Tạm biệt, Vietnam!

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Saturday morning was my last in Vietnam, and a hangover wasn't going to stop me from making the most of it. I had purposefully arranged a red-eye out that night so I had the full day, but this meant I'd arrive at 4:30am Sunday in Dubai, with Sunday being the start of the work week. I did manage to arrange for a 2pm checkout, so at least I'd be able to shower after inevitably sweating all morning and be slightly less gross for my flight that night. Around 9:30 I headed down to breakfast for one last amazing Asian buffet, then ran out to get more dongs since I'd be hitting up the market.

My hotel had free shuttles to the main market, Ben Thanh, so I arranged for the 10:30 one and had a quick, cool, and easy ride some 10 minutes west. I could have walked...but humidity. The market itself is one of Ho Chi Minh City's main tourist attractions, and everything from fish heads to tank tops is available, all divided into separate sections. It's one of the earliest surviving structures from old Saigon and was formally established by the French in 1859. As a mostly indoor market, it can become a bit stuffy, but shopkeepers were kind enough to literally hand out napkins and such to sweating Westerners as they snaked in and out of the various stalls. I wasn't quite sure what I was looking for since I didn't care for most of the lacquered handicrafts typical of the country, nor do I like the little Vietnamese women figurines, but I ended up getting a small hand-painted lacquered bowl and jar with fish and butterflies on them - sounds tacky but they are quite nice. I also got a Tiger Beer tank-top for less than $5 which I'm sure will disintegrate after a single wear. I wasn't particularly hungry and had also had enough of being called over by every single shopkeeper to buy Vietnamese coffee, so after maybe 45 minutes I had had my fill.

From Ben Thanh my next point of interest was the Vietnam War remnants museum, a large exhibition of anything and everything related to the Indochina Wars. On the way I popped into a Highland Coffee, a Vietnamese chain, for a brief respite from the heat, and also free wifi, along with a Vietnamese iced coffee. Sweetened condensed milk is healthy, right? I also grabbed a bag of coffee from there to compare with the Trung Nguyen stuff I'd gotten earlier.

Continuing on my way it wasn't long until the museum, which is completely surrounded by retired tanks, artillery, and aircraft from the war - super impressive. It was maybe $3 to get in, if that. Half of what's to see is outside, namely the vehicles, but also reconstructed holding cells and tiger cages used to confine war prisoners, pretty horrifying. There was no censorship when it came to graphic pictures of all of the torture - pictures of amputees, nails impaled into people's skulls, etc. Also depicted were the South Vietnamese and French prisons, including a guillotine actually used to put people to death. The tiger cages were likewise cringeworthy - tiny rusted cages maybe 1.5 ft. high and 5 feet wide used to contain prisoners, naked, in the hot Vietnamese sun for hours even days.The interior of the museum was several levels, each level having a separate exhibition. The most eye-opening was the Agent Orange exhibit, full of pictures of the horrifying affects of the chemical on the Vietnamese people - deformed and disfigured people old and young, even fetuses preserved in formaldehyde. While the museum certainly seemed a bit one-sided at times, it was incredibly eye-opening and captured the atrocities of the war quite well.

After another Vietnamese iced coffee and a banh mi sandwich at the Highland Coffee at the museum, I headed toward the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Office, their city hall. Completed in 1908, the city hall is a beautiful French colonial style structure. In front of the building is a bronze statue of Ho Chi Minh installed in 1990 to celebrate "Uncle Ho's" 100th birthday. The plaza is quite beautiful, with a thoroughfare stretching down to the Saigon River, but given there are not many trees it is truly a giant long, rectangular frying pan. I had headed that way in search of some souvenirs and ended up at an awesome store full of handcrafted platters, boxes, chopsticks, etc. It was a bit more expensive than the stuff at the market, but the stuff was much more legitimate. For around 30 bucks I bought a beautiful wooden platter with hand-painted flowers and cranes on it - mission accomplished. From there I continued down toward the river and basically risked death crossing the street to the promenade. Even with the walk sign on dozens of motorbikes just continued on their way so it was a real life game of frogger. The river itself was nice with lovely Heineken billboards to add a touch of classiness to it.

As darkness began to fall I headed back to the hotel and sat up by the pool, had some dinner, and prepped some presentations for the following week of training in Dubai. My flight wasn't until 12:25am, so the evening did drag on a bit, but I was beyond excited to get to the UAE and start the next 3 weeks!

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