Scott & Kerry's Southeast Asia Adventure: Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City)

Welcome back to a city! It had been awhile since we had been in a real city, so it was both nice and a bit overwhelming at the same time. Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) is very different from Hanoi...much more "modern", much more like other cities around the world (a McDonald's and a Starbucks were within 3 blocks of the place we stayed). That being said, it still had its own charm. Tons of (vietnam) coffee shops and young people - what I imagine Seattle is like. It also still had the street vendors with plastic chairs and tables serving coffee in the am and dinner in the pm. We liked the city a lot! It's a place (one of many in Vietnam) I could imagine living.

So here are modern "the sights" of HCM city. The first is the most obvious - Bitexco Financial Tower is the tallest building in HCM by a long shot at 262.5 metres (861 ft) and 68 floors. It was elegant looking over the rest of the city with its helicopter pad around 50 floors up.

Interestingly, there is a church that is known as Notre Dam Cathedral and is a dead replica for European churches, though not quite the Notre Dam in Paris as its built of red brick. But it definitely stands out in this Asian city. And I can't lie, it was interesting to set out to see a church instead of a temple.

The central post office in HCM looks like an old train station in Europe, very different from the typical Asian architecture.

HCM also has more parks than we've seen since coming to Asia so of course we loved that. One was a large oval in the middle of the busiest road in downtown HCM near the Central Market (also crazy) which made a nice track. While running, I saw tai chi morning classes, lots of walkers, people working out on the public workout machines (think metal elliptical and other structures you find in parks) and best of all, multiple groups doing what looked like dance classes.

We also went to see "The Lunch Lady" made famous by Anthony Bourdain. The place is tucked away off the main streets and is like so many other eateries basically glorified street food with a tarp over the small area where the food is made and plastic chairs and tables on the street out front. She only makes one Dish per day - some form of noodle soup - and it's served with spring rolls. It was good food but doesn't beat our favorite noodle soup in Luang Prabang, Laos.

Randomly we found a Czech Brewery called Hoa Vien Bauhaus. They brewed a few different types of beer including s dark pilsner that Scott liked and of course the classic pilsner was good for me. It had the feel of a Czech place with lots of wood and long tables. It brought back memories of Prague!

Ok now for the very interesting but not quite so "fun" stuff. We visited the War Remnants Museum which is all about the Vietnam War, aka the American War. Along with history, it had some pretty graphic photos of the affects of agent orange and a great photo exhibit made from the photos, quotes, journals, etc of photo journalists covering the war from all different nationalities on both sides. It's interesting to read about the war here in Vietnam as its the other side than we are used to hearing/learning about. The museum also has a bunch of American planes and tanks out front.

The Cu Chi Tunnels was our out of the city excursion. These were the tunnels dug and lived in by the Viet Cong during the war. We walked through just 100m of the tunnels, which have been made wider for tourists, and it was quite claustrophobic. Now, they have the top of many of the "rooms" dug up so you can see from the ground. It was quite an intricate labyrinth of tunnels with things like a weapons room, hospital, kitchen, offices and meeting places. Their use and reuse of EVERYTHING, including what the Americans left behind, was really quite remarkable.

Our tour guide of the tunnels was born and raised in the Mekong Delta at the south of Vietnam. It was awesome getting a chance to talk to him about the war as the propaganda in all the museums paints the Americans coming in and setting up a complete puppet regime and tricked southern Vietnamese to fight for them. I don't agree with the Americans getting involved but I had a hard time believing no Vietnamese supported what was happening. Our guide confirmed that the south wasnt supportive of communism and the reasons made sense. The south is very fertile and surrounded by water therefore plentiful of food - farms and fishing always available. They had a good life before the war whereas the northern lands had been somewhat destroyed, they were much more poor and hungry. They didn't like/need communism. They went on to continue to fight for 2 years after the Americans left but couldn't hold out without the help. It was interesting hearing the other side for sure.

Nice sculpture in the park