While my parents went to visit some family and friends, Clint, Thieu, and I took a day tour of Saigon. We started out at the Notre Dame Cathedral and the Saigon Post Office. The Post Office is huge and was previously one of the only places where you could communicate with folks overseas. Only recently have people in Saigon been allowed to have telephones in their house. Before if you wanted to make or receive a call, you would have to come to the banks of pay phones here.
After the Post Office, we went to the Ho Chi Minh City Museum to learn more about the growth of Saigon. My favorite stop was to the Presidential Palace which is like our White House. This is where Thieu Van Nguyen, the South Vietnam president, resided and eventually signed his resignation to the North Vietnamese soldiers. On the grounds are several military planes and tanks that bombed and rolled through the Palace at the very end of the war.
Next, we went to the War Remnants Museum which housed artifacts from the war. Around the outside of the museum were all the US planes, weapons, and tanks that were taken during the war. Again, like the museums in Hanoi, this one focused on the mistreatment of the Vietnamese by the American GI's. It was quite graphic as they had on display the "tiger cages" which held prisoners waiting to be tortured and many photographs of the effects of the chemical defoliant "Agent Orange."
Taking a break from the museums, we went to the Binh Tay market in Saigon's Cholon district (Chinatown). The picture above shows the narrow streets around the market filled with small stores all along the side. Inside the market looks exactly the same except much narrower so only people squeeze by.
Next, we went to the War Remnants Museum which housed artifacts from the war. Around the outside of the museum were all the US planes, weapons, and tanks that were taken during the war. Again, like the museums in Hanoi, this one focused on the mistreatment of the Vietnamese by the American GI's. It was quite graphic as they had on display the "tiger cages" which held prisoners waiting to be tortured and many photographs of the effects of the chemical defoliant "Agent Orange."
Taking a break from the museums, we went to the Binh Tay market in Saigon's Cholon district (Chinatown). The picture above shows the narrow streets around the market filled with small stores all along the side. Inside the market looks exactly the same except much narrower so only people squeeze by.
In the evening, we met back up with my parents for dinner at my mom's cousin's house. After so many restaurants, a home made dinner was delicious, and Clint finally got his first moped ride, courtesy of Cousin Nam (number 5).
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