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Published: February 8th 2007
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Nice mural
Revolutionary Museum Couldn't think of decent title for this one. This one has an explanation, but I will need to bought a couple of beers first before I am more forthcoming.
First things first. Saigon has a bit of a name problem. Ho Chi Minh City is the official title for the capital of Southern Vietnam, but the Communists named it after their Great Leader and "Bringer of Light". Saigon has resonance as steamy city of sin. HCM City falls pretty flat on the tougue and on the ear. The Communist concession is to call the centre of Ho Chi Minh - Districts 1 and 3 - Central Saigon. (Why
Central if Ho Chi Minh is the greater city?).
Unlike Phnom Penh, Saigon has a backpacker street, Pham Ngu Lao. Saigon's answer to Bangkok's Khao San Road. Vultures circle there. The vultures with least good humour are the Cyclo drivers. An agency full-day city tour, with guide, costs $7 and gets you a seat on a bus, possibly with air-con. My cyclo driver wanted $10 for a half day. I beat him down to $7. Come the end of the trip, which I made sure we kept under three hours, he
Military Hardware
Outside Revolutionary Museum tried to get the price back up to $9 and not in jokey way. Cyclo's - don't do 'em in HCM. Also don't buy water on Pham Ngu Lao. Walk 100m and find a street stall, you will save about 50c a litre. Do try GO2 Bar/Club though, but be prepared to fend off the street vendors, usually achievable with little good humour.
My Cyclo tour took in two sites: War Remnants Museum and Revolutionary Museum. More name games: at various times the now-titled "War Remnants Museum" has been titled "War Crimes Museum" and "Museum of Agressive War". I think the latest title is chosen to reflect the now good relations between Vietnam and America. The museum tells, of course, the story of the "Vietnam War", or as it is called in Vietnam, the "American War". There are two main areas to the museum. In the first area you are bombarded with facts and figures and maps and US photo journalism. Facts, figures or maps won't tell a story. US photo journalism has played its part, but that is already part of the popular (Western) psyche. The second area of the museum focuses on the usage and victims of
Wedding Photos
Outside the Revolutionary Museum napalm and Agent Orange, and on the Massacre at Thanh Phong.
Agent Orange, a dioxin and powerful herbicide, was used by the Americans in Vietnam from 1961 to 1971. The rational seems to have been that if we can't win the war in the jungle, lets remove the jungle. Ecological warfare. But also chemical warfare on the population living in the areas sprayed. The museum shows many pictures of Agent Orange victims and the children of Agent Orange victims. It also shows the Eco-side it wreaked
The Massacre at Thanh Phong was carried out by a SEAL team led by John Kerry. John Kerry the unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992. The village of Thanh Phong had only old women and children and babies. The display in the "War Remnant's Museum" gives a role call of the dead and how they were killed. Kerry maintains the team were shot at from the village. Only the bodies of old women and children and babies were found. Kerrey said in 1998: "I was expecting to find Vietcong soldiers with weapons, dead. Instead I found women and children." A Vietnamese woman, Pham Tri Lanh, says she witnessed the
assault, gave a different account, saying that the SEALs rounded up the inhabitants of the village and shot them.
The Revolutionary Museum has nice exteriors for wedding photos and a couple of nice revolutionary murals. Beyond that it has little to recommend it.
I booked two day trips through an agency on Pham Ngu Lao: "Cao Dai Temple and Cu Chi Tunnels" and "One Day Mekong Delta". I'd highly recommend the former. As for the Mekong Delta I would probably choose to do at least a two day tour or at least one including a visit to the coconut monk.
Day Trip One: "Cao Dai Temple and Cu Chi Tunnels". Cao Dai is a facinating sect. Founded by Ly Tai Pe to reorganise the disparate elements of world religion and form the Universal Religion of the Age of Improved Transport. The idea being that now all the people of the world can meet, why not unify all the religions under one harmonious banner? Elements are taken from Confucianism, Buddhism, Christianity, Taoism together with a dash of Islam. Tourists are welcome to observe and record the service in the Cao Dai Great Temple" and as you can see
John Kerry
... and his confessed involvement in the massacre at Thanh Phong from the photos, its quite a colourful happening. The Cu Chi Tunnels is where the Vietnamese rang rings around the Americans, under the Americans' feet. The clay soil in the market garden area of Cu Chi is ideal for digging tunnels. Begun in 1948, the tunnels were built as a response to French and then American tactics of war. However big a bomb the Americans dropped they couldn't destroy the tunnels - and there are plenty of craters to show that they tried. Man traps were laid for the GI's and tunnels had purpose-built bottle-necks to inhibit the American GI's who managed to descend into the tunnel complex. The tunnel complex eventually stretched over 200km at three different levels. We crawled through about 200m of tunnels and that was enough to freak some of our group.
Day Trip Two: "Mekong Delta One Day". Choose a different one. Choose one with the Coconut Monk. It was a pleasant day, but the ratio of bus to boat was not good and there have to be more scenic stretches of the Mekong. Look up "The Coconut Monk" on Google he seems like a facinating chap with a freakish headquarters. I had read
about him, but was lazy when booking my tour. Got the trip I asked for.
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Gooda
non-member comment
Looks a great place