Travel Journal

Ho Chi Minh City (or, as every Vietnamese calls it, Saigon)

We were picked up from our Hoi An hotel at 6pm, and were pleased to discover the overnight journey would be on a large air-conditioned 'super bus' (as they call them here - a regular coach to us!) rather than the more usual mini-bus. We finally reached Saigon 25 hours later, but as we had been expecting this (this time) the journey was not too traumatic. In fact long bus journeys are probably better than soft seat train journeys, as the seats recline and there are no Asian people staring at you and spitting!

Saigon is much more westernised than any other Vietnamese town or city, and the people seem to be more adjusted to a western way of life. The pavements are large and less blocked by motorbikes or people living on them. For the first time we saw locals using the same cafes and restaurants as westerners, and we were rarely stared at by passers-by. We stayed just outside 'mini-hotel alley', the backpacker centre with the obligatory expensive, western style bars that we avoided like the plague. The hotel was large and as usual our room backed on to a noisy building site (this seems to happen everywhere!), but otherwise fairly non-descript.

Having just covered the length of Vietnam in less than a week we were pretty exhausted, and so took a relaxed approach to site-seeing. On the first day we walked up to the business district, where several of the main sites are including Notre Dame Cathedral. Due to the expense of the restaurants in the area we ended up in 'Pho24', 'pho' meaning noodle soup. This turned out to be a happy accident as pho is delicious and very filling - it became the staple part of our diet for the remainder of our stay.

Until now we hadn't visited anything related to the Vietnam War, so we made this a priority. We started with Reunificiation Palace, formerly Independence Palace, which was built in 1966 to replace Norodom Palace (a lovely building built by the French). The present building looks very like a British public library from the sixties and is extremely un-palatial. The interior has been left unchanged since it was captured by the northern troops in 1975, so looks very dated. The most interesting part was the basement, which had been reserved for the military and contained a series of war rooms with some seriously antique equipment - very grim and sparse. There was an interesting exhibition followed by a video at the end, which highlighted just how biased the Vietnamese view of the war is - they made it sound like a war against 'invading Americans' rather than a civil war in which the Americans supported one side.

Our second attempt to learn more about the war and the long-lasting effects took place at the War Remnants Museum. This gave a more impartial view, largely because much of the exhibition featured war photography by foreign journalists, often working alongside the Americans. It highlighted some of the terrible atrocities on both sides and was a harrowing experience. One of the more horrible sections was the area focussed on torture, which included an example of the 'tiger cages' into which prisoners were crammed, standing up, with no food and little water for days. Just as upsetting were the photos of the victims of the chemical bombs and defoliants used by the Americans, the most horrible being napalm and 'agent orange'. These include children who are terribly deformed and adults who have been severely disfigured by burns. It was a heart-wrenching exhibition that left us both thoroughly depressed.

Although we enjoyed Saigon more than expected, two days was enough - besides which we were now a week behind our itinerary! It's always exciting to be moving on to a new country - next stop, Cambodia.

Emily (with a little bit of Chris)

posted by Chris and Emily @ 10:01