Don't Miss Saigon

For someone who had never been to Asia before just stepping out onto the streets of this bustling metropolis was a highlight. Of the actual sights the War Remnants Museum is a must as is a day trip out to see the Mekong Delta.

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The culture shock of being dumped into the heart of Saigon alone was enough to send me scurrying off to Vietnam’s more laid back towns and cities for quite sometime before I felt confident enough to return. And I was pleased of it, don’t spend too much of your time here there is so much else to see in this unique country.

It may be technically illegal but the vast majority of monetary transactions you undertake in Vietnam will be in US Dollars rather than Vietnamese Dong, just as well really as you can’t buy or sell Dong outside of Vietnam.

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Walking is by far the best way to see any city and when you have got the hang of crossing the roads, I found closing my eyes and praying as I stepped out the best way to do this, you will have a chance to immerse yourself into the sights, sounds and smells this town has to offer.

And when it all becomes to much there is never a cyclo to far away, these pedal driven rickshaws will take you anywhere in the city for a couple of dollars, and since most of the aging drivers were employed by the US government during the war they can also act as guides to the best the city as to offer.

The Reunification Hall (formerly known as the Independence Palace) was the seat of South Vietnamese power from its construction in 1966 to the fall of the South Vietnamese Republic to North Vietnamese forces in 1975 and it was here that the transfer of power occurred. "I have been waiting since early this morning to transfer power to you" announced President Duong Van Minh to General Bui Tin as he strolled into the 2nd floor conference room April 30th 1975; "You cannot give up what you do not have" was the general’s rather curt reply.

French Trained Architect Ngo Viet Thu built the Hall at the request of President Ngo Dinh Diem after the previous Norodom Palace (built for the French Govenor in 1868) had been destroyed in 1962 during an assassination attempt on Diem’s life by two members of his own air force. Completed in 1966, 3 years after a more successful assassination attempt on Diem, the palace has a very ‘60s feel to it. Yet despite its stuffy exterior inside it is surprisingly open and airy.

Passing the huge wrought iron gates that stand out front one cannot help but feel part of history as the breaching of these gates by an NLF tank in 1975 and the subsequent unfurling of the North Vietnamese flag from the top of the palace are iconic moments in this nation's history. Wandering through the beautifully manicured gardens, one is struck by the austerity of the exterior and can’t help but feel a certain dread about what lies inside.

Once through the entrance, however, it is an entirely different story as your guide leads you through the airy rooms with there 1970s furniture and decorations still in place one is overcome by the feeling of how kitsch it all is no more so than in the president’s personal movie theatre with its circular sofa. Outback is the president’s personal living quarters, surprisingly Spartan and simple compared to the rest of the palace they provide an insight into the men who lived here.

Finally there is the basement with its bomb shelters and war rooms; complete with radio equipment, large-scale maps and miles of tunnels just the sort of thing that you expect from a military bunker. There are even a couple of little screening rooms where you can kick back and relax in front of a rather dodgy collection of news reel footage telling the story of the war from a somewhat biased view point (but still what do you expect).

You are then unceremoniously dumped back out into the spectacular gardens and the Cong Vien Van Hoa Park, with a vague sense that you have just experienced something surreal. A fascinating look into the schizophrenic nature of this once divided society -- well worth a visit.

Of the many markets that HCM City has to offer, none are more famous than the Cho Ben Thanh (formerly Halles Centrales) on the Cong Truong Dien Hong just a short walk down Le Loi from the Rex Hotel, indeed the reinforced concrete clock tower out the front of the market (built in 1914) has come to be the symbol of HCM City.

Whatever preconceptions about communism I had gone to Vietnam with were blown out of the water at this bustling center of trade and commerce where the locals dealt in every conceivable type of goods imaginable and indeed some that I couldn’t even identify let alone imagine.

Spilling out of the Market onto the surrounding streets are the standard souvenir stalls, selling conical hats, Uncle Ho t-shirts and water puppets, but as you penetrate the inner sanctum you discover real Vietnam, with stalls selling kitchen hardware, cloth, dry goods and finally the "wet" market.

It is here at the back of the market you will find the live snakes, chicken in a basket, unidentifiable animal parts from unidentifiable animals, road kill and buckets of soapy frogs that make any trip to a foreign market a stomach churning and potentially life changing proposition.

If you're still feeling up to it when you once again emerge into the fresh air, you can grab a bowl of pho or a rice bread baguette from one of the street side vendors to consume while admiring the giant statue Tran Nguyen Hai (whose exact claim to fame seems to be uncertain) before once again braving the streets.

Ben Thanh market may be HCM city’s greatest temple to mammon but it is far from its only one and I strongly recommend wandering around some of the many markets that line the streets of this bustling city even if you don’t plan on buying anything, it will still give you a fantastic insight into Vietnamese life.

The mighty Mekong River completes its 4000km journey (the third longest in Asia) from the central highlands of China, past Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos and through Cambodia here at one of the world’s largest river deltas and the "bread basket" of Vietnam. Where over a third of the country's rice is produced along with fruit, sugar cane and other crops.

The bus trip from HCM City takes you through acres of rice paddies where you can see farmers in their traditional conical hats plying their trade as they have done here since the 1860s when the French colonial authorities recognized the lands potential value. The first stop of the day was at a roadside bar for a quick shot of the local rice wine to start our day, this was quickly followed by a brief respite at a Caodaist temple, this spiritualist religion founded by a Vietnamese civil servant in the 1920s continues to thrive throughout the Mekong delta and neighbouring Tay Ninh district where these fabulously colourful and at times tacky temples abound.

