Ho Chi Minh City

[After chatting with Ann Highum this week about our SE Asia travels, I am motivated to finish getting my travel diary online. So, several posts dating back to January.]

After breakfast at the hotel we boarded the bus for a 2 hour drive toward the northwest, out of Saigon to the area of Cu Chi. There was fierce fighting here during the American War (what we call the Vietnam War), and there is a huge network of tunnels here that were used by the Viet Cong as a command center. U.S. troops were well aware that there were a lot of tunnels here, but it wasn't until the 1990s that the full extent of it was revealed. These tunnels go on for miles, and contained everything from field hospitals to kitchens to officer's clubs. They've dug a few of them out so that fat Americans can fit, even so, one gets the idea that these were not exactly "Five Star" accommodations! The bats buzzing around us served as one indication. Also, we are here in the dry season. In the rainy season, I'm guessing tunnel living was less than ideal.

But the Vietnamese are quite proud of what they did here, and more generally, to drive the Americans out. Our local guide (who strays only slightly from the party line, and then only on the bus when no one can be listening) makes quite a point that there are no foreign troops from any nation on Vietnamese soil today. This came in response to a really dumb question from one member of our group as to whether the American air bases left behind here were still staffed by U.S. personnel! I feel like apologizing to the guide for some of the questions, and for how ignorant Americans are of their own history -- even history they have lived through in their own lifetimes.

We drove back to Ho Chi Minh City to a place near our hotel where we enjoyed a lunch of authentic Pho (pronounced something like "fuah," with a tonal upturn), the Vietnamese national dish. It's basically a huge bowl of chicken noodle soup. There are lots of spices on the table that can be added for extra zip. It was more than I could eat, but Mary snarfed hers right down.

A number of group members went back to the hotel from here, but several of us stayed on the bus to be dropped off at the "War Remnants Museum." This was another heavy dose of propaganda about the "War of Criminal U.S. Aggression." Even though my personal sentiments then and now tended to agree that the war fought here was both illegal and immoral, one still recoils a bit at the simplistic, black and white portrayal of a complex situation. The Americans left lots of stuff behind when they left, so there's no lack of hardware to fill a museum, but by the appearance of things here, and the explanations, Vietnamese people were always entirely passive victims who never fired a shot.
 
One exhibit was exceptional, however. Sort of hidden up on the top floor was an homage to photojournalists who had lost their lives covering the war. Some outstanding photos by American, European, Japanese, and Vietnamese photographers told a much more balanced and much more emotionally poignant story than the rest of the museum. This exhibit had actually been funded by some U.S. corporations, and was a touching tribute to some of those brave souls who, as journalists sometimes put it, "were dying to tell the story."

Armed with an area map, Mary and I walked back to the hotel by way of the gigantic, indoor Ben Thanh Market. We did buy a few things, but mostly soaked up the atmosphere of so much stuff of every description crammed into stalls along the narrowest aisles I've ever seen in a marketplace. There was plenty of tourist bait, but also a lot of foods and clothing items clearly intended for the locals. Because everyone here is preparing for Tet, the lunar new year festival that begins next weekend, this is sort of like the Christmas shopping season in the U.S.

On the way back to the hotel, we walked through the large, "23/9 Park" that runs for several blocks along Le Lai street -- the main thoroughfare on which our hotel is located. We have no idea what the park's odd name is about (there are various accounts from during and after the war), but our hotel room overlooks part of it.

After showering and resting up a bit, we ventured back into the park after dark (it's amazingly well-lit, and teaming with people), and also walked a bit in the tourist area across the park, which largely caters to the young travelers and backpackers. We stopped at a bakery to buy some goodies and sat on the balcony there to watch the people below.

In the park on the way back, we stopped to watch young people playing a game with a sort of overgrown badminton birdie with what appeared to be a spring-loaded nose. They passed it back and forth by hitting it with the bottoms of their shoes, sometimes kicking behind their backs to shoot it over their heads without looking, and other times swinging a foot behind the opposite leg. Fascinating!

It was a bit too early for the nightlife to really get going, but we got a bit of the idea before heading back to the hotel. Tomorrow is another early departure.