Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City you decide!

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14th July 2009

After a long day traveling yesterday we felt we deserved another lie-in. Finally emerging from our slumber we headed to the Presidential Palace. This was "liberated" during the fall of Saigon in 1975 and the North Vietnamese government kept it the way it was on that day. We both though that for a presidential palace it was a little understated, maybe a symptom of 1970s interior design. As we left we were greeted by our first experience of Monsoon rains as we made our way to the War Remnants museum. The museum displayed disturbing photographs of the atrocities commited by the US during the war as well as the aftermath caused by the use of Agent Orange. Any glamourisation of the Vietnam War was thoroughly taken away by some of the photo exhibits. We spent the rest of the day here and still hadn't seen it all.

15th July 2009

The day began with a return to the War Remnants Museum to see the rest of the exhibits. After we had taken all we could we moved away from the war on to the History Museum situated in a park. Here we learnt about the more pleasant history of Vietnam and how it became the country that we see today. In the evening we returned to eating more street food at the central food market in Saigon. Here we both had seafood that was plucked out from the tanks next to us, at least we knew it was fresh. The food was delicious, and all for the low price of 2.50 each, including our beers. This was a great change from the expense of Australia and NZ.

16th July 2009

We took a full day tour starting at 8am to visit the Cu Chi tunnels. Battling the crazy Saigon traffic it took us about 2 hours to get out of the city itself and a further hour to get to the first stop. This was a Confusican temple, a religion that mixed elements of both Catholism and Buddhism. The temple was very ornate even if the religion itself was hard to get your head round. After a quick bite to eat we headed to the Cu Chi tunnels where we got a taste of the other side of the Vietnam War. The tour began with a rather propogandaish video about the "heros of Cu Chi" and celebrated their brutality against the Americans. The traps used against the Americans and the South Vietnamese were shown to us and were particularly barbaric. We were lead round past several American Bomb crators to the widened entrance of one of the tunnels which we walked/crawled through for 200m. This was very claustrophobic and a lot hotter than we were expecting it to be and we were glad when we were back on the surface. After this we didn't want the rest of our trip to be about the atrocities of war.

17th July 2009

We couldn't face a 50 hour bus ride to the capital, Hanoi, so instead we flew, taking just 2 hours! We still spent the whole day traveling though to and from airports and waiting for our delayed flight. Still, better than 2 days traveling!

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