Ho Chi Menh City is the official name for Saigon. The young urbanites use Saigon to refer to the old parts of the city while the rest of the metropolitan area and the district are HCMC. Over 9 million people live in Saigon and 4.5 million ride scooters everywhere they go.
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| Catholic Church |
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| New Years decorations |
We transfered off of the ship today and are staying in the Sofitel Saigon in the center of town. We didn't get our room until 15 minutes before our tour of The War Remnants Museum so John stayed behind while the rest of us got the communist view of the American War in Vietnam. It was explained to us that there have been many wars in Vietnam - the French War, the Russian war and the American war - so the Vietnamese don't call it the Vietnam War.
Most of the War Remnants Museum are rooms full of photographs taken by the war correspondents and journalists from 1954 to 1975 when Saigon fell. It is a slanted view of the horrors we inflicted upon the women and children and the after effects of Agent Orange and all the other chemicals we sprayed on the country. One room of photos did depict the war our soldiers experienced. Outside the museum were war machines left behind by the Americans like Chinooks, tanks, and B-52 bombers.
The best part of the day began at 6 pm when we were picked up on 6 motor scooters and given a tour of Saigon at night. Our journey host, Jason, proceeded to try and get us drunk, took us to two wonderful local restaurants then to two totally different nightclubs. It was exciting to ride with all the traffic and see Saigon at night, still lit up from celebrating the New Year. This is a young, growing and vibrant city any young person would love.
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