Nha Trang to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) by overnight train

Reunification Palace

People's Committee Hall

MONDAY 1 AUGUST 2011

We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City about 8 a.m. and I got a taxi to my hotel. I was able to go to my room straight away and had a shower. I was finally reunited with my laundry I had left in Hanoi. Sam had sent it down to my brother’s agent in Ho Chi Minh City, and they brought it round to my hotel.

 
I walked to the Independence Palace, also known as the Reunification Palace. The cost was 30,000 VND, about £1, and included a 1 hour tour with a guide in English. The palace is important because it was where a tank belonging to the Northern Army broke through the gates on 30 April 1975, which began the fall of Saigon. The President at that time, Duong Van Minh, had only been in power for two days and handed over power to the North Vietnamese.

Nearby is the War Remnants Museum, which has got some tanks and other remnants of war, but the most impressive part are the various halls of photographs, each addressing a certain issue of that terrible war. One hall showed photographs of the horrific injuries inflicted on the local people, including men being tortured, and scenes of massacres where women and children were killed, and whole villages wiped out, including Son My were over 500 Vietnamese, mostly women and children, were massacred by American soldiers. The famous pictures of the girl running down the street with her back burnt by napalm and the photo of a Vietnamese man being shot in the head were there. 

Another gallery looked at the effects of Agent Orange, and showed photographs of children still being born today with the most horrific deformities. Another focused on the world-wide condemnation at the time the war was going on, including calls from foreign governments for America to stop its illegal use of chemical weapons. It was very quiet in the gallery as everyone seemed to be too moved by the images they saw.

Having walked quite a way already, I got a cycle rickshaw to take me to the Notre-Dame Cathedral, past the elaborate People Committee Hall and to the Ben Thanh Market.

After a short rest at my hotel, I went out to a street nearby where there were some excellent restaurants.