Getting out of Cambodia proves much easier than getting in - our comfortable trip with Giant Ibis bus takes us straight from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City, with our guide handling all of the border formalities, and not a single request for a bribe. We do get there about two hours late - but reviews had flagged that eventuality, and we have nothing planned in the evening except settle in our nicely central hotel and heave a sight of relief at being away from the oppressive shadow of the Khmer Rouge regime. The next morning, it’s time to finally start exploring Vietnam - something that Ollie has been waiting to do for the entire trip!
Our hotel is right in the centre of District 1, near the backpacker’s party street (although our 10th-floor room shields us from any unwanted noise), and close enough to walk to the main sights - or so we think! Our first stop is the Ben Thanh market nearby, where we hope to find breakfast. Just before entering the large, covered hall, we stop to wonder at the veritable crowd in front of one of the shops. It’s a gold seller and money changer, and we’ll later learn that this is one of the places Saigon residents come to change out tourist dollars. Inside the market, there’s a wealth of lovely-looking souvenirs laid out which I head straight for - before running away again from the extremely pressing vendors. We weren’t quite prepared for the aggressive Vietnamese sales tactics: vendors immediately come to ask what we want and push us to buy the minute we even look at a stall, and they get right in our face, even grabbing us by the arms a few times. We’ll later learn to relax and jokingly deflect their advances but on our first morning and in this tourist hotspot, it’s too much and we decide to try our luck elsewhere.
We set out in search of a Banh Mi - one of the traditional foods must-try’s, and find one in a little roadside eatery which luckily just has two kid-sized chairs left for us. One of the positive legacies of the French occupation of Vietnam, banh mi combines a perfectly cooked french baguette (the only time I’ve seen this type of bread successfully made outside of the Hexagon) with a rich filling of barbecued pork and fresh herbs. It’s cheap, filling, delicious, and takes about five minutes to eat, quickly becoming a staple of our Vietnamese diet! That’s set us back on track a little, and we continue on our tour of central Saigon.
Our stroll takes us past the local Notre Dame (closed for repairs), through the beautiful colonial central post office, and, unexpectedly, down leafy Ho Chi Minh City Book Street - a wonderful, vibrant lane lined with exclusively Vietnamese bookshops. After less than an hour however, we’re already struggling with the heat - and after detouring to catch a picture of the scenic town hall, we take advantage of being back in a big city to duck into the neighbouring, air-conditioned luxury mall for a coffee. We’re definitely not the target audience for the Chanel and Gucci stores - although we do see a few ladies that would look better placed at a formal dinner than here at noon - but after a short rest in this cooler environment we’re ready to go again.
Today is our historical sightseeing day - and it’s time for a visit to the Independence Palace, the former seat of the South Vietnam government up to the reunification of the country in 1975. Rebuilt in the 1960s after the old building was bombed, it’s a fantastic example of mid-century architecture done right. Inspired by various Chinese ideograms, the geometric facade is clean and simple, but still intricate. Inside, the palace is airy and offers pleasantly curated perspectives on itself and the grounds surrounding it. Once I’m done nerding out about the architecture, we head downstairs to visit the integrated bunker. The rooms themselves aren’t much but there’s a fascinating documentary covering the history of the palace and its place in the war. This is a significant spot for the country as it is when a Northern Vietnam tank crashed through the monument’s gates that the war officially ended and the two halves were reunified.
We grab a quick lunch in the quiet palace gardens before jumping back into the fray. Navigating Saigon isn’t for the faint-hearted: the roads are an endless cacophony of cars, coaches, bikes, and an absolute tide of motorcycles weaving their way through the slightest gap - whichever side of the road it is on. Honking seems to be a favourite hobby and sometimes we can’t even work out the purpose of the noise. Most pedestrian crossings don’t come with lights - and when they do, traffic will be going through anyway regardless of whether it’s green for us or not. At least everyone on the road is wearing a helmet, a marked change from all the previous motorcycle-reliant countries we visited. We’re slowly getting the hang of it - the key seems to be confidently starting across the road, and the bikes will flow around and let us through, but it’s not a restful journey.
Luckily we’re not going too far: the War Remnants Museum is just a couple of streets over. With a courtyard full of American and Vietnamese army planes and tanks, reconstituted prison cells, and a series of exhibitions covering the war from various angles, it’s a good complement to our tour of the palace and gives us a fuller picture of what happened fifty years ago. It’s not an easy visit though between the descriptions of the various torture methods employed in the prisons, and the candid pictures of the malformations caused (even today) by the liberal use of defoliant across the entire country, and we leave with a heavy heart.
Despite this gruesome history, Vietnam somehow doesn’t feel as weighed down as Laos and Cambodia. As we walk back to our hotel, people are laughing in the street, the park is full of couples and groups of friends of all ages exercising on the outdoors gyms or practising dance routines, and there’s a vibrancy, a liveliness, a sense that this is a country that knows where it wants to go and is making its way there swiftly, with a skip and a smile. Quite a nice place to be in fact!
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