Ho Chi Minh City - Saigon

We spent the day exploring Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) today. I’m not a huge fan of big cities, but this one isn’t half bad. I kind of like it. It definitely has a different feel from Hanoi. To me, Hanoi feels more ancient - HCMC feels more modern.

We went to the War Remnants Museum. It is a Museum of artifacts and things from the Vietnam war. It was fascinating, upsetting, heart breaking, educational … so many emotions felt being there and seeing the ramifications the war had on the people of Vietnam. Then, because of the war crimes that the US soldiers committed and generations later because of the lasting horrors of Agent Orange that had been dumped on the civilians here. We left very sad and ashamed.

From there we made our way through the town - we stopped at the “reunification palace”, the Notre dame cathedral (which was under massive construction), the Central post office (which was 150 years old), Ho Chi Minh square, walked the Nguyen Hue pedestrian street, and ended on the 46th floor of the Bitexco tower to see the city from above.

Overall it was a good day, and we got a good feel for the city. It also felt good walking around a city again.

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