Ho Chi Minh City

11 - 13 March

Another Vietnam Air flight today (11th) from Danang to Ho Chi Minh City. A 1 hour hop between cities, and a very full plane, just like a domestic flight in NZ. The planes we have been on were Airbus A321s, a stretched variant of the A320 types used by Air NZ. The seats seem to be a bit closer together and there are 44 rows compared to 27 (I think) for the Air NZ A320, so the A321 is a bigger plane, and arranged for a slightly smaller average passenger size. (I know there are 44 rows because we were in 44 and had no one behond us!)

We are staying at the Reverie Saigon hotel, a ridiculously opulent place that is OTT in every respect. It's supposedly one of the top 100 hotels in the world. A once in a lifetime stay for us I think so may as well make the most of it!

Lobby with grand piano. Reminds me of the place we usually stay when passing through Taihape (not).

Lovely lady lounging in luxury in lobby.

"Times Square" building, home of Reverie Saigon.

We're on the 33rd floor with great views over the river and city. 

Our room with a a view.

HCM City is an enormous, bustling place of somewhere between 8 and 13 million people depending who you ask and how you count. The wider streets (laid out in French times) make it seem more spacious than Hanoi, and at least in the parts we saw, it seems wealthier. It's also warmer, 35+ degrees most days! There is a mix of buildng styles from French colonial times and some modern skyscrapers. 

 

Bitexco Tower, at 68 storeys, the tallest building in Vietnam. The disc shaped platform part way up is a helipad. 

Notre Dame, from the French period.

People, people, everywhere, and motorbikes for all, so there is always busy traffic. The public buses are mostly half empty as everyone who needs to get around has a bike already and prefers to be independent - just like Kiwi's and their cars! There is an underground metro being built by a Japanese company (had to get a little bit of railway in somehow) and hopefully that will take the pressure off the roads once it's up and running. 

Traffic just like like Hanoi, only more of it!

Ben Thanh market. Good prices for junk here, if you bargain hard.

We checked out some of the sights and visited the Rex Hotel roof top bar for a drink. This where the military press briefings took place during the Vietnam war. They were apparently known unofficially as the "five o'clock follies" due to the lack of credibility of the official reports vs the facts.

Later we went to the War Remnants Museum, which was both fascinating and horrible at the same time. It tells about the Vietnam War (known here as the American War) from the Vietnamese point of view, including the defoliation progamme (agent orange etc), carpet bombing, prison camps... We also visited the Cu Chi tunnels, part of the tunnel system used by the Viet Cong - now a tourist attraction. The tunnels were sized for the Viet Cong who were typically smaller people. We crawled through a short section of tunnel - it was "no problem" squeezing along in a peacetime situation with no danger, but one can only imagine what it must have been like in the war.

"Huey" helicopter at the War Remnants Museum.

Cu Chi tunnel entrance.

A tourist on the way in, hoping to pop up again somewhere else.

Viet Cong sandal factory - making them from old tyres.

On a somewhat lighter note, we had another Vietnamese cooking class - mastering pho (noodle soup) and subjecting ourselves to a no holds barred summer roll making competition (which we didn't win!?) 

The Chef.

A Contestant (tried her hardest!)

Ho Chi Minh City was a great place to visit, even though we spent quite a bit of time at "sobering" places. We'd wondered how the war museum and tunnel visits would work out, given that the war is still quiet recent history. One of our local guides was a child at the fall of Saigon and could relate his personal experiences of the evacuation. One (at least) of our group had been in Vietnam during the war on the American side. And of course NZ took part too, albeit on a small scale. But all of this seemed to have been consigned to the past, at least by those we met, and there was never any obvious tension. 

To finish on a happier note, and as a lasting memory of HCM City: there is a wide pedestrian boulevard running from the Ho Chi Minh City Hall down to the Saigon River (it used to be a canal but was filled in). Every night we've been here it has been party central, filled with people just hanging out and enjoying the evening. No stress, no drunks or threatening behaviour like Courtenay Place, little children playing in the fountain, and just a cool place to be. (29 degree evenings do feel cool now believe it or not!)

Street decorations for the Chinese New Year.

Crowds chilling out, and taking selfies.