Ho Chi Minh City

HCMC (or Saigon) is easily the most overwhelming of all the cities visited in Southeast, simply due to the number of motorbikes on the road. As I said before, all traffic regulations are light suggestions in Asia, especially Vietnam, so getting from point A to point B in Saigon is quite a challenge. Thankfully, it wasn't too hard since I had practice stepping into the road with hundreds of motor bikes whizzing at/past me in the other cities we stopped at up North. The flight from Hoi An to Saigon went smoothly (besides a slight delay and being pushed quite frequently while queing to get on the plane...there something about lines and pushing that the Vietnamese do much differently from Westerners that really bothers me!) When we got to Saigon we had some time to get a late lunch before we had our cyclo tour.

We walked down the road to a place called Pho 2000, which is where Bill Clinton ate when he visited Vietnam. The Pho was worth the hype, but the experienced was dampened when they charged us for using napkins! A little while later we met our cyclo drivers for a frightening ride around the city to see the sites at rush hour. Our guide did a great job explaining the sites like the Reunification Palace and the Post Office designed by Mr. Eiffel, but the city itself was not too impressive. I was impressed, however, by the hotels like the Carvelle and the Rex, simply because it was cool to actually see where many of the press briefings took place that we learned about in history and politics classes. When we got to the Opera House/ Western journalist hotel areas, we realized that they were setting up for the Olympic Torch.

We promptly went up to the top floor of the Rex Hotel and got seats along the balcony to secure prime torch watching views. I was surprised by how many pro-China supporters lined the streets, but not surprised that there were no protests. The actual passing of the torch was anticlimatic (a lot of waiting, not much action), but it's still cool to be able to check that off on the list of things I've seen in life.

The next day some of went to the Cu Chi tunnels, about a 45 min drive from Saigon, where the Viet Cong hid during the Vietnam war. The video that we saw there was the most biased history I have ever seen, which I found surprising in the year 2008, not sure why though. Instead of making a distinction between the South Vietnmese and the Viet Cong, like we learn in history, the video made the point that the tribe in the tunnel were Vietnamese living there and were forced to fight using these tunnels because the Americans destroyed their peaceful rural town. The video highlighted a number of heroes, referred to as "American killer heroes" and then mentioned how the Americans, "like crazy devils" bombed their "temples, schools, and even their gardens." While I appreciated a completely different perspective, it got to be a little bit too over the top (and I'm not the only one who thought so, even though I was the only American). The tunnel that we got to crawl through was made bigger for tourists, which was pretty shocking seeing as how tiny it felt as we crawled through. The whole time we were in the jungle exploring this underground network it was raining, which kind of made the whole experience feel more authentic...it reminded me of scenes from Forrest Gump.

After the tunnels I went to the War Remnants museum back in town. Museums in Southeast Asia still have a far way to come, and this one definitely fits in that category. It was basically just a photographic display with some poorly written explanations about the victims of war, especially the agent orange victims. Outside, the museum had a few former US Airplanes and helicopters. The pictures were extremely graphic, and hard to take, as was the point the of the exhibit. I'm glad I saw the side of the war that I wouldn't have purposely sought out back at home, but I wished that the exhibits were a little better put together. I think that in a few years, when academics in Vietnam seize the museum idea the museum culture will improve.

The next day we headed out early to cross the border to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, via a public bus.