Ho Chi Minh City - Remnants of War... and Pho!

We've been in Vietnam for two and a half days and David still hadn't had his Pho.  And he was getting grumpy about it.  Too bad he had to follow me through a historical walking tour of Saigon on a muggy morning first.

"Aimed at displaying Christianity and the greatness of the French civilization" (of course), the Saigon Notre-Dame Basilica was built back in 1877.

Inside, there were a couple of alcoves that had some very cool engravings.

Outside is the spot of choice for wedding pictures.

Afterward we walked over to the Reunification Palace.  Less of a "palace" than a throwback to awesome 60's architecture, it's the place that at 10:45am on April 30th, 1975, a tank of the North Vietnamese Army bulldozed through the main gate, ending the Vietnam War.  Right here.

It's interior has been left pretty much as it was on that day.  Check out the 60's and 70's decor...

There are also a network of underground bunkers and meeting rooms, but since there was no air-conditioning in the entire place, we pretty much poked our heads in the main rooms and headed back out into the heat of the city.  At least ouside there was a breeze.

Finally, the War Remnants Museum.  Formerly called "The House for Displaying War Crimes of American Imperialism and the Puppet Government of South Vietnam", the current name is intended to reflect the normalization of relations with the United States.  And it takes up less room on the side of a building.

Outside, US military aircraft...

David facing the business end of a machine gun.

Those Chinooks are pretty impressive.

The first thing you see when you go inside is an excerpt from the US Declaration of Independence.

Followed by an exhibit about Agent Orange.  Ouch.  I knew Agent Orange was bad stuff, but what I didn't know was that it was originally intended to defoliate rural/forested land, the end goal being to deprive guerrillas of food and cover.  The subsequent Agent-Orange related birth defects that have affected the first, second and even third generations of those who were exposed was a very unfortunate side effect.  I'll spare you pictures of the three-legged fetuses they also have on display.

My favorite was the photography exhibition, where you can see a lot of famous pictures:

Whew.

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After all this in-your-face horribleness, we headed back out into the new, much friendlier version of Ho Chi Minh City.  By cyclo!

We stopped by the tailor to pick up the clothing and see my little friend..

Back on the cyclos... to pho!



Finally.

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And thus ends our whirlwind tour of Saigon.  Tạm biệt!

Ho Chi Minh City - Mekong Me

Today started off bright and early.  We met our guide, Hung (same one as yesterday), at the hotel, and then headed off with John and Margaret in the van to the Mekong Delta, which is a couple hours east of Saigon.

A quick shot of some of the houses along the way.  Most of them are exactly 4 meters by 20 meters, throwback from the French occupation.

Some of us got hats.  Some of us declined.

Our boat was awesome.

First, the floating market, where the people who live near the river peddle their goods.  You can tell what they're selling by looking at what is hanging from a pole on the boat.  And yes, they live there, too.

Taking in the sights along the way...

First stop was to see what our guide described as "scary pets".  It's so much better if you hear Hung say it.

I'm not exactly sure what snake wine is made of, but there really are snakes in it.

David makes a new friend.

Most of the trip was just rolling along down the river, taking in the sights.

We had another stop at a brick factory, which was way more interesting than it sounds, as they make them by hand.

Last stop was lunch, where we were treated to a fun little bike ride along the way.

Lunch!

Later that evening, we went to a really nice Vietnamese restaurant, meeting up with a few more Singapore friends who also happened to be in Ho Chi Minh that weekend.

My Drunken Prawns met their end by a spectacular little fire.

The food was great, but the most memorable thing about the place was the carrot sculptures on all of our plates.

 

After our plates were cleared, one of the carrots that looked almost exactly like ours appeared on the plate at the next table.  We're pretty sure they were recycling them.

After dinner, we headed back to the bar for a quick drink.  I've heard that the bar at our hotel was where a lot of journalists hung out during the war, though I bet they had a different view.

And finally off to bed, for tomorrow we face Agent Orange.