Finally arriving at CaiBe we are loaded onto our little wooden boat for a 5 hour tour of the delta, taking in: a small village where everyone is employed in the production of rice sweets, one of the floating markets where local producers trade their goods, an island fruit orchard where we break for lunch (local fish served in the traditional upright position) and a quick cycle ride around the island to work it off afterwards (well my companions did, I took the opportunity to work it off in my own way by passing out in a hammock), and finally a pottery factory before being loaded back oto the bus for the return journey.

The return journey took us through the busy little city of VinhLong and the MyTho bonsai gardens (a nasty little tourist trap where various species of wildlife are kept in unpleasant conditions, to be avoided at all costs) before once more being taken through the glorious rice paddies and dropping us back off at Kim’s Café in HCM City in the early afternoon to collect out free t-shirts!

The legacy left by French and American military action is never far from view in Vietnam, much of central Vietnam is still pockmarked by craters, the city of Hue is still in a process of rebuilding its UNESCO listed wonders and people walk the streets with war wounds and genetic mutations, but it is here at the War Remnants museum that it's brought truly home.

The museum was known, in less politically correct times, as the Museum Of American War Crimes, and while the name may have been changed to avoid offending the sensibilities of US tourists the museum itself continues to pull no punches when confronting it’s former enemy. On the way in you are handed a leaflet entitles "Some Pictures of US Imperialist Aggressive War Crimes In Vietnam" to put you in the mood of what is to come.

The museum kicks off in the courtyard with a fairly standard collection of military hardware, armoured vehicles, artillery shells, etc with pride of place given over to a Douglas Skyraider plane, but in one of the corners you get your first hint that there is something different about this museum as there sits a rather gruesome looking guillotine used first by the French and later by the Diem regime to deal with the Viet Minh sent to the central prison at Ly Tu Trong.

The exhibition halls at first appear to be your standard collection of infantry weaponry and black and white photographs that make up these sort of museums all over the world but closer examination starts revealing something altogether more disturbing. The photos show scenes of torture, shots of burns and deformities induced by chemical warfare and shots of civilian massacres, the curios include experimental weapons deployed against the locals and pickle deformed foetuses that are enough to drive even those with the strongest of stomachs looking for the exit.

Next up is a mock-up of the "Tiger Cages" which were used to hold the Viet Cong prisoners in truly inhumane conditions at the prison on the dreaded Con Son Island where many died from disease, malnutrition and mistreatment. Finally there is a new exhibition hall that starts to go a little way to re-addressing the balance of the museum, with shots of the worldwide peace movement and stories and reconciliation gifts from some of the US servicemen that took part in the war.

The museum is undeniable biased in its telling of the war of independence and may be lacking in its academic credentials, but if you want to experience the true horrors of war without actually going to war this is the place to come.

For me one of the highlights of any foreign trip is just to walk the streets and this was especially true in HCM City where all of the city’s 5 million inhabitants conduct the majority of their daily life out on the streets. The ground floors of the houses often open up as the family spill out onto the street during the day to watch TV, cook and generally go about their daily lives.

The first obstacle to overcome when faced with any new town is working out how to cross the street; in HCM City this requires something of a leap of faith. The streets are incredibly busy, but there are in fact very few cars or trucks the traffic is instead made up of a never ending stream or bicycles, cyclos and mopeds and these will swerve to avoid you.

To cross, you simply check that there are no larger vehicles coming and step out maintaining a steady pace as you cross so the two wheeled road users can avoid you. This is of course something akin to bungee jumping or skydiving requiring you to over come any instinct for self preservation you have and to put your lives in the hands of others, easier said than done but somehow it works.

You are then free to proceed along and enjoy the sights, sounds and especially the smells offered by this unique town, from the bustling street markets to the faded French colonial architecture that abounds as a back drop to daily life in HCM City.

The streets of HCM City are plagued by a veritable swarm of shoeshine boys, souvenir hawkers, prostitutes, cyclo drivers and other nefarious characters that will conspire to not give you a moment's peace from the second you set foot in the town to the moment you leave.

Learning how to deal with these people is an essential survival skill that you must learn if you are to maintain your sanity while in town. All the guidebooks tell you to respond with a firm no, preferably in Vietnamese, this will of course make no difference whatsoever.

This I discovered when being pursued around HCM City for my entire first day by the same cyclo driver despite the fact I obviously had no interest whatsoever. So we must look for other alternatives to dealing with this problem I have listed below a few that I considered and their eventual outcomes.

1. Pretending to be a local, these people only target affluent and indeed not so affluent looking tourists, the obvious solution was therefore to pass myself off as a local so I headed down to the market before realising that as a white man in excess of 6 foot, a conical hat and an Ao Dais really wasn’t going to swing it.
2. Feigning an inability to speak English, surely if I couldn’t understand them they would have to leave me alone, so approached by a cyclo driver with the traditional opening line "Where you from" I responded "Norway" and launched into a string of gobbledygook, he promptly produced a letter of recommendation from two Norwegian tourists.
3. Running away, simple but ineffective, as I discovered when the same hooker accosted me no less than three times along the same stretch of road by jumping onto the back of her pimp's moped and rocketing ahead of me each time I managed to shake her off.

I can thus only recommend that you accept it with good humour and consider it a part of the experience.