Ho Chi Minh's Legacy

Trip Start Nov 22, 2008

Trip End Dec 09, 2008

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Where I stayed

Oscar Ho Chi Minh City

(Ho Chi Minh City hotels)

Flag of Vietnam Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Thursday, December 4, 2008

Da Nang's airport is just on the side of the city so we didn't need to wake unreasonably early for our morning flight to Ho Chi Minh City. Before scoring a taxi outside the hotel we had obviously packed our bags and enjoyed another buffet breakfast at the hotel. Qantas' newest acquisition, Jetstar Pacific (ex Pacific Airlines) provided our means of flying down to HCMC, aboard an old 737-400. We were allocated seats in the emergency exit row again, but otherwise the flight was pretty much uneventful so we were soon in the crowds and filth of another big city.

It took ages for our taxi to push through the traffic to our hotel on one of the main drags of town, in the first district. Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon as it's most commonly referred to, is clearly divided into areas developed by the French and areas developed under less specific plans. Our hotel is with the French area, on one of the main boulevards through the city centre

Hidden Uses

. These streets are very wide and can more than easily deal with the traffic that uses them. In contrast, the streets around this central zone are narrow and highly congested. These are the streets that are actually needed and used by the locals, whereas the larger streets with their sightlines and large French buildings are the domain of tourists and as such are over-specified.

After settling into our hotel room we ventured onto the busy streets to visit some sites of relevance to Vietnam. The first stop was actually at Lotteria, just around the corner from the hotel, before we hit up the Reunification Palace, a large 1970s building that had been the seat of power for the American South Vietnamese Government. The building has not been touched since the Northern forces stormed it. I found it scary how many similarities there were between this building for hosting dignitaries and performing underground military operations and the Public Transport Centre where I work back at home. Both are dodgy 1960s-70s buildings with faux roofs and a whole lot of brown colours. At least this "palace" featured some impressive artworks and furniture to help it perform its role of hosting dignitaries. The underground levels with their military intelligence equipment provided a grounding contrast.

From the Reunification Palace it isn't far to the War Remnants Museum

Fighter Jet

. This museum is a collection of artefacts and records documenting the war and its effects on the Vietnamese people. In what has been a consistent feature of most war documentation in Vietnam, a lot was mentioned about the terrible things the US-led forces did but there was little information provided about the victorious side. This place is a good record of the ugly side of war and made for a sobering afternoon. There were mock up cells, graphic photos of torture, agent orange burns, babies with birth defects, dismembered soldiers etc. Our visit to the museum was finished off with a relatively relaxed collection of helicopters, planes and tanks.

The walk back to the hotel was a deliberately elongated process, walking down past the Ben Thanh Markets and across a massive roundabout full of vehicles to the backpacker part of town to book a tour for the next day. We bought tickets for a tour with Sinh Cafe, who were the group that we used for our trip to Hoi An from Da Nang. From the backpacker part of town to the west we walked down to the Saigon River, near the hydrofoil jetty, and then back up the Nguyen Hue boulevard to the hotel. After a short pause we headed out the back of the hotel to dine at one of the numerous Pho24 Pho (Vietnamese noodle soup) cafes. As you may expect we dined on pho, but declined to order value meals, which include chewing gum.

Revolutionary Tank

This morning required another early start for us to make our 8:15am tour. The buffet breakfast at the Oscar Hotel isn't bad and has more in the way of cooked Asian foods. A benefit here is a nice selection of mini "gato" (cakes), proving that these are a food for any time of day. It took about 20 minutes to walk down some busy roads to the backpacker part of the city once more to pick up our tour. Some roads took a while to cross as there were so many vehicles trying to push through that suitable breaks were few and far between.

The Sinh Cafe was awash with tourists at 8am in the morning as they have several tours and open buses leaving at this time. Although it didn't take too long board our bus the journey to our first destination, the Cao Dai Temple, would take some 3.5 hours. This journey included an annoying 30 minute stop at a factory that employs disabled people to manufacture furniture; a tourist trap that keeps the tour bus operators in business. Cao Dai is an interesting modern religion that borrows from the main world religions. It believes in the Christian god but also Mother Buddha and other figures. The temple itself was very ornate, verbose even, featuring many bright colours and all manner of creatures, symbols and biblical scenes. Our 1 hour stop included time to watch the midday mass (others are held at 6am, 6pm and midnight), which consisted of chanting, kneeling and bowing to the ground in sync with gonging

Taxman Sea

. There appeared to be a clear hierarchy of the followers, with people ushered to specific areas within the temple depending on their status.

Lunch was offered at a nearby cafe and was not included in the tour price. To our surprise the cafe we were taken to did not charge crazy tourist prices so we were happy to stay and not shop around in the village. A further 2 hours was taken to travel by bumpy roads to the Cu Chi area and the Cu Chi Tunnels. This tunnel system, measuring some 200km was built by the local liberationists during the Vietnam War. It provided a hurdle to the north of Saigon that became a thorn in the US Force's side. At the tunnel visitor's complex we walked through the jungle and were shown various traps, weapons and the way of life for these guerillas. There was also a live firing range where tourists could purchase ammunition to fire as part of the tour which added atmosphere as we could hear the gunshots while we ventured through the jungle.

Part of the tour included some time underground, exploring the tunnels themselves. They are only 1m tall and 90cm wide so once underground it is crampt, warm and dark. We were free to make our way as far as we wanted so Charles and I made it the furthest out of the group, some 60m underground

Aiming High

. I do not recommend this tour to Mum or people that have claustrophobia! It was great to see this system first-hand although I would've appreciated more time underground, perhaps with rest stops where we could stand up.

As you'd expect the worst thing about the day's travel was the time spent stuck in the bus. Our return to Saigon was supposed to take 1.5 hours but as we entered the city it became clear that traffic bas going to be bad. About an hour was spent standing in and pushing through a sea of bikes as the bus tried to get back to the Cafe. It was about 6:30pm when we finally disembarked, wishing they had let us off earlier as it would've been easier and faster to just walk. We picked up a KFC dinner on the way home and then I started on this update before hitting the sack for the last night in Ho Chi Minh City.