Big water babies
Trip Start
Sep 19, 2002
1
100
129
Trip End
Sep 22, 2003
Saigon,
Vietnam
Wednesday, June 4, 2003
In the afternoon we went to the War Remnants museum. This was fascinating and very moving. There are a number of tanks and artillery in the courtyard but most of the displays are made up of photos from the American war. One room is dedicated to the journalists of the war, many of whom lost their lives. There were some truly amazing photographs as well as some shocking ones. The worst display of all was the one on war atrocities. The photos in here were really quite horrendous and left you thinking how senseless war is. There were also photos of the damage that the agent orange did to babies with thousands of children born with deformities of every kind. In one picture you could barely tell which way up the child was. They even had some fetus' in jars to really bring home the point. As with all the museums in Vietnam this one was very one sided, only showing the bad done by the Americans and the South army. I am sure much of the same was done by the North but none of this was shown.
3rd - We joined up again with our cyclo drivers to do some sightseeing. They must have been pretty desperate because whenever we came out of our hotel they were there waving and smiling. The cyclo drivers in Saigon are very poor and have to work about 16 hours a day, 7 days a week just to make a living. Many of them have no home and have to sleep on the streets in their cyclos.
First stop was the Reunification Palace. When Saigon fell to the North this is where the tanks made for to raise the flag and take power. To our surprise it was actually quite a new building, only built in the 1960s. We were given a free tour which made it a lot more interesting than just wandering around. Many of the rooms are still decorated in a very 1960s style, including the padded rooftop bar.
Next up was the City of Ho Chi Minh museum. This basically told the story of Saigon and the cultural history of Vietnam. The main reason for us going here was to see a famous photo. In the 1960s Buddhism was being repressed by the South's government and there were many demonstrations by the Buddhist monks. One monk drove from Hue to Saigon, covered himself in petrol and set himself alight. The photograph shows the monk sitting in the lotus position engulfed in flames seemingly without a care in the world. The other interesting things at the museum were the dozens of couples having their wedding photos done in and around the building. We learned that this was very popular both with locals and Koreans who come to Vietnam to get married because it is cheaper.
Third stop was the Jade Emperor's Pagoda. Our helpful cyclo driver came in with us and tried to explain in broken English what it was all about. One area of the Pagoda was where people could go to pray for a baby boy or a girl and also to pray for babies in general (I made a hasty exit from here). This part of the temple probably doesn't get as much use as it once did now that couples are restricted to 2 children per couple. On the way back to the hotel we stopped to see Notre Dame cathedral, built by the French to replicate the one in Paris.
4th - What would a visit to Vietnam be without a visit to a .............Water park! It was our last day in Saigon so we thought we would go out with a splash. Up fairly early to try and beat the heat we took a 45 minute bus ride to the Saigon Water Park. The park is filled with loads of different water slides and pools. We soon realised that we were the only westerners in the whole park and had to get used to lots of staring and being followed by loads of kids on to every ride we tried. Many of the locals go in fully clothed which seemed quite strange to us but seeing our puny white bodies was probably enough to convince anyone to cover up. We tried all the rides which were great fun. One involved us lying head first on a mat and flying down a huge bumpy slide. At the bottom there was a big run off stretch which the Vietnamese normally got halfway along before stopping. Us fat westerners got huge applause when we shot right off the end! The funniest part of the day was when we took rubber rings into the wave pool and LJ got seasick! How I laughed!
