Ho Chi Minh City

December 11^th, 2024

It was a short 40-minute flight from Danang to Ho Chi Minh City, formerly known as Saigon, the largest city of Vietnam with a population of over 10 million.  Looking out the window as we were approaching the airport, two things stuck out.  The first one was how densely packed the buildings were, with very little “green space” visible.  The other was a super tall skyscraper, which was surrounded by some other tall buildings that were about half its height, and they all dwarfed the small structures around them.

This picture doesn't quite do it justice, but we were shocked how densely packed the buildings were.

The airport seemed a bit old and dilapidated and later we found out a new airport is under construction.  It was slightly confusing as to where we were to catch our Grab ride, which was inside a parking garage, but we figured it out.  It was immediately obvious that this city has chronic traffic problems.  Our ride took about half and hour and the journey was only about 7 kilometres in distance.

 

The hotel that Naomi had booked was located in the Saigon Centre, a super fancy shopping mall.  It was a nicely decorated establishment in a decent location in the city.

The lobby of our hotel, which was in a fancy shopping mall.

The room was nicely decorated.

We were only staying two nights in the former capital of the Republic of Vietnam, but we would be returning for a few more nights after a visit to the island of Phu Quoc island.  We decided to visit the “War Remnants Museum”, which used to be called “The Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes”.  It was then changed to “Exhibition House for Crimes of War and Aggression” in 1990 (still not great) but when US/Vietnam relations thawed in 1995, it became the “War Remnants Museum”.

 

Outside of the main building, there were numerous military aircraft, vehicles and other hardware including a Chinook and Huey helicopter, an M48 Patton Tank, an armored personnel carrier, a mobile howitzer, other pieces of artillery and a few fighter jets.

The War Remnants Museum.

I was shocked at how big the chinook helicopter was.

An armored personnel carrier.

A mobile howitzer...this thing could fire shells over 35 kilometers!

The classic Huey helicopter, the American's workhorse of the war.

That's one pointy nose!

Off to one side of the compound was a smaller building which contained replicas of some cells and torture methods that were used by the South Vietnamese government against political prisoners.  What happened to these incarcerated people was barbaric.  It ranged from having a large nail driven into their kneecap to being placed in what was known as a “Tiger Cage”, an enclosure of barbed wire that was small enough that one could not sit upright.  Fingernails were pulled out, people hung up by their arms which were tied behind their back.  They were made to somersault over a metal grate that would tear their skin to pieces.  We are such an evil species at times…

Peering into a mock cell from the colonial days.

It looked pretty grim inside.

An actual guillotine.  Surprisingly the last death penalty by guillotine was in 1960 in Vietnam!

This is a punishment that my white British skin would not have survived...stuck in the sun with no shade.

We finally made it into the main building of the museum, where I lined up to get an audio tour.  The tour started on the fourth and top floor of the building and continued down to the 3^rd and 2^nd floors.

I thought the audio guide was quite good.

The fourth floor began with some of the history as to why the Vietnam War occurred.  The Vietnamese had barely rid themselves of the French colonists when the Americans stepped in, with their “intent” being to stop the spread of Communism.  It was interesting to read about some of this history through Vietnamese eyes.  With any type of conflict, or any history in general, there are always different interpretations to what actually transpired.  Everyone tells their “version”.  The best thing is to gather as much information as you can, keep an open mind, but try and discern between truths and falsities…which is pretty much impossible.

The US army soldier came well equipped.

On the third floor, it was mostly exhibits about photojournalists who were covering the war.  A large majority of the American people at the time had no idea what this war was about and even where Vietnam was on a map.  The coverage that these brave cameramen, and even a few women, provided, influenced the public perception in the US.  Unfortunately, many of the photojournalists paid with their lives.

The guy sitting up with the bandage over his eye is in fact a medic, who kept doing his job even in this condition.

This photo shows the disparity between the economies of the US and Vietnam...look at the amount of costly hardware in this pic, while the Viet Cong walked or rode bicycles.

Look at those bomb craters!

This is a famous photograph of children who were burned by napalm.  The photography won Pullitzer Prize for this one.

What a shot of this broken up US plane falling to the ground!  It was supposedly hit by friendly fire.

Claymore mines.

The second floor was even tougher to digest than the rest of the museum we had seen already.  In fact, Naomi decided to skip some of it.  One of the most gut-wrenching exhibitions was about the effect of chemicals that were used during the war, especially Agent Orange.  Since the US had problems rooting out the Viet Cong in the dense jungle, they opted to defoliate a lot of the terrain using dioxins and herbicides such as Agent Orange.  Unfortunately, the use of these chemicals caused long term problems that continue to this day.  The Red Cross of Vietnam estimates that a million Vietnamese people have health issues related to their exposure to these chemicals.  The number of birth defects was also astounding.

And we're done!

At this point I was finally “museumed” out, and Naomi had tagged out long before me.  As we left the building and were headed towards the exit gate, a local man approached us with a black bag over one of his shoulders.  He was missing both of his forearms and hands, had a gimpy leg and possibly couldn’t see out of one eye.  Wow, we were both taken aback for a second (at least I was).  Here’s a guy who was living proof of what we had just seen in the museum about the effects of Agent Orange.

He introduced himself and asked whether we would be interested in buying a book about the war, which he deftly removed from his bag and showed to us with the ends of his upper arms.  Neither of us wanted to purchase a book (I try to travel as light as possible), but we wanted to help this kind man in some way.  He then pulled out a pack of postcards, which was perfect.  I asked what the price was, and he said it was by donation, “20,000, 100,000, 500,000, whatever you like.”  I promptly pulled out 500,000 dong ($28 CAD) and gave it to him.  He was happy and grateful and stated that he would be telling his family when he got home that evening.  It felt like it was the least we could do…plus I got some postcards!

Naomi wanted to visit the Saigon Central Post Office, which is a beautiful building constructed in the late 19^th century.  The walk there took us by the Independence Palace, which is now a museum.  It was the home and office of the president of the Republic of Vietnam until the Fall of Saigon which marked the end of the Vietnam War. 

 

The Independence Palace.

Naomi was entertained by the chipmunks and squirrels on a tree in a park as she'd never seen a chipmunk before.

Right beside the post office was the “Notre Dame Cathedral of Saigon”, which was unfortunately under renovation.  It is draped with thousands of lights so we planned to return to see it some evening.

The pictures show the "Notre Dame of Ho Chi Minh City", which was under renovations.

So that's what we saw...

The post office was a lovely structure, almost like an old train station.  Naomi bought a fancy postcard and then we headed for some lunch.

This is the post office...very cool old building.

The inside of the post office.

Of course a big portrait of Ho Chi Minh was on the wall.

After eating, we split up with Naomi walking back towards our hotel to do a bit of shopping and relax, while I took a Grab to go to Landmark 81, the tallest building in Vietnam and the second tallest in Southeast Asia.

 

At the base of the building was a shopping mall which even had a small ice-skating rink.  It only cost 300,000 dong ($17 CAD) for a ticket to head up to the 79^th floor.  Even though it wasn’t the best day for visibility with it being overcast and low clouds, I still enjoyed the views.  There were stairs to take you up to the 80^th and 81^st floors, which obviously had the same view as the 79^th floor, but there was a small café, a VR game station and an outdoor viewing platform.

The view from the 81st floor of the Landmark 81 building.  Look at the big, almost complete circle of the river.

It sure is a densely built city.

See what I mean!?!

Crazy shit.

For the outdoor bit, you had to put on a harness which was connected to a railing so you could not fall…which would have been difficult anyways since the glass panels were almost 6 feet tall!

The tiny outside bit that you could walk around...once you were strapped in.

Looking up at the top.  Probably just antennas and other communications equipment in there.

Those are 40-50 storey apartment building below.

This is what the Landmark 81 looks like.

It was a nice way to check out the city, including seeing 4-5 metro stations of the first metro line which is due to open in a few weeks.  Unbelievable that a city of around 10 million people still doesn’t have a mass transit system so it’s not surprising that traffic in the city is terrible.  This is the first of a handful of metro lines planned so hopefully things will improve.

That evening we dined at a burger joint called the “Mad Roosta” (perhaps so called if you ordered the chicken burger?!?).  It was a fine burger indeed.

Tomorrow, we fly to Phu Quoc, the largest island in Vietnam, located off the west coast of the southern part of Vietnam in the Gulf of Thailand.  Naomi wanted to get some beach time before her holiday ends which is a great plan.