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After another long day on a train we arrived in Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City as it is now called. The city was re-named in honour of Uncle Ho in 1975 after it fell into the hands of the North Vietnamese. Ho Chi Minh is a massive sprawling city and is divided into 16 districts, district 1 is still officially called Saigon and this is where we intended on staying.
The queue of taxis at the station exit was long and for the first time on our travels in Vietnam we weren’t jumped on by hotel or taxi touts - there were a few motorbike taxi men touting for business but other than that it was quite sane. We told the guy in charge of the taxi queue that we wanted a meter taxi to district 1, he said that we couldn’t have one and offered us a ride in a non metered taxi at a ridiculous rate, it was raining but we stood our ground and refused to be ripped off. We approached a couple of taxi drivers but none of them wanted our Dong so now we were a bit stuck. Not to be outdone by
these robbing modern day highwaymen we opted for a couple of motorbike taxi’s that had approached us earlier. Carrying an 18kg backpack on the back of a motorbike in the rain through one of the busiest cities in Asia is not an easy feat……but what a laugh we had!! Barry’s driver led the way through the busy evening traffic winding in and out of cars, bikes and cyclo’s with me and my driver in hot pursuit, we jumped a couple of red lights along the way in order to stick together. The traffic in HCMC is the maddest and busiest we’ve seen in the whole of the country so it was a bit of a white-knuckle ride for the twelve or fifteen minutes that it took for us to land in district 1 at our chosen hotel. We enjoyed the experience so much that we paid over the agreed rate for the ride - our two drivers were chuffed!!!
The hotel that we had intended on staying at was fully booked so now we had the added task of finding somewhere to sleep, it was dark and still a bit wet so this was the last thing we needed
Reunification Palace
It looks a lot like a 1960's technical college - at least Saigon has lots of accommodation to choose from; not all great as we were about to find out!! After traipsing around for 40mins we settled on the Bich Duyen Hotel, a lovely modern clean place in a quiet alleyway off Pham Ngu Lam which for $11 offered a room with 1 double bed, 1 single, a fridge, TV, hot shower, free internet and breakfast, a real bargain!! The receptionist was a young lad called Chan who came from the Mekong Delta, he ran the 14 room hotel with the help of his brother (who did all the laundry) and a cleaning lady. The family that owned the hotel lived upstairs on the top floor and were really friendly, the kids spoke brilliant English and loved playing computer games on the receptions PC. Obviously we were hungry after our journey south - the packed lunch had been devoured on the train in the first couple of hours. After a couple of drinks in a nearby bar we settled down in a restaurant that was occupied by a few Ex-Pats, had some food and a couple more drinks before heading back down the alley to the hotel. By this
time the hotel was in darkness and the front shutter was pulled down - poor Chan was sleeping on the floor in reception. This has happened to us in every single hotel that we’ve stayed at throughout Vietnam. At 10.30pm the scooters are wheeled from the street outside into reception (obviously a lot of bike theft going on here). The shutters or grilles are closed, lights in reception go off and the receptionist goes to his bed on the floor to be woken up at least ½ a dozen times by guests coming in after a night out…….it would drive me mad but to the lads who work in the receptions it’s normal life!!!
We decided upon an early start the following morning, grabbed our FREE breakfast and then headed off to the War Remnants Museum and The Reunification Palace, it was only 10am and already the heat was getting to us as we strolled through the park towards the sites. First stop was the War Remnants Museum formerly named “The Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes”, they re-named it to avoid offending Chinese or American tourists. The Museum is made up of several sections; there’s a
View from the Presidential Balcony
Looks good without tanks crashing through the gates mock up prison for POW’s complete with guillotine used by the French on Viet Minh troublemakers. A section devoted to weapons and artillery and a section showing pictures of deformed Vietnamese babies whose deformities were due to the USA’s use of chemicals during the “American War” - as it’s called here.
One of the most interesting and probably the most gut wrenching was the section devoted to the journalists from all over the world who reported on the “American War” and lost their lives. Some of the pictures were horrible - very gruesome, but it was the stories behind the pictures that made you speechless. A few of the photos on display were the last ones taken by the journalists and were developed after their deaths. Most died on the battlefields but some were shot out of the skies as they were leaving in helicopters, one was killed by a landmine; he’d got bored waiting in the trenches and decided to go off up the road for a walk, minutes later he stepped on the mine and died instantly. The section of photo’s devoted to the horrors of war was the saddest of all, it included pictures of injured or
Street scene - district 1
Madonna parks her bra and her bike dead civilians who were victims of bombings or napalm attacks - a lot of them babies and children; it took a lot to hold back the tears. While it was sad and upsetting it really did hammer home the point that war is often pointless and the main casualties are the innocent civilians. For anyone visiting HCMC this Museum is a MUST!!!
Next on the itinerary - The Reunification Palace (or Presidential Palace). The site originally housed the residence of the French Governor General of Cochinchina and was known then as Norodom Palace. When the French left, the palace became home to the South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem but he was a hated man and the palace suffered air strikes in 1962 as part of an attempt to murder him. Under his instruction a new palace was built on the site but he was killed by his own troops in 1963 so never got to see the finished structure. The entrance fee included a guided tour around the main rooms of interest in the Palace; the Presidents living quarters included a movie theatre, mini casino and private helipad. The best part for us was the underground tunnel network
Parklife HCMC
The wildlife is very friendly around these parts complete with telecommunications centre and war room. On 30th April 1975 the first communist tanks to arrive in Saigon burst through the gates of the palace, journalists at the scene sent photo's across the world of the momentous occasion. According to our guide at the palace, the communists could quite easily have used the side gates which were open at the time, however to show defiance in victory and possibly to make better pictures they chose the central gates. After visiting the Palace we made a quick detour to see The Notre Dame Cathedral which dates back to the late 1800’s and then went on to Diamond Plaza - one of HCMC newest and fanciest Department Stores, it has a cinema and bowling alley inside and a great trendy food court where obviously we went for the junk variety……KFC you can’t beat it!!!
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jonny red
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...and so to bed!!!
Bet you gald you get in Bich hotel! Nice to see you came back in one piece! Liked the whole experience that you both had, wish I was twenty one again! TTFN Jonny Red