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Published: January 20th 2010
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Saigon
As we approached the city from the outskirts our first impressions were not favourable: the place looked like a building site. The traffic swirled around us as we drew nearer to the centre and even though the chaos of scaffolding was subsiding the noise of the bustling, often narrowing streets increased. Welcome to Saigon.
The bus dropped us off outside the main Sinh Cafe office and we fell to the task of looking for accommodation. As we had been approaching I had found our position on our map so we had chosen a budget hotel to aim for in the near vicinity. However, as usual a tout caught us and depite our best efforts refused to be shrugged off, pretty much stalking us as we walked towards our chosen hotel. We even went into a hotel to check out the rooms so we could get away but, alas, as we returned to the front of the place after viewing a room - there she was! She (uninvited) showed us the hotel we were aiming for but unfortunately it was no good: too expensive and rubbish room. We allowed her to show us her accommodation, but as it had
no wifi - something usually in abundance in Vietnam - we settled for the first hotel we had viewed.
As it was dark we decided to leave the majority of exploring until the next day, so settled for dinner at a local cafe and the a walk on the street we were staying on, which happened to be one of the main bar and tourist areas of the city. It had a good vibe and was bright and very westernised, but obviously in the setting of the typical tall, narrow multi-storey buildings. We were beginning to warm to the place after initial views, and retired to our room with a more positive frame of mind for the next day's wanderings.
Our hopes of a good night's sleep were dashed early on by the realisation that we had chosen a room next to one of the street's most vibrant bars: the bass was humming and made our bed seem to be endowed with a massage function! Good tunes generally, but music until after 1pm was a little excessive in our eyes. Thank God for earplugs....
The next day dawned bright and, despite a broken night, we eagerly entered
into our first day in HCMC. Breakfast was followed by us using the guidebook to tour the city. It was very hot and we tried to keep to the shade where possible, but this proved challenging when having to cross huge roads where traffic from 5 roads converged! Thankfully our 'road safety training' - Vietnam style - had prepared us for the crossings that to many would have looked suicidal :-) The architecture was extremely mixed, from the more traditional tall shop/homesteads to shiny new malls and French style Opera House. It was a blessing to enter the air-conditioned shopping centres, but equally fun to wander past locals going about their everyday business (or sitting on their motorbikes, or drinking in cafés).
The tour took us outside the main CBD of the city and to the museum district, to where we had decided to visit 2 places. Of course the first was closed when we got there in the grand Vietnamese tradition of shutting for at least 2 hours at lunchtime, so we continued on to the second: Reunification Palace. The title makes it sound grander than it was as the building looking rather austere, being square and constructed
of unadorned concrete, but the setting in wooded park helped soften the appearance. The building itself holds an important place in the history of the country as it was the residence of the president of South Vietnam (before and during the war) and was where power was eventually given over to the north - after a series of bombings and eventually tanks forcing their way through the entrance gates. A copy of the offending tank and aeroplane can be viewed (strangely) in the grounds.
After eventually finding the entrance (a large square of land with only one public entrance - on the opposite side to where our guidebook told us it would be) we explored the official looking rooms. It seemed every member of the president's family and cabinet had their own 'greeting' room! Each room was well presented but also a little lacking in atmosphere. Even the main hall, set out with chairs and a statue of Uncle Ho failed to arouse any sense of history. It was not until we reached the living quarters at the back that the place looked semi-lived in - although not by much - and the basement showed maps and equipment from
the days of conflict allowing us to at least partially imagine events. The best bit was the video being shown in another basement room that was informative about the events leading up to the 'end' and linked the building in well to this.
Keeping in with the ever cheery war theme, we headed for the 'War Remnants Museum': a place that more than made up for the lack of general information and reality of the war. The courtyard yielded several 'machines of war' which Warren enjoyed inspecting, but the rest of the museum was unrelenting in its presentation of the horrors and effects of the events which had ravaged the country only 35 years ago.
The first section divulged information on and and mock-ups of prison camps (run by Americans) and the treatment of prisoners: not for the feint hearted. Neither was the area dedicated to attacks on the local people which included particular massacres and the instant and longer running effects of the use of toxins, such as Agent Orange. Embryos of deformed, miscarried babies (I hope they were fake) were displayed alongside pictures of the battlefield. Unpleasantly real (although unsurprisingly subjective) and rather upsetting on the
whole, but interesting in a morbid way. I would not have wanted to be a visiting American.
That sobering experience made for a quiet walk back to the room, however the mood was improved by our path running through a well appointed park, allowing us to cut off a corner and therefore avoiding the busy road. We sat and enjoyed the cool of the shade before tackling the last 500m or so, then relaxed for the rest of the evening.
The next morning, after a slightly better night's sleep, we decided a visit to the botanical gardens was in order. It was quite a walk away - further than the previous day - but it promised shady avenues and a zoo: worth the effort. The place was more a park than a botanical gardens as it did not really offer a wide variety of flora, but was nonetheless a pleasant place to relax for a short while before exploring the animal element.
As we wandered past the cages of primates and deer enclosures, it soon became evident that the creatures were not looked after as well as we would have liked, with areas being too small and
often quite smelly. The most heartbreaking creatures were the elephants who had no water and stood rocking in distress - very sad. We went and sat by the lilly filled lake to read for an hour or so before moving on to other parts of the 'park'. Thankfully other animals like crocs, peacocks and the rhino faired a little better in the comfort stakes, but we felt that after a cursory look around that we had had enough and started on the long journey back. A brief stop at a couple of the malls enabled Warren to purchase a new iPod (to replace the temperamental one) and get supplies for the next few days. That morning we had purchased tickets to a 3 day tour of the Mekong Delta area with the crossing to Cambodia at the end. Quite a bargain and something we were both looking forward to. Now, all we needed for the 7am start was a good night's sleep....
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David B
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Question
Hope all is well with you. Do the touts expect a back hander from you, or do they get one from the hotel? I see the bust of Uncle Ho is in gold. How does that fit in with the communist ideology, I wonder!