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The border crossing into Vietnam was an interesting change from the wooden-huts-by-the-side-of-the-road type thing we had been getting used to in Laos and Cambodia. We quickly went through the standard Cambodian customs point and were then ushered into the Vietnamese customs building, a large soviet-style square block with an intimidating, huge matching soviet-style sculpture out front. A short bus ride later and we were smack bang in Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon as the locals call it.
In our few days in Saigon we managed to explore nearly all the city's 'essential' tourist spots and get acclimatised to the crazy traffic and constant noise, a regular occurrence in most asian cities but seemingly more intense in Saigon.
The main attraction in Saigon, and rightfully so, is the former South Vietnamese presidential palace, now known as the 'Reunification Palace'. It was here that the North Vietnamese tanks blasted through the gates at the end of the Vietnam War to raise the flag of the South Vietnamese liberation front. The Palace isn't really a palace but more of a large government building where the South Vietnamese president also happened to live. From the outside it appeared a mildly interesting 1960's American design slightly in need of repair. But on the inside, the palace's groovy retro interior has been left nearly completely as it had been when the North Vietnamese rolled up in the 70s. I found the palace to be the most appealing sight in Saigon, a really interesting building. On the ground floor were a few reception rooms and the former cabinet room surrounding a very impressive wooden staircase leading to the first floor. It was like a huge version of the wooden staircase in the Brady Bunch House. The first floor had a few more reception type rooms and a huge red circular carpet. The 2nd floor was much more interesting, containing the coolest little personal cinema I've ever seen, complete with red velvet retro armchairs and wooden panelling, and a bunch of rooms like "The gambling room" and "The smoking room" etc, with pool tables and pianos plotted about around the place. The president's bedroom was rather boring, his study fairly interesting with the same desks, chairs and phones from 40 years ago! Aswell as the impressive bunch of rooms upstairs, the basement was home to a labrynth of skinny passages and rooms with strange old radio equipment and phones, most of them with "Made in the USA" emblazoned on them. This network of passages linked several different 'war rooms' with heaps of old maps displayed on the walls and plenty of old desks and phones placed logically around the place. The whole basement area just smelled old, it was really cool.
In the rooftop sun-room was a small stage with an accompanying bar and a large deck looking out over the city. Sitting awkwardly by itself on one of the buildings roofs to the left of us was a US air force helicopter, apparently left behind in the chaos of the final days and weeks. In the front garden area of the palace block are 2 or 3 of the tanks that came crashing through the gates 4 decades ago.
The other main war-related tourist sight in Saigon is the War Remnants Museum, a fairly ugly grey cement block surrounded by various US tanks and fighter jets. Inside the museum there were lots of photographs relating to the war, some of them of no interest at all, some very interesting and others just gruesome. Along with thousands of ramshackle photographs was an exhibition about defoliating chemicals used by the Americans and a strange collection of US army guns, everything from pistols to rocket launchers.
After our visit to the Reunification Palace we strolled down the road to the main post office, a grand old French-built building. It was here, attempting to buy stamps at a service window, that we first encountered the famous Vietnamese trait of pushing in. A middle aged Vietnamese woman pushed straight through us as if we were invisible, shoving her letters through to the postal worker. Before either Miriam or I had processed what had just happened, the woman was gone! Across the road from the post office is the Notre Dame Cathedral, of course much smaller and less impressive than its French namesake.
3 to 4 days was plenty of time for us to get a feel for Saigon, so without anything else much to do we booked our train tickets and headed to Nha Trang, "Beach Culture to the max" apparently...
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