Advertisement
Published: March 10th 2006
Edit Blog Post
Look Out
Chris works her way across a Saigon street. The secret - keep walking slowly For our farewell to SE Asia, we spent a couple of days in Ho Chi Minh City, otherwise known as Saigon. The former capital of South Vietnam, it's a crowded city of more than 5 million people. Ironically, it featured less noise pollution and hassle than sparser regions to the north, although you still wouldn't describe it as calm.
After getting off of the train from Danang at 6 A.M., we headed to the backpacker area to find some cheap digs. After a nap, we headed out into the city. We grabbed some Vietnamese sandwiches, and finally succombed to one of the endless hawkers beseeching us to take a ride. We each got into a cyclo, which is a seat pushed by a bicycle behind it, and headed to the museums. Chris hit the Art Museum, and then we headed to War Remnants Museum. As it's name implies, the exhibits are dedicated to the Vietnam War, and the damage that Westerners have inflicted on the country. The displays were surprisingly fair, with no disparagments of soldiers, only of Johnson, Nixon, McNamara, etc. There was a touching room showing photos taken by journalists who were killed (donated by the Commonwealth of
Small Hips
A tour guide shows us how the Viet Cong kept hidden Kentucky for some reason), plenty of ironic quotes from American generals predicting swift victory, and captured tanks and planes in the courtyard. But the most affecting portions showed the continued destruction of the Vietnamese people due to Agent Orange deformities and unexploded mines. There were photos of American war crimes, and displays of the Tiger cages in which our South Vietnamese allies kept their prisoners. It was quite moving, seeing the history from the other perspective, realizing that every Vietnamese you saw touring the museum had in some way had their lives altered (and that in 40 years there'll probably be a similiar museum in Baghdad). The patrons included a surprising amount of older American veterans who had come back.
After walking around the city and grabbing a great meal in an outdoor market, we planned on heading back to Pham Ngu Lao for an early evening. Then we passed by a hole in the wall bar crowded with Westerners. When we found out jugs of beer were 8 dong (50 cents) we decided to pause. The beer may have been warm and flat, but the company was good, as we met Eva, a crazy older Norwegian who offered
Victor Hugo, Hear Our Prayers
The remnants of Caoism go through their noon ceremony us a bed in Oslo, as well as a couple of contenders for Most Stereotypical Hippy, 2006.
We managed to rouse ourselves the next morning to get on a bus for outlying sites. The first stop was the main temple for Caodaiism, a sort of universalist religion only found in Vietnam. It combines Confucionism, Buddhism and Taoism, and counts Victor Hugo as one of its saints. We then headed to the Cu Chi Tunnels, which resistance fighters traveled to avoid the American army while attacking Saigon. It was extremely eerie, kind of like Sturbridge Village, except recreating Vietnam circa 1970 instead of Massachusetts circa 1750. No matter what your political persuasion, to have a tour guide proudly go through all the torture traps that mangled American soldiers, and show how they were ambushed and tricked, is disquieting. The nearby gun range added an element of realism, and allowed you to fire off an M-16 for $10 (we passed). That evening, we partook of another sandwich and headed in early.
Getting on a comfortable Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong, we waved goodbye to SE Asia, sorry we didn't have more time but also a little glad to get
Posed Shot Number 235
Justin and Chris in front of the Hong Kong Island skyline the ringing of screeching street vendors out of our ears. Landing in the airport, we were greeted by temperature scanners to see whether we might be bringing in any of the numerous deadly bugs that flourish here. Since our room had a television, we grabbed some takeout and watched a replay of the Oscar telecast, since we'd kept away from the news (Justin thought Jon Stewart was good, but Chris didnt; Justin thought Crash was a bad TV movie, but Chris didn't see it; we both thought Munich was the best movie we'd seen last year).
Hong Kong is beyond interesting. First of all, it's alot bigger than just the island, although because of our limited time, we stayed around Victoria Harbour, sort of the Manhattan of the area. It's busier than any other city we've ever seen, with the best skyline, but is eerily quiet. Imagine NYC with three times the bustle, but without any honking, yelling, music, even talking on the subway. A bit Twilight Zone.
Alot of the fun of a couple days in Hong Kong is simply walking the streets, getting lost in the crowds and shops. Because we head next into the wilderness
Got Beer
Chris finds the one bar outside of Hyde Park that flies a U of C banner - Dan Ryan's in Hong Kong of Siberia, we combined pleasure with a bit of business, spending time at banks, post offices, even the U.S. embassy. We also received a package with all our winter gear, and shipped some stuff back to States. As we travelled through Asia, we kept putting off some purchases, thinking that we could just get them here. Unfortunately, the cheap market in Hong Kong left something to be desired, paling in comparison to K.L. or Bangkok.
While shopping didn't pan out, the views did. We took the tram up to Victoria Peak the second night, and took in the permanent light show from Kowloon on the third. If there's a city with a more impressive skyline than Hong Kong, we've never heard of it. It comes from both sides of the harbour, and incorporates new glass structures with older rundown remenants.
Hong Kong also features an escalator that goes through neighborhoods up the side of a mountain, three branches of every highend store you could imagine, and the Peninsula, one of the nicest hotels anywhere. We splurged and got some tea and cake in the lobby hotel, and wallowed in the illusion of wealth for a while. Then it
It's Coming
One of thousands of signs posted around Hong Kong was back to the streets.
We leave today for Beijing.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.098s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 7; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0532s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb