The 17 hour train journey to Saigon was pleasant enough. The trains in Vietnam tend to run on time and sure enough we arrived at 4:30am as expected. An honestly priced cab ride later and we were dozily stumbling around the Bui Vien area of Saigon.
The city is officially known as Ho Chi Minh City these days although most Vietnamese up and down the country still call it Saigon which I think is a much more pretty name.
We knocked on a few hotel doors to wake up the people sleeping on their mattresses. Eventually finding one that wasn’t full. The Saigon Sports Hotel. The rooms were nice expect the ludicrously cramped design of the bathroom. With a barely usable toilet and a sink over the bath. Handy.
We woke for breakfast at 9am and decided we could do better so after a short walk down Bui Vien which is pretty much wall to wall tiny hotels we found a nice boutique place with goegeous rooms, friendly staff and the all important Star Sports TV channel so we could watch the Brazillian F1 grand prix! All for just 18 dollars too.
Saigon is a stange place. Steeped in history for obvious reasons yet very western. A branch of Debenhams will be opening soon just opposite the Park Hyatt. It’s thousands of street sellers constantly hounding every tourist makes any walk a constant head-shaking experience.
We decided to take advantage of the more cosmopolitan feel of Saigon and tracked down a Sushi restaurant which was amazing and in the heart of the affluent and distinctly Japanese quarter.
The Reunification Palace is a must whn visiting Saigon. Built in the 60’s and unchanged in Decor since the mid 70s it stands as a monument to Vietnamese history pre and post ‘american war’ as they call it here. With lavish rooms for official meetings of dignitaries and crazy party rooms including a gambling room (complete with Del Boy like barrel motif mini bar), a cinema and a roof top dance room with helipad. It’s design was way ahead of it’s time for 60’s architecture and interior styling. The free guided tour really adds to the experience and the bomb proof bunkers below are a reminder of it’s role during the last 40 years of turmoil in Vietnam.
There’s a confusing array of nightlife here. Most of it aimed at getting westerners into bars but they’re not sure what to do with them once they’re there. Tiny empty nightclubs put you off ever wanting to go in them and the bars have too many seats so everyone sits separately and don’t mingle. It’s a shame really with so many like minded travelers in one district. Allez Boo was our favourite place. We met some nice people there including Ex-Pats.
The Vietnam War Remnants Museum is a (relatively) great place to go to understand Vietnam’s entire war history dating right back to the French occupation in the mid 19th century. We’ve always been a bit confused as to which side the Americans were actually on. For good reason to as it appears they helped the Viet Minh defeat the French after the 2nd world war before taking over themselves, controlling too much and pretty much provoking the “Vietnam war”. The museum has some gruesome images of mutilated bodies and scary weapons of war but also has some very compelling photography that really caught my eye, create by some very skilled and very brave war photographers.
We did a day trip to the Cao Dai temple which is an amazing building and strange hybrid religion. Quite a sight. Then on to the Cu