Advertisement
Siagon Municipal Park
Presumably the French had something to do with this place. Its wonderfully laid out vast stretches of grass, gardens, sculptures, playgrounds and water fountains...
Great place to go and spend a hour or two, walking and sitting, and generally cooling down... We had a bit of a lie in as we were still a bit tired..when I say a bit, we didn't set out until midday! After having a tuna baguette for lunch (it's so nice having familiar food once in a while even though all the food we have had on our travels has been very good), we decided to wander around ...we did get bombarded by cyclo drivers..after persistently saying no for a while we finally managed to get rid of them. The city is quite walkable, although the traffic is another thing! Basically the rule here is, if you have an accident, then the police will generally say that it is the pedestrian's fault, not the vehicle! Quite the opposite to England. And here, the mopeds drive on the pavement and the opposite way from what you expect. The pedestrian crossings are not there to stop the traffic..one has to hope and pray! And seriously, when it came to evening rush hour I have never seen so many mopeds before in my life! Bangkok has nothing on this! But the advice to do what the locals do when crossing the road is a good one...go slow and keep
Siagon Municipal Park 2
The park also hosts the worlds shortest canal. steady and the traffic tends to go round you...still scary though!
Anyway, we walked to the Fine Arts Museum to find out it was closed...we forgot about Mondays where lots of things close for the day. We were going to go to the Ho Chi Minh Museum but thought this might be closed as well..so we walked to the 23/9 park and then the Municipal Cultural Park, a lovely park where one can sit and get away from the mad rush on the streets. Nearby this park is the Reunification Palace which we went to visit. This building was labelled the Independence Palace in 1966 but was renamed Reunification Palace when the South fell in 1975. It has basically been unchanged from its working days - it seriously is like a 1960s/1970s kitsch palace. The three floors consisted of presidential room, meeting room, presentation rooms and bedrooms. The top outside was used as a helicoptor landing pad. Most interesting was the basement which reminded us of the War rooms in London - basically where the command centre and radio centre was during the war.
Having a rest in the room now, updating this blog......probably go out in the
Sculpture
There were some elaborate sculptures... nearby area again..there are loads of places to eat and drink.
First impression yesterday was that we both liked it here..and that opinion hasn't changed yet! Ho Chi Minh is characterised by one-, two-, three- and four-storey high buildings of diffierent colours (that actually don't clash!), mad streets going into smaller streets and then alleyways, vegetable stalls on the streets, pavements that are used for anything other than to walk on! You get the picture........
Advertisement
Tot: 0.099s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 6; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0445s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
