5/3 – Highlights of Saigon

We’re only here until noon today, and we’ve booked yet another tour. Sigh. What can we say – we had nothing specific we wanted to do, knew the time was short and had to get rid of non-refundable onboard credits. Tour it is. And to our credit, this tour is taking us to places we’ve not been on previous trips.

The big bummer here is that the tour leaves at 6:30a. Yep. Early morning wake up call and no gym for us. Knowing the drill – we get our bus stickers and head out – so early we’re definitely first on the bus! And lo and behold, we have the same Guide-boy as we did yesterday. Cool. We love him – no name and all!

Eventually our bus fills up, but the people! The explanation in the tour book specifically says that guests with limited mobility should not select this tour – we have to walk 1.6 miles. And guess who is on our bus? The huge massive overweight woman who was with us on the Hoi An tour and who could barely walk. Really???? Oh, this is looking ugly. And there are others in maybe not equally bad shape, but still limited. We shall see…..

Our cute little Guide-boy introduces himself today, giggling and saying he didn’t yesterday – nope you didn’t cutie – and his name is, of all things, Kingsley. Ok – not his real name which he says is too hard for us to pronounce, but his English nickname. We didn’t want to ask, because we thought it might be rude, but we’re so curious as to who named him or how he picked that name out. But…that will just remain one of the mysteries of the world.

We are finally off on our tour, heading first the Binh Tay market which has been explained as an excellent place to try street food. Hmmmm….we were hoping to go here last so we could at least get some local lunch, but as it turns out, there isn’t really any street food here. It is more local market with huge bags of dried goods, candy, and assorted other items that you would mostly buy wholesale. It is very much like Wararot Market in Chiang Mai, just not as many produce vendors. And because it is so early in the morning, not everything is open yet. So we end up walking through stalls and stalls of bagged nuts, dried shrimp (in all different sizes, there are some huge ones here – not at all like what we are used to using from Thailand), dried mushrooms and then the fish market area with all the live fish in the big round tin buckets. We also wander through the clothing area upstairs, which is pretty empty because no one is open yet, then back down, passing the ice vendor who is chopping up the ice with a huge nasty looking ice pick/knife, and out into an open courtyard with a beautiful shrine (where some local guy is taking all the mandarin oranges that have been left as offerings!).

Our next stop is the Thien Hau Temple, dedicated to the goddess that protects seafarers. An apt place for us to visit, seeing how we are coming and going on the sea! It is massive and impressive with the most intricately detailed carvings along the roof top and the walls – and just everywhere. There are beautiful wooden figurines as well as those huge spiral incense coils burning away.

Then it is on to what we feel is the main event, the Independence Palace, or what is commonly known as the Reunification Palace. This is the site of the fall of Saigon where the North Vietnamese Army crashed a tank into the gates. We’d just driven by this on previous visits, so actually visiting was a big draw of this tour. Entering at the ellipse drive, we have a photo session in front of the Palace with Kingsley playing photographer again – then we all troop into the Palace.

Here we tour through the top 2 floors, the first floor rooms in the colors of a traffic signal (as Kingsley tells us); the minister’s cabinet room (in green), the conference hall (in red) where all the ceremonial events are held, the banquet chamber (in yellow), then up to the 2^nd floor for the president’s personal rooms, offices and bedrooms. These floors are all very palatial and beautifully decorated. And each has a particular story to go along with them – whether where the ambassadors presented credentials or where the president and his staff worked. Kingsley is great about providing details and leading us through the throngs of people that in this place – even this early!

Probably the best part of this tour though were the tunnels underneath the palace, which were created for security from bombings that happened during the war. Even though it is down a lot of stairs with no elevator (stairs! More stairs! Yeah, the others are already grumbling) we manage to get most of our group down here and together to tour the different rooms that are essentially war rooms. This is where everyone worked and managed the war during the fighting. There is the President’s war room, essentially the situation room, with maps and these ancient old rotary phones and an adjacent room with a bed for him to sleep. There are rooms full of old standard typewriters and ancient radio transmitters and then another map room with detailed numbers of troops on the ground in 1968. It is all pretty cool and neat to be actually walking these halls (albeit crowded halls!!!).

Back upstairs (more stairs!) we all group together and climb back aboard the bus which miraculously comes to pick us up right at the front of the Palace (no more walking!). On the way out we get stuck with a little clog at the exit and get to watch a bride and groom posing for their wedding shots on a vespa scooter of all things! So sweet.

Then we are off to the Notre Dame cathedral, which is under renovation so we can’t go into visit, but we can take some photos from the garden out front. Crossing the street, we enter the Post Office building, which was originally the train station with the huge soaring ceilings and the picture of Ho Chi Minh at the back. Taking our leave, yet another bride and groom are posing outside. Obviously the wedding season has descended upon Saigon!

Our final cultural stop is the History Museum – but our driver gets confused and tries to drop us off at the War Remnants Museum. This is hysterically funny to us, because we thought we were going to the War Museum too – we didn’t realize the History museum was different! The driver was so embarrassed, but we thought it was fine since we were confused too – which we relayed to Kingsley who told the driver, which made the driver feel better! And then that comment began a 20 minute whispered conversation between Kingsley and us about the war and why his company doesn’t take people to that museum because it is “sensitive.” He went into a lot of in-depth info about the whole Vietnamese thinking on the war which is far different than how we think – for obvious reasons – but also because it seems that the powers that be have sort of re-written history to their benefit and the younger generation doesn’t really know too much. Kingsley does, from his family and trying to educate himself on his own. It is a fascinating conversation and such an eye opener into the Communist society and ruling party here.

We arrive at the museum and are guided through a history of the ancient culture and peoples who created Vietnam, along with their artwork. There are buddhas and carved wood and ganesh statues and nagas and all things ancient and traditional. There is also this mummy that was excavated from an old graveyard in 1994 which is weirdly cool and interesting! Oh, and the king’s robes were really interesting as well. They are yellow, not red, one of only 2 countries in the world with yellow robes (China being the other) and they have an upside bat on the sleeve – because the word bat in Vietnamese means something – I don’t know, I can’t remember now – and when the word is turned upside down it gives you an overall vision of the world or some such thing. Anyhow – at the time the explanation was cool – and the little bat was cool as well!

Another fun little thing at the museum was a troupe of school girl actresses who were filming something. When we arrived, waiting in the courtyard for those in the bathroom, they were filming entering the museum – and this little boy in a red t-shirt got in the way of them skipping into the courtyard – you should have seen the look on the cameraman’s face. Kingsley and I both saw it – if looks could kill! – and just broke out laughing. Later on, we were able to watch them filming some additional scenes which was really fun.

And then we were off – to the lacquer factory. Which, btw, the huge massive overweight woman was waiting for all this time. She never got off the bus anywhere and only wanted to come shopping here. Really? Might have been cheaper and faster to just take a taxi here, don’t ya think? Whatever! We made the obligatory rounds of all the lacquer products – which were really pricey, and I mean really pricey – then actually enjoyed watching the demonstrations of the people making the different types of items – the guy with the egg shells, the girls with the mother of pearl. That was really fascinating and fun. And then we were done!

Back on the bus, we were back at the pier in 30 minutes and onboard and at lunch before we sailed. Reversing our Saigon Slalom and enjoying a half day at sea.