South Vietnam

---

.Ho Chi Minh City- was Saigon before 1975, still is downtown
April 10th, 2009
Breakfast never came to the room at 6, I had last night’s cold room service coffee and fruit, Holland America did not live up to its reputation for fine service, I am very disappointed.
We purchased the 10 hour Colonial Saigon Tour and boarded a bus at 8 am. The city is 70 miles or km away but with the horrendous traffic it takes 2 to 2 ½ hours to get to Central Saigon: an adventure and a great opportunity to see the lifestyle of the people. They live behind their individual businesses in various styles and level of housing; at the street they have tire shops, eateries, junk plastic shops, fruit and vegetable markets or hammock stands. Only 20% of rural people have refrigerator, so the mom shops everyday and cooks a 3 pm main meal for the family, the rest is eaten cold or off the street from vendors. Then there is the traffic: everybody is on a moped, scooter or motor bike- 1, 2, 3 4, or 5 people to a 2 seat bike, sometimes the kids stand between the parents so that all have room on the bike; all wear surgical masks against pollution and women wear long sleeves and gloves to maintain the lightest possible complexion, this with conical Vietnamese hats with or underneath helmets. They are all scooting right, left and center between cement trucks, buses and a very few cars and everybody is honking their horns at the same time. There are 3 ½ million bikes in the city.
Ho Chi Minh City, named after Uncle Ho the communist leader who reunited the country, is an interesting setting for the 7 to 9 million people that live there, 86 million. The city is interesting because it is growing, being renovated with cranes and bulldozers beside shanties and palm canopies where people live and hang their laundry on the safety fence of the construction company working beside them.
We started or tour at the Zoo and Botanical Garden, we saw tigers, giraffe, emu, rhinos, elephants and birds…; we smelled animal dung and sweet fragrances from the tree blooms; the parks was well manicured, I lost my sun glasses.
We drove past the former US Embassy site, on Boulevard Le Duan, where the famous helicopter lifting the American citizens from the roof after the takeover by North Vietnam in 1975 picture was taken. We were on our way to the Reunification Hall. This is where the North Vietnamese Communist tank got the order to stop minutes too late before it crashed into the front gate- which has been fixed. The building was built in 1963 and used by the French and American as a residence, palace, office, war and CIA operations during these difficult times for the South Vietnamese people, difficult for some but absolutely glamorous and decorated with the best rugs, tapestries and furniture for the allied forces (helpers/occupiers). This is where our 30-35 year old guide told us that within families (his?) there were communist and democratic sympathizers (father against sons, brothers against brothers); the assistant of the premier of democratic South Vietnam was really a communist North Vietnam spy!
Later, at the Ho Chi Minh City Museum we saw a cross section of the 200 km tunnel system the Vietcong had built some of it under the American air force base; the VC(Charlie) were guerilla forces that lived underground (with their families sometimes) and thwarted the war effort. David, an engineer from Waterloo, Canada, went to CuChi to see the real thing and got a chance to crawl through some that have been enlarged for the tourists and see some that were the original small diameter tunnel for the VC. He was amazed by the engineering, spoon dug in clay, earth brought out by conical hat, 4 levels, air vents that could be closed, opened or redirected when the enemy pumped Carbon Dioxide down the hole to kill them. Quite amazing.
We enjoyed a lovely Vietnamese lunch at the Equatorial Hotel, after a rehydration break, very hot and humid, we visited the Post office, French architecture, an absolutely lovely bldg and the Notre Dame Cathedral across the street - it was closed for either a wedding or Good Friday services, too bad.
The last stop was the beautiful Hotel D’Ville, the Rex Hotel, the Continental Hotel and the Opera House, all within a bloc and around a lovely park with a statue of Uncle Ho. It was H O T! and the monsoon season, which should come in May-June, arrived early; it started pouring, we ran to the bus, it was 3 and we made it home by 5:30.
Drinks around the pool, casual dinner in the Lido and early to bed and Terry is still asleep and it is mid morning-on a sea day before snorkeling in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia tomorrow.
TTYS
Hope you enjoy your Easter family festivities.

---