Exploring Saigon

After finally getting a 'lie-in' and a breakfast of a freshly baked baguette with home-made marmalade I left the girls and went exploring the cities 'attractions'. First stop was the Ho Chi Minh City Museum, so I jumped onto the back of a moto-taxi and enjoyed the manic and noisy ride.

The HCMC Museum is set inside the rather grand looking nineteenth century French built Gia Long Palace. In the grounds outside were a selection of vehicles from the American War - planes, helicopters and artillery. And bizarrely lot's of people in wedding clothes having their photo taken on the steps to the entrance. Whether they were 'real' newly weds or models I don't know.

The inside of the museum was a real disappointment. A small collection of 'Southern Folk Worshipping Statues', some 'traditional' Vietnamese clothing and the upstairs was predictably dominated by the Vietnamese wars with the French and the US.

I left the HCMC Museum disappointed and set off towards the War Museum, via the Notre Dame Cathedral. Sadly, the cathedral was closed so I did some 'window shopping' in the multitude of high-fashion boutiques of central Saigon - Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Tag Hauer, etc. All well outside my backpakers budget!

The forecourt of the War Museum was once again full of war vehicles and some rather large bombs. Inside was a collection of photos of the atrocities commited by the US troops and of the victims of Agent Orange. It left me feeling thoroughly depressed. However, a seperate photo collection called 'Requiem' was fantastic - a collection of photos taken by the photo-journalists who reported on the war and died in doing so.


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Back at the guesthouse Gaby & Chris had arrived from Cambodia, so we all went out for dinner before Annie left on the nightbus to MuiNe.