Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Staying at the Yellow House Hotel (Nga Hoang).
Although it felt like we were staying in one of the few designated “foreigner ghettos”, Saigon was a fun, vibrant, city. Night life seemed to go on well into the morning (unlike Hanoi). There were plenty of worthwhile sight too. I’m glad we gave ourselves 3 days to explore.
On our first night, we took in some local music at a Cowboy Bar, which ironically was mostly full of locals.
We spent the first morning wandering through markets, and through the neigborhood, slowly figuring out how this traffic thing worked. The thousands of motorbikes and scooters that pass through a pedestrian cross walk each minute are much like a flock of bats. They appear to be coming right at you, but somehow maneuver just enough to avoid you. You just have to start crossing, slowly, like a frog in the old video game Frogger, and NEVER run (that throws off their doppler effect sensors completely).
We then visited the War Remnants Museum. The War Remnants Museum is a very poignant display of the horrors of war. It was highly biased to the communist government’s side of the story. They kept referring to the evil American Imperialists, and made no attempt to address the events leading up to the war. But you can’t dispute the pictures, portraying the horrible side effects of the experimental agents the American military used in the war. At least they left the visitors with a more positive outlook on America and the west, by featuring a room of photos, near the exit, depicting the protests that were going on around the world to try to end the war. They acknowledged that it’s not the American people who have done them harm, but the military and government decisions that were made.
We had a crazy night in Saigon, enjoying excellent French-fusion food at Alibi, followed by live music, and dancing along side crazy drunk Russians, while sipping yummy Singapore slings at the Saigon Saigon bar on the top floor of the Caravelle Hotel. I went to bed early (~2:00?), but was surprised to hear the bars still hopping as late as 5:00 in the morning! One word of caution from someone I spoke to while in Saigon: ALWAYS keep your eye on your drink.
The next day, we were moving at a much slower pace. I did manage to find a great spa for an authentic massage, with no offers of special services. I started with a 30 minute back massage, to test the waters, and liked it so much that I came back later with Grant for the full works. I wish I could remember the name of the place. I just know that it was around the block from our hotel (Nga Hoang), if that helps any.
On our final day, we went on a half day tour of the CuChi tunnels, part of the Ho Chi Min trail, left over from the American War. We had an excellent tour guide (we booked this through our hotel). CuChi is his home town. He lost both his parents, and a sibling during the war, and was wounded himself by a bullet. He told us a story of how his mother almost had to drown him when he was a baby, because they were hiding in the river, with a large group of people, and he started to cry.
We crawled through a kilometer of the tunnels, which became progressively narrower and darker as we went along. There were escape options at the 1/2 way and 3/4 mark, but I suck it up and crawled all the way. Apparently they’ve increased the tunnel size by something like 40%, to accommodate us tourists. I can’t imagine what it would be like trying to get through the original, especially with army fatigues on. It’s also amazing that hundreds of miles of these tunnels were hand dug, along with intricate traps, and underground living quarters.
This “museum” featured models of the traps that were used by the Viet Cong to injure and trap the victim, without killing him. Quite gruesome. The models of the Vietnamese soldiers contrasted dramatically with those of the Americans: the Vietnamese wore thin cotton rags, and rubber flip-flops made from old tires.
With our final few hours in Saigon, we visited the Reunification Palace, preserved from when Saigon fell to the north. This is where the tanks rolled in and ended the war. The building is one of the least attractive “palaces” I’ve ever seen, stuck in the 60’s with concrete pillars, shag carpet, velvet lounge chairs, tall brown drapes, gold decorated mirrors (I might have been imagining those).
