Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City? Both, probably. I went to Saigon expecting to be like the scenes in Good Morning, Vietnam- women in all white walking down the streets with the round straw hats on, kids playing in puddles in the streets, old French buildings falling apart in the most charming ways.. In reality this Saigon has been replaced by what I like to think of as HCMC- which sort of resembles a very poor version of Shanghai with lots of traffic, skyscrapers, building projects, over used city parks and that ever present feeling in the air of acceleration and improvement. There still are lots of women wearing the round straw hats though, and kids playing in puddles on the street... which is actually a lot more disgusting than it is cute, because the streets
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