Saigon Sights

You can't escape the remnants of the American/Vietnam War, but bullets and bombs aside the museums offer a fascinating snapshot of life in the '60s and '70s - especially the reunification palace where time has truly stood still. The tourist trade is dispersed and not well organised in the city, so it's easy to find true Vietnamese experiences if you go looking for it.

Quick Tips:

Vietnam wakes up early in the morning -- if you do the usual Westerners 9am start, then you'll have missed a great proportion of the day. Organised tours are controlled by the government and largely follow set timetables and guidance. Best bet is to avoid being tied to a group and make your own arrangements if you want to avoid the few tourist traps that exist.

Best Way To Get Around:

Ho Chi Minh city is OK for walking, but you need to be confident when crossing the roads as the millions (yeah millions -- no joke) of mopeds and motorcycles generally ignore all traffic lights. The good news is that they expect pedestrians to walk out in front of them and accidents are rare despite the apparent anarchy. Best to get a cyclo taxi if you are in a hurry or not sure of a route.

In the heart of the city the continental sits next to the Theatre or Opera House. Its exterior is neat but bears little resemblance to its history, as until the seventies the ground floor was a line of cafes and a terrace where you could sit out and watch the world go by. The Continental has recently achieved fame once again as part of the set of the film The Quiet American. The film is based on Graham Greene’s book of the same name and was the traditional home to foreign correspondents in Vietnam (both in and out of wartime), although the nearby Rex was a close rival during the American War. Once inside the hotel, the historic surroundings are obvious, but the service is modern enough.

Try to get a room at the back of the hotel if you are a light sleeper as traffic noise can be as much a problem here as anywhere else in Saigon. That said I spent a week in one of the first floor front rooms and found that I adjusted to the noise without any difficulty.

Breakfasts are a buffet affair and certainly sufficient to meet everyone’s needs. Although you can sit in the air-conditioned restaurant, it is much better to grab your meal and take it out into the central courtyard.

This temple site is included in the itinerary of most pre-booked tours to the Cu Chi tunnels. He temple itself is an impressive building set in extensive grounds and unlike anything else you are likely to see in the guise of religion. The internal design of the temple is a truly amazing array of colour and we went there for the midday service to see the very colourful monks and nuns conduct themselves in the main prayer area whilst the tourists are welcome to view from the gallery above.

Interesting though it is, putting it into the same itinerary as Cu Chi is a bad idea – My Son is best viewed at lunchtime which means you will have a mad dash around the Cu Chi site either first thing in the morning or before it shuts in the afternoon.

Probably the most impressive military site in Vietnam, and now on just about every tourist itinerary. The Cu Chi tunnels are part of the wider tunnel system which the Viet Cong used to attack the Southern and American troops. On the guided tours you get to see the massive bomb craters, slit trenches and an American tank that met its fate here. The tank is an impressive sized machine but the important thing to remember is that these tanks were used after very heavy bombing had left the landscape cleared of its vegetation. The tunnels themselves are almost a let down but a good adventure to scramble on through. Even though they have been enlarged to accommodate tourists there is one section which has not – clambering through the tunnels is an optional extra. To illustrate what life in the tunnels was like they have recreated many of the rooms above ground, from kitchens to hospitals and armouries to factories. To do this site justice I would recommend that you allow at least two full hours.

For anyone that wants a good dose of the history of conflict then this small but fairly well presented museum is certainly worth a visit – I spent about an hour there and can pretty much say I did it justice. As is usual with Vietnamese museums the walls are filled with photos whilst the exhibits are tucked away elsewhere, almost as if it is two separate exhibitions. In the courtyard you can't help but be impressed at the range of weaponry on display, from the obligatory helicopter to artillery. A strange comparison is available between the small fighter jet which looks almost like a toy its that small, yet at the other side is a massive single engine propeller aircraft. Also buffeting your sense of scale are the huge air bombs which dwarf many exhibits and you start to realise the diversity of carnage the war produced. The photo displays are truly excellent, with many contributions by the photo-journalists who covered the war. But be warned the captions which describe the photos leave a bit to be desired – the Vietnamese propaganda machine had a field day when they dreamt up some of them. For example a photo showing North Vietnamese Soldiers eating a meal at the side of a field bears the caption- Our soldiers eat a hearty meal before going proudly into battle once more, whilst an almost identical photo of American and south Vietnamese soldiers bears the caption- Soldiers of the puppet army hurry to finish a meal before being attacked once more.

Of the photo displays, one of the most thought provoking I reckon isn’t the photos of various battles or military views but of the photojournalists themselves, and the adventures they had and risks they took to get a story back home.

A must see building in Saigon – the palace was the place where the south Vietnamese formally surrendered at the end of the American War and where the images of the tank crashing through the palace gates were taken. The first two tanks to enter the palace grounds now sit as a memorial off to the right of the gates sheltered by the trees, but to enter the site you have to go to a ticket booth down to the left. From there you walk to the left side of the building and enter through the side door where you will be assigned to a tour guide (essential). Not all of the guides speak English so you may have a wait for a short time.

It will come as no surprise that the tour focuses on the period of the American War and includes the war room, communications room and a photo gallery of war images. But one of the most interesting things about the building is that it has been frozen in time. Many museums around the world focus on ancient history, but here you get to see the décor and technology from the sixties and early seventies, still maintained as if they shut up shop yesterday.

The tour takes you around many areas of the building, including the obligatory souvenir shop (prices are not bad) and a traditional music demonstration where you get to play the instruments – good fun but a bit out of place here in the palace.

The tour finishes after a walk through the basement, again if you don’t mind a good dose of propaganda then its worth the extra half hour to see the documentary which has some excellent archive footage.

We timed our visit a bit wrong and arrived late morning – unaware that the palace closes for lunch. You need at least an hour to do the tour plus an extra 30 minutes for the film.