Ho Chi Minh City (aka Saigon) Part 1 – 25/09/14 – 27/09/14
Ho Chi Minh City got its name after the country was reunified in honour of Ho Chi Minh, who lead the North but died before the end of the war. However, to everyone and anything expect officials and official publications, it is still known as Saigon, a name that stirs images of bars, clubs, restaurants and, of course, the girls. Where Bangkok is (in)famous for the Lady Boys, HCMC is renowned for the Miss Saigons, an image obviously helped by the musical of the same name! To be honest, Boublil and Schonberg really captured the atmosphere of Saigon in the opening scenes of the show; even today the streets have the same feel. Although the Western guys there aren’t American GIs anymore, they are still being entertained by girls who could have been from the stage show. If you’ve no idea at all, this link gives an idea of the feel of the place, well the first 30 seconds or so. But watch the rest, it’s worth it.
Back to our time there! We arrived in the mid-afternoon and had just got to our hotel, Phan Lan 2, when the roads were yet again turned to rivers (we did come to Asia in the wet season after all)! We tried to wait it out but it seemed relentless and as our stomachs were growling in anger (we’d only had a fried egg sandwich for breakfast off Strawberry), we pretty much swam to the first food establishment that we came to, which was Burger King round the corner. We had a Whopper of a time there (boom boom) but still the rain came down. So we got the canoe out and paddled back to the hotel to hide from the downpour.
The following day the floods had subsided and we went to the Ben Thanh indoor market, pretty much slap bang in the centre of Saigon, like a traditional shopping mall, selling clothes, food, utensils, jewellery and all sorts of other stuff! There’s even a food court in the middle, if you dare…
We refrained from parting with our Dong (Vietnamese currency) at the market and headed to the War Remnants Museum. For anyone going to the city this place is a definite MUST, it gives quite a dramatic demonstration of the horrors of the Vietnam War. Critics say it’s very one sided, which it is, but history is told by the victors, right? At the end of the day, this small nation in the corner of Asia fought the US and drove them out, if things had been the other way round how honest would the South have been about the war?
Regardless of the politics, the museum is basically a collection of photographs taken from all sides in the war and nobody can argue that they don’t picture the madness of the whole thing and how devastated the country was because of it. Estimates vary, but to give you an idea of the scale of the bombing and shelling, the US dropped between 3 and 8 times (depending on the source) the amount of bombs on Vietnam than was used in the entire Second World War. On top of that was the hell on earth that was created by the deforestation toxins that were used, the worst of which is known as Agent Orange. The legacy of this still lives on today, as children are still being born with severe deformities and cancerous tumours caused by the chemicals in water supplies and also the genes of the parents affected by the substance. The injustice of this is that the American veterans who are affected by the Agent Orange sued the chemical firms and got a canny pay out, which is fair. What’s not fair is that when the victim association from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia tried to claim, the international courts wouldn’t even entertain it. Maybe 5 million victims aren’t enough to give evidence of the damage done or something… This is the only battle still waging from the war that ended in 1975, the battle to get some justice to a people who are still suffering.
Sorry for the rant, but when you see the victims first hand it makes you sick to think they have nothing and most can’t work so have to live off meagre support from the government and charities. I guess the museum did its job in stirring emotions!
There is also a photo gallery dedicated to the photo-journalists who died during the war, showing iconic photos taken by them, most from their final reels of film. I admire the journalists and film crews that cover wars these days, but the photographs taken during the Vietnam War are much more iconic than the video footage we get on the news, an art form that only really had its heyday during that conflict.
After quite an emotional trip around the museum we then headed back to the backpacker district to lighten our mood again. The food we had at the Xich Lo BBQ certainly sorted that out, even though we didn’t have much appetite after seeing the displays and exhibitions at the War Remnants.
The next morning we went to the Cu Chi Tunnels, which were used by the Viet Cong around Saigon to attack the South and American’s behind their lines. The Viet Cong, or VC, were made up of locals who supported the North and were waging a guerrilla war against them, supplied by the secret routes of the Ho Chi Minh Trail (which we saw part of on the DMZ tour in Hue).
We got to crawl through one of the tunnels, highlighting how narrow and dark they were, I’m sure this one had been enlarged a bit as well so us bulky Westerners could fit down them! The guide gave us a demonstration of the various booby-traps that the VC set for the American’s, all of them pretty deadly and none of them very pleasant! After this we got to climb around the wreckage of a US M-41 Tank, with time to go inside and pose for photos. Then you remember some poor guys probably died in the thing.
The final part of the tour is the shooting range, where you can pick from an array of rifles and machine guns used during the conflict and pay to have a go. Last time I was here I had a go of an AK-47 and missed the targets by miles, so I tried again hoping for more success, which I failed at. Let’s hope I don’t get called up during WW3! Abi then had a go and was equally hopeless, the gun kept jamming as well so maybe that was just putting her off! Or she was just a rubbish shot as well.
Once we had established that we would be the first to die in a conflict, we then made our way to a little cinema hut and basically watched an old Vietnamese propaganda movie about how good the tunnels were! Huzzah!
Soon we were back on the bus to Saigon, bumping and jolting along as per usual. When we were back we did a bit of shopping, buying some more vests and trousers to look hip and cool in. Then we went back to the room, got washed and changed then hopped in a taxi to the Hard Rock Café. We gorged ourselves on big burgers, fries and onion rings, while watching a really great cover band. Called Jogadanz and from Indonesia, they performed three 45/50 minute sets and played a really good range of songs, taking requests from the audience and pulling them off as if they’d been practicing them all day! The two vocalists were really superb; the guy was great, really showing off his talent with some belting rock numbers, and the girl was just phenomenal, jumping from the likes of Adele’s Rolling in the Deep to Guns ‘N’ Roses’ Paradise City! All of the songs were done to an incredibly high standard! We had hoped to get back to see them again before leaving Saigon, but unfortunately we were unable to, which was a big shame! I took some video footage, which I will put on YouTube at some point!
Ok, so that’s our first part of Saigon, the next day we went to the Mekong Delta on an overnight trip and then two more nights in HCMC. I’ll cover all that in another post, since this one was long already with plenty of links and additional reading for you to do! So go get your homework done and I’ll get working on the next post!