting of history. Our guide said that the government keeps the entrance fee low and the air conditioning cold to encourage tourists to stay longer at the museum.

We ended our afternoon at the Ben Thanh market. This is a very large market with everything from food to clothing. I can’t begin to estimate how many booths there were in there. Impressive and overwhelming. While we were there it started raining. The market has a metal roof, so the rain was very loud.

We were originally going to explore more this evening, but it has continued to rain, sometimes true downpours, so we ate in the hotel restaurant. We will make our way to some other spots tomorrow.

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