Day 42, 43 and 44 - Saigon - Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City much later than anticipated due to setting off late. We arrived at our hotel in the afternoon. The hotel was nice and our room had a good view over District One. After recovering from the train we ventured up to the rooftop restaurant for some food. It has a great view and is a lively place. There were a lot of young 18-21 year old western travellers around. Normally, I would be happy to join in with them but they all seemed like idiots and I didn't have the patience to attempt conversation. There was also one much older man, clearly drunk on Dalat wine - a Vietnamese 'wine' that tastes a bit like battery acid. He headed towards the laptop in the corner of the terrace and put on Dire Straits, Brothers In Arms. A good song but he was American and it seemed somehow inappropriate given the location. He has set the loudspeakers to max volume and although I had no issue with this, the staff (in particular one very stern looking manageress) kept turning it down. He was however determined and repeatedly returned to switch it back up. Although this was funny, it is also tragic. Just like we often refer to people as being Asian with little regard for the vast difference between each country, the people here seem to do the same with the term 'Western'. When you get a bunch of drunken, loud louts from the US, Australia the UK and other European countries swearing and bragging about their exploits from the previous night along with a drunk old man on his second bottle of Dalat and fifth playing of the same song at full volume, you wonder what the nice, quiet Vietnamese group in the corner and the staff must think of 'Westerners'. After a good nights sleep we headed to Liberation Palace renamed as Reunification Palace after the war. We hopped in a taxi outside our hotel and told him where we wanted to go. He pulled up outside a Catholic Church (named Notre Dam). We got out, looked around and realised this is not where we wanted to be. Maybe he was trying to convert us, I'm not sure! Luckily the palace was not too much further so we crossed the park and went inside. There are free tours offered. It's an interesting place where a tank stormed the gates at the end of the war - it still sits in the grounds today! Everything has been left as it was when the palace was re-built in the 70's. It felt a bit like being in an old Bond film. I half expected Roger Moore to be sat at the bar on the rooftop next to the helipad with a vodka martini. Coincidently I was when we were on the rooftop that the guide accused me of being Russian. I thought she was asking if I was a KGB spy but it turned out that my hair looked Russian. Time for a hair cut! After an afternoon of exploring the palace we hopped in another taxi and ask to be taken to the Rex Hotel - a place every visitor to HCMC apparently must have a drink. The driver nods, drives for maybe 2 minutes and says we are here. We get out, look around, and see Notre Damn Cathedral again! I'm sensing a theme with this taxi company. We look at our map and decide to walk. The Rex is a huge posh hotel and we wander in in shorts and flip flops looking slightly out of place next to the doormen and marble pillars but nonetheless we head up to the rooftop for some of the most expensive drinks I've ever bought! The Hotel was made famous during the Vietnam war as a hang out American GI's and the media. Following drinks here we headed to one of the tallest buildings in Asia which has a bar on the 49th floor known as the sky bar. The view is incredible and we sit down to enjoy the sunset with a few cocktails. The following day we headed to the Fito museum. This was somewhere more for Kate's benefit - a museum of traditional Vietnamese medicine. We were shown around by a lovely guide who explained all the traditional Vietnamese medicine, which is surprisingly different from chinese medicine. After the tour we were given a free cup of mushroom tea - which is supposedly good for hypertension. It was surprisingly tasty and encouraged me to have a look around the shop. After that we went to look for an ATM as we had run out of cash. We jumped in a taxi and headed for the War Remnants Museum. Yet again our taxi driver dropped us at Notre damn - this seems to be the only place they go in HCMC! The first part of the museum was a mock prison and showcased the ways and means north Vietnamese prisoners of war were held during the conflict! The torturing methods were sickening. The rest of the museum focused on the use of agent orange during the war. This was one of many chemicals used by the Americans to destroy the vegetation of Vietnam to prevent guerrilla fighters for the Viet Cong from having cover in the greenery. The photographs and accounts of the effects of this were truly harrowing. Photographs depicted deformities and disabilities the like of which I have never seen before. However the most moving part of the exhibition was a schoolgirls plea to Barack Obama for more aid and support to the victims of agent orange within Vietnam (American soldiers that were affected by the chemical are now being compensated). The American government however still does not accept responsibility for the affects of agent orange within Vietnam. Small steps are being made in that they are now supporting the clean up of some areas but I think most Vietnamese people would just prefer an apology. For dinner we headed into the main backpacker area. After coming across a restaurant we didn't look any further (it was also pouring with rain). The nachos were great and the Vietnam branch of our favourite Southampton restaurant did not let called La Cantina we had to stop for some nachos. The namesake in Bedford Place, Southampton is one of our favourite restaurants. After that we decided to wander the area and had a few drinks right on the street. We were offered a lot of junk by street sellers of various ages who often come up to you, put their products in your face and just stand there for an awkward minute hoping you buy something. I feel sorry that this is the way some people have to try and scratch out a living. Opportunities in terms of education and employment are growing rapidly in Vietnam but there are still many who miss out with no benefit safety net like we have. The more I witness people struggling to get enough money to eat, the more angry i get about those who cheat the benefit system in the UK. We also saw a mother with several children sitting outside a 7 eleven store. At first we thought she had stopped for a rest but it turned out she was living on the street. It is not unusual for us to see homeless people however you don't often see a whole family. It was heart braking. The next day we joined a tour to the Cu Chi tunnels. During the 1960s, these helped the Viet Cong control a large rural area only 30km from Saigon. There are more than 200km of tunnels and when ground attacks failed to capture them, they bombed the area extensively. After an interesting introduction from the tour guide in which he explained why he still liked Americans (because there tourism money pays his wages), we arrived at a lacquer shop. This was craftily named as a 'toilet stop' but given it was miles out of the way suggested yet another tour company who get extra commission from shops. In this case however it was actually quite interesting I was free to walk around the factory and talk to the workers. They were very happy to show me how they made the lacquerware with mother of pearl inlays. The prices however were very high and after ring followed around the shop by a pushy sales assistant, we found the exit and got back on the bus. Eventually, we arrived at the tunnels. Our slightly aggressive tour guide (who called himself John Wayne) slapped stickers on us and we want through the entry barriers. The tunnels were really interesting and we got the chance to crawl through them. The next day we got a long distance bus to Chau Doc near to the Cambodian border in the Mekong Delta.