7- Ho Chi Minh City

Monday, January 31st- Tuesday, February 1st: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

We went all the way from the north to the south.

• Quinn and I continued on with the pattern of the last week, and woke up at the crack of dawn to catch our flight to Saigon (the old name for Ho Chi Minh City that the majority of people still use).
• We made it to Saigon with no issues and went straight to the Bich Duyen Hotel.  Once again, we paid $20 for a private room, bathroom, breakfast, and immaculate service.  As soon as we walked in the door, the hosts served us with scrambled eggs, onion, and red pepper with huge baguettes.  It tasted fantastic.  We found our room, changed, and headed out for the day.
• The tricky part about Vietnam is that there is a long siesta from about 11:30ish to 1:30ish where everything closes.  The other issue is that everything closes early, about 5pm, so you really have to get up early and start doing things.  Lucky for us, we were already up and started to discover the city.

Snapshot of Saigon, old and new buildings.

• We were staying in District 1 (Saigon is broken up into about 10 districts), which was the best place to be for the tourist attractions.  We spent most of the day wandering the city and stumbling upon the important things to see.  For the size of Saigon, there are surprisingly not that many must-see things, but again I feel like the charm of Vietnam lies in just being there and not necessarily in doing things.
• Higlights of the city included:
• The Reunification Palace- a large estate where the ruler of the South used to live.  You are able to tour the whole house and the grounds that include a tank that was used to crash down the gate of the estate and end the fighting.  My favorite part was the basement with secret escape tunnels and the rooms where all of the war planning occured.  The house is interesting, but not as great as the tour guide makes it seem.

The front yard.

An inside courtyard.

• The War Remnants Museum- a very moving account of various aspects of the Vietnam War.  The museum obviously has some biases, but it was very informative and interesting to me.  I had to walk out a couple of times because the Agent Orange section was horrific.  It is disturbing to know that it is still affecting generations today.  There were many powerful photographs of the war from both sides and gave an interesting perspective on the whole thing.  I highly recommend this musuem to anyone in Saigon.

The outside of the museum.

War tanks display.

• Cathedral- very pretty lit up at night, we went in during the evening mass which was a cool experience

• The city in general was all decorated for the New Year and very entertaining to just look at.  There were little festivals and other parties going on at random places throughout the city.

There were flower gardens and flower arrangements set up on this street for the New Year.

The New Year tree- orange tree.

A decorated street at night, so pretty with the lights.

• The market in the center of town- similar to many other South East Asian markets, full of knock off brand name items, great place for souveneirs.  I bought myself a $3 knock off North Face day pack, very happy about it.

Inside of the market, very busy with bargaining.

• Quinn and I spent a 2nd day in Saigon the day before we left to return for Seoul.  Due to the New Year, everything was basically shut down and it was lucky we saw everything before.  We were exhausted at this point in our trip and spent the day relaxing in a park, shopping, and eating.  It was maybe one of my favorite days of the whole vacation.  An added bonus was that we met up with the other half of our group that had been traveling through Cambodia and all spent the evening together.

Lounging around town.

• The night before we left Vietnam, we went to a place called the "Acoustics Bar" where Vietnamese perform American covers.  It was a great spot to find and fun to see Vietnamese rocking out to Bon Jovi and others.

The band in action.

Quinn and Eric became groupies.

• Saigon was a great place to eat Western food.  I got a good fix of club sandwiches and pizza.  I didn't feel bad eating Western food because it was not like I was returning to America and the Western food was much better and cheaper than in Korea.
• Once again, one of my favorite memories of Saigon is while Quinn and I were eating our last Pho meal on the street.  We randomly came upon this place and decided it was not too touristy and we should try it.  Not only was the Pho delicious, but we made friends as well.  The man running the place managed to tell us his whole life story by writing on his arm.  I wish I had a picture of it.  It included numbers, lines, and a few words.  From what we understood, he was a Vietnam War vet, he fought for 7 years against the North, he had 4 children in their 30s-40s, and loved the USA.  It was a cool experience.

Our last bowls of Pho, sorry to torture you Dad.

I <3 Vietnam!