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War Remnants Museum & New Years Eve
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We woke up in our luxurious hotel room completely refreshed and went down to a buffet breakfast in the hotel restaurant. Not too bad!
It had been resolved that today we would spend more time seeing the sights of Saigon, and we had decided to visit the Reunification Palace and War Remnants Museum. We hopped onto a couple of cyclos and asked to be taken to the Reunification Palace (agreeing on a price first, of course - we learned that the hard way in Hue). A nice ride was taken in which we were nearly killed by the crazy traffic surrounding the crazy roundabouts that they have here for NO GOOD REASON! The Reunification Palace is a restored five-floor time warp to the late-60s, early-70s. It's been left largely untouched from the day before Saigon fell to the North (construction started in 1962 and finished in 1966). Formerly South Vietnam's Presidential Palace, the Vietnam War ended on April 30, 1975 when tank #843 - a replica of which is now parked on the lawn outside - crashed through the gate.
It's a crazy place - it's literally stuck in the 70s, with the Presidential quarters, map rooms, and "gambling room" all left the way they were when the tanks bashed down the gates. A great part of the Palace is eerie basement, full of vintage 1960s phones, radios, and office equipment, supposedly left exactly as it was found when the North took over. It is very cool and we enjoyed looking at all the old equipment and walking the corridors. There was no other tourists around either, which added a creepier feeling to it all. After we finished the Reunification Palace, we grabbed a light lunch and headed to the War Remnants Museum. This Museum used to be known as the Exhibition House of American War Crimes, and it shows. It was opened in a hurry, less than five months after the fall of the South (yep, back in 1975). This disturbing display of man's cruelty during the Vietnam (American) War includes halls full of gruesome photographs (I took some but had to stop when they started being of the infants who were infected with Agent Orange), a prison, and jars of deformed fetuses blamed on Agent Orange. Outside, there are helicopters, jets, tanks, and other bits of armament.
This place had the most impact of any museum we've been to so far in this country. The Agent Orange stuff absolutely floored me and I had to stop walking past all the photos (and jarred fetuses) to have a hug with Ophelia and Jonas. Heavy stuff. As we finished the museum, the rain started to come down (of course, it's 3pm!). We caught a cab back to our hotel and the kids napped and I caught up on some internet stuff. We then ordered in Italian food for dinner (beautiful cannelloni) and I went out to get some party food for New Years. Picked up some Tim-Tams, Skittles, M&Ms, Reese's Pieces, Dr Pepper and Coke. It was a good amount of food and Ophelia had a couple of lollies before bed.
After watching a 30 Rock marathon on TV until 11.30, we woke Ophelia up and went out on the balcony to see in the New Year. It was great to see the countdown (in Vietnamese) and we are looking forward to a great 2009. Happy New Year, everyone! More thumbnails ...
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