Ho Chi Minh City

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January 6, 2008

Remember how I said I was leaving for Ho Chi Minh "in a few hours?" That was a lie. It was more like "quite a few hours." The flight was supposed to leave at 8:00, but ended up leaving at 10:30ish. We left our hostel at 5ish and got there at around 6--two hours before our original flight time--and ended up hanging out at the tiny airport for 4 and a half hours. We landed at about 12:30 and I could immediately tell the difference in weather. In Hanoi, it was incredibly pleasant during the day and cool at night. In Ho Chi Minh, in the middle of the night, it was warm and very humid. We ended up getting to our hostel at 1:30am and immediately crashed. That really sucks because due to time constraints, I was really looking forward to spending a night in the town.

Anyway, we slept in, got ready for the day, and first came across a sacred Hindu temple. It was beautiful, but you'll have to view pictures on different websites because I didn't know how kosher it was to use my camera in there, especially with people practising in there. We walked around a little bit more and then had some lunch at the Bo Tung Xeo Restaurant. It's a Vietnamese barbeque that has everything from chicken curry to rat to goat penis. I went with the kangaroo steak and fries. It was delicious, but tasted too much like regular cow beef to ever eat again and have more images of cute kangaroos with boxing gloves like the pictures in the Wake Up 5A books at school.

After lunch, we went to the War Remnants Museum. Boy, they don't teach THEIR side of the story in your American history classes! The outside of the museum had some tanks, fighter jets, etc. from both sides, and that was fun. But then the realities of war came and the adrenaline from being around artillery went when we got inside. They had displays of shredded jets, pictures of innocent women and children being hunted down and slaughtered by American soldiers, and more disturbing images of victims of bombs and poisonous gasses. It was absolutely surreal, frightening, and sickening.

After that, we visited the Reunification Palace. It has a beautiful fountain on the front lawn and the rest of the lawns is gigantic and filled with trees, flowers, and gardens. It was a relatively modern building--very 70's. We didn't get to see the first floor because there was a wedding there (apparently a common thing), but we did see where the president had his meetings, his war room, his command post/bedroom, and gift room. The back lawn had more trees, some cafes, and three tennis courts. It wasn't the most exciting or beautiful thing to visit, but still well worth seeing.

The day was winding down, as were the sights, so we walked around for a while longer and came across the Notre Dame Cathedral--very European, of course. We couldn't go inside because it was only open during masses. We went to a bar down the street from our hostel and had some comfort food--I had a delicious chicken, bacon, and egg burger, a few beers, and soon after went to bed.

We had to get up early the next morning because we had to catch the 7-hour bus to Cambodia! We've spent a couple of days here, but I'm about to head out, so I'll keep you posted on it soon!

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