Adam & Stephanie's Travel Blog: Saigon and the American War

Nothing really to report on Bangkok. We spent 5 nights there but managed to do very little. Ate a lot of Thai food, saw a movie, visited with Steph's uncle. I'm even surprised myself, how little we did. Anyways, we were just resting up before the real trip begins - Vietnam! We've been wanting to go to Vietnam for a while now, but were always put off by time constraints and the weird visa situation. Turns out, all it takes is a little bribery. When traveling to Vietnam, you could go the official route and visit a Vietnamese embassy in whatever country you're in to apply for a visitors visa. Or, you can go online and buy a "visa on arrival" letter from one of the many dubious-looking websites that offer the service. Turns out, the "visa on arrival" is really only supposed to be for emergencies or other special situations, but I guess these companies give a little money under the table to the immigration officials to open it up for everyone. That's my understanding at least. We read enough reviews online to decide that while it may or may not be legit, it does in fact work, and since we love stress at the airport we went with it. Fill out a form online, pay about $10 each, visa letter arrives by email a couple days later, show it to immigration at the airport, pay your $45 visa fee and you're in! Easy as that.

I'll just get it over with: Good Morning Vietnam! Their coffee is good

We weren't sure what to expect from Ho Chi Minh City, officially formerly known as Saigon but still called Saigon by almost everybody here, but we immediately liked it. It's your typical vibrant (read: chaotic) Asian city, but it had a much different look than Bangkok where we had just come from. Where Bangkok has big shiny skyscrapers and neon lights, Saigon has tree-lined streets with mostly 3-4 story buildings and only a few skyscrapers here and there. Bangkok's sidewalks are filled with street food carts, Saigon's are covered in motorbikes. They say there is one motorbike for every 2 people in Saigon - so over 4 million of them. It's fascinating to watch the traffic flow thru the city - a constant stream of motorbikes, cars and buses in a sort of organized chaos. We've yet to see a single accident, though did witness what we assumed was a road-rage throw down between 2 women on the sidewalk swinging their helmets at each other. Bangkok often provides elevated crosswalks at the busier sections. Not so much in Vietnam. You just cross through it. It's a lot like Cairo, where you just slowly walk through the traffic. No fast movements, no turning back. Avoid the cars and buses, the motorbikes will (hopefully) avoid you. I think we've gotten pretty good at it, but I'll let these guys show you how it's done.

One thing I do miss about Bangkok is the air conditioning. If When you get hot from walking around outside, you just duck into a nice, cool shopping mall to cool off. Again, not so much in Vietnam. And it's ridiculously hot to boot, with daily highs around 95° but "feels like" 110°+. We basically just try not to stray too far from our hotel, so that we can come back and cool off when needed. Luckily taxis are very cheap as well and always have the AC blasting.

Steph bought a big hat to shade her from the sun

Most of the sightseeing we did during our 5 days in Saigon was related to the Vietnam War, or the American War as they call it. I'm going to try to refrain from too much of my own commentary about the war, mainly because I am admittedly ignorant about the war but have learned just a bit about it during my time here. If you, too, are uninformed about the War, I'll give you the cliff-notes as I know it. So Vietnam, like many underdeveloped but resource-rich countries, has been fighting off invaders for most of it's history. Traditionally it was China, but the French eventually colonized Vietnam in the late 1800's. This lasted until World War II, during which time Communist leader Ho Chi Minh started the push for independence. This struggle lasted until 1954 when the French lost the battle at Dien Bien Phu, which ultimately broke the camel's back. At this time, the country was split along the 17th parallel - Ho Chi Minh and the Communists in the North, and the Republic of Vietnam in the South. This is about the time the US stepped in. I'm not sure what it was like to be alive during this time, but it seems we (the US) were deeply afraid of the Communists completely taking over Vietnam, which supposedly might lead to a "domino effect" where all of Southeast Asia would become Communist. So, the US decided to back the South and their leader Ngo Dinh Diem. A civil war broke out with the North (Viet Minh) and their supporters in the South (Viet Cong) taking on the South and their supporters the US and it's allies (Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Thailand and the Philippines all fought in the Vietnam War to some degree). War escalated and the US slowly committed more and more troops, reaching over half a million at it's peak in 1966. Things did not go well, to say the least, and the US slowly tried to get out of Vietnam, eventually doing so during a cease-fire agreement in 1973. But fighting continued between the North and South until 1975, when the North finally crashed through the gates of the Presidential Palace in Saigon and the South officially surrendered.

Steph in front of the Reunification Palace

The first place we visited was the Reunification Palace, which was formerly the Presidential Palace before the fall of Saigon. It has been left mostly in the same state as it was in 1973 when tanks crashed through it's gates, so it's kinda cool to "look back in time" at the 70's furniture and interior design, plus learn a little about the historical significance of the building.

Somewhere down in the bunker below the palace

The best place in Saigon to learn about the Vietnam War is the War Remnants Museum, formerly known as the "Exhibition House for US and Puppet Crimes," then "Exhibition House for Crimes of War and Aggression" and after Clinton normalized relations with Vietnam in 1995, simply the War Remnants Museum. The title may have changed, but I'm not sure the content has, as the museum is a one-sided look at the atrocities of war. We knew it would be one-sided and anti-American going in, and you can't really blame them, I guess. Actually I was expecting it to be worse, but everything presented did seem to be factually correct, but just with a bit of picking and choosing on what to display. Either way, it's a sobering look at how terrible war is, no matter what side you are on. As I said before, I'll try not to opine too much, but we did some extremely terrible things during that war that can't be excused no matter how "bad" the other side was. The War is very much still "alive" here in Vietnam - you can see it's effects on a daily basis. It's not uncommon to see people on the street missing one, two, three limbs. I can't help but imagine what happened to them - did they fight in the war or maybe stumble across a land mine years later? Not to mention the affects from Agent Orange, a chemical that was dumped all over the countryside meant to kill all the plant life and make it easier to fight the Viet Cong. Then people eat those plants and drink that water. Birth defects are still rampant generations later. You can't go on an organized tour in Vietnam without being taken to one of the "handicapped centers" where they have given these people a place to live (and put them to work making souvenirs for tourists). Basically, from what I have seen so far, I don't care to pick a side or anything like that. War is beyond terrible. That's it.

Didn't take pictures of the War Remnants Museum, so here's a church instead

A favorite tour for visitors to Saigon is the Cu Chi tunnels, which is a vast network of tunnels in the jungle used by the Viet Cong to hide from the Americans during the war. For $5 each we got tour guide and an air-conditioned bus ride out to the site, though the entrance ticket was another $6 each. Oh, we also got to stop at a handicap center! We were lucky to get "Mr. Bean" as our guide for the day. Mr. Bean is a Vietnamese man from Saigon who fought in the war. I guess he has American citizenship somehow because he said he fought in the US Navy. Anyways, it was very refreshing to hear a different side of the story, the "real story" as he put it. Throughout the day Mr. Bean gave us his story, and it wasn't really a happy one. I can't remember all of it, but do remember that he was engaged at a young age but his fiance was killed during a surprise attack by the North during the Vietnamese new year, known as the Tet Offensive. Mr. Bean actually fought at the Cu Chi tunnels, so he could give us a first-hand account at how terrifying it must have been to try to fight the Viet Cong, who could have been anyone from a local village, who could sit for hours in a squatting position and wait to ambush American troops, who set booby traps all through the forest, or who could pop out of a hole or from behind a tree at any time. Luckily Mr. Bean brought a very entertaining personality to liven up the otherwise depressing tour, often breaking out into song or telling funny jokes (mostly about fat Westerners). He must have been a good guy to have around during the war.

We chose not to go down this tiny hole

At Cu Chi we got to watch a hilarious propaganda film (hilarious because it was so ridiculous), see some of the holes and tunnels the Viet Cong used to hide from the South/Americans, booby traps they would have set up to catch people as well as army dogs, and could even shoot some old machine guns (for an additional fee). We opted out of the guns, but did enjoy crawling through one of the old tunnels. It was just big enough for me to do a crouching walk through, but apparently they have made it wider for tourists. It was over 100 yards long, but had exits every 90 feet or so. Steph bailed at maybe the second exit but I made it all the way through. Kind of a fun touristy thing to do, but how terrifying it must have been to be in one of those tunnels with bombs raining down all around you and people pouring gasoline down the air vents to try to burn you out.