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Published: July 21st 2012
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Rain 21 secs
Hostel street
There are tons of little alleys where all the budget accomodation and food is! After another long bus journey and a rather pain free border crossing we arrived in Saigon late at night at about ten o'clock. Saigon is a metropolis of a city and after the war finished it has grown up fast. I knew that navigating myself and a tired Jane to our hotel through the maze of tiny ally ways would be a difficult task.
As soon as we stepped off the bus we were met by the usual touts trying to usher us this way and that. This would normally lead us to grab our bags and walk away until they all eventually stopped following us and I could resort to my trusty cub scout map reading skills. However, this time something amazing happened, the first tout to come towards said the name of our hotel,after our initial shock, we said 'yes' and the guy(our hero) said 'I am the hotel owner, I knew you were coming so I have come to meet you and take you to the hotel'. Amazing, there are four different bus companies that travel from Phnom Penh to Saigon and each have around eight different bus times throughout the day. I am still puzzled to
Antique street
We loved it here and spent easily a few hours perusing! know how he knew we would be on that bus but I wasn't complaining. After we checked in to our neat and tidy room with a/c and wi-fi, we headed out for some food. I was happy to see that like in Cambodia beer was cheap and food was even cheaper. I enjoyed a Vietnamese chicken & cashew nut stir fry curry with rice for about a quid and Jane enjoyed crispy tofu clay pot and claimed it was it was the best tofu she'd ever eaten.
The next day we did the lonely planet walking tour of Saigon. This was a lovely walk and by far the best thing any of our distinctly average guidebooks has produced. After walking across the central park and battling our way through the old market, the walk took us to the fantastic antique street. An amazing street which is just full of treasures and gems of vietnamese history. We spent over an hour on this street digging our way through the french antiques, war memorabilia and lovely artwork. It was great. The rest of the walk took us past some famous points of interest from the war, a statue of Ho Chi
Minh and some buildings leftover from the french regime such as the Notre Damn Church and the Post Office designed by Gustave Eiffel. The end of the walk took us to Reunification Palace, famous as the site that ended the war when a North Vietnamese Army tank bulldozed the front gate. The walk was about 6km and was lovely to walk around Saigon, however it was not circular and I realised we had to walk back, just as the heavens opened. We hid in a bus shelter for over an hour waited for the storm to pass but we enjoyed watching the locals whizzing past on their scooters in the rain as if everything was normal. After the rain past we walked back towards our hotel only stopping for a well earned vietnamese fresh beer at the side of the road. There are many fresh beer places in vietnam, they are usually just stalls at the side of the road with small plastic chairs where you just pull up a pew and enjoy beer for around 20 pence a glass.
The next day with headed to the Saigon War Remnants Museum. The museum is a predominately one sided affair
towards the Vietnamese but I suppose that is expected. The ground floor of the museum mainly focuses around the worldwide protests towards the American involvement. We took our time reading the newspaper clippings and taking in the moving photographs and propaganda posters. The first floor has many of the weapons used by the Americans displayed in glass cabinets. This was interesting to see the M-16, rocket launchers, grenade launchers, claymores etc. so close up, however I think I enjoyed this part of the museum slightly more than Jane.
The second floor was the most moving area of the museum. One of the rooms displays very moving photographs of many of the vietnamese civilians who were killed. There is also a section displaying photographs which were taken by the media photographers who died in the war, some of them were just unbelievable. The other room of the second floor focuses the chemical weapons used in the war such as agent orange. Again there are very moving photographs and examples of how the chemicals have affected innocent civilians and future generations.
The best part of the museum is outside where there are many of the planes, helicopters, tanks, chinooks etc.
Sunnys and zippos
Loved the glasses but non suited us :( and would have loved the lighter had it not been $30 which were used by the US. This was good, but unlike the Beverley Army Transport Museum visitors are not allowed to climb all over the vehicles. I would have loved to sit in the cockpit of the Heuy, if only for just for a few minutes. On the whole the museum was good, but I would have like to see more of the weapons and vehicles used by the vietcong.
On the walk back to the hotel trying to avoid the rain, we had some lovely sweet corn street food and some more fresh beer.
We enjoyed Saigon and it was by far the most enjoyable city we have been to on the trip so far and a great start to Vietnam.
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