Ho Chi Minh City

Our first day in Vietnam dawned grey and muggy.  Despite the extremely long day yesterday, my body clock wanted me up on Australian time.  I resisted and managed to snooze till about 6.30am.  I was a little confused when I awoke but the constant sound of roosters, but later investigation revealed the 4th floor balcony opposite to apparently be a holding pen for what we assume to be fighting cocks.

Once up and after an excellent breakfast, the crew decided to head off in different directions.  Megs, Jules, Mikey, Oren and Rob took a tour of the city, while Kieran, Petra and I went off on foot.

The first move for Petra, Kieran and me was to check out some tailors but being early they weren't open yet.  Still the early morning walk was a great introduction to the art of negotiating the city's roads before things got too busy.  While there are cars, buses and trucks on the road, the vast majority of traffic is scooters and motorbikes.  There are quite literally thousands of them at every turn.  Great crowds streaming through the city, row apon row parked on the footpath, occasionally some driving on the footpath!  Where there are traffic lights you can wait to cross, but generally, you simply pick a moment of light traffic and walk at a constant pace across the road.  They will swerve around you, or beep if you need to slow down or speed up.  Amazingly it all seems really quite ordered and far less chaotic that we would have expected.

Early morning traffic - it at least doubled or trippled later in the day.

Our first stop was the Notre Dame Cathederal.  It might have been built in the style of the great Paris icon, but it isn't really the same thing.  Still it was interesting and we got to watch a bridal photo shoot out the front.

The official banquet room at the Reunification Palace

From there we went on to the Reunification Palace.  It was built by the French in the mid 1800's and has had a chequered history throughout Vietnam's turbulent past.  Upstairs there are many opulant state rooms, but downstairs in the basement are the stark bare walls and maze of rooms from which the South Vietnamese ran their war.  It was close and claustrophobic and you could almost feel the emotion coming from the walls about what they had witnessed.


Petra in the basement of the Reunification Palace

You might be familiar with the Reunification Palace from the famous photos of the North Vietnamese tanks smashing through the gates as Saigon fell.  There are replicas of those tanks in the grounds.

We then continued on (Kieran and I parting a sea of school kids in awe of the giants in their midst) and made our way to the war remnants museum.  It is very interesting to read about and see the war from the "other" perspective.  There is a lot of emphasis on the "American war of agression" and the atrocities committed by the Americans.  There is no doubt that it happened but there is no recognition of the North's own actions.

The museum is quite detailed on the war, but also on things such as the residual effects of Agent Orange.  The photos of what it has done to people are just appalling.  The top floor contained a fantastic exhibition of photographs where every photographer represented had died during the war.  It was very moving.

It was quite an emotionally draining visit, but well worth it.

The other crew also went to an annexe to the museum which described the torture inflicted during the war and had exhibits such as a guillotine and barbed wire cages in which people were kept.  I'm really quite happy that I didn't see that exhibition to be honest.  There are some dark elements of people's history that I do not need to know about.

Kieran and Petra wander through a street market

We then headed off, wandering through small markets, parks and wide avenues until we found ourselves some lunch before Kieran went to find a tailor and Petra and I went for massages.  We each had an hour long Thai massage - lots of pummelling and stretching of muscles to get rid of that plane stiffness.  Like other places in Asia we were given extremely glamerous PJ's to wear during our massage.  They were hilarious and there is a photo, but it isn't going on the Internet!!!  We felt great, so then headed into the markets.

Petra and I were very restrained and didn't purchase anything but we do have a list of things we are getting!  The other team weren't quite so controlled - but they have found some lovely stuff.

Everyone met up again and we headed to see the "Golden Dragon Water Puppets".  Water puppets are a Vietnamese tradition and are designed so that the puppetiers are hidden behind a screen and the puppet workings are below the water.  The puppets themselves are all sorts of things, people, fish, dragons, ducks, etc and are laquered so they are brightly coloured and shiny, plus are jointed so that the puppetiers can control their movements.  It was very impressive - for about the first 10 minutes.  By the 40 minute mark, I was struggling to keep my eyes open in the hot humid atmosphere.  I guess there is only so long a flailing doll on a stick can hold my attention.

We left, walking back through the crazy streets (we have now also located the flower sellers, the lighting district and the street of sports wear) to the hotel.  The team had dinner included in their tour package so Kieran, Petra and I headed back to the night market to get dinner.  And what a BRILLIANT dinner it was.  We ordered BBQ "Vietnamese style" beef, salt and chilli squid, deep fried prawns, prawns on a stick and another BBQ squid dish that we had no idea what it was - but it was delicious.  We ate till we were way past full, drank fruit drinks and coke and had to fork out about $7 each at the end.  It was a fantastic meal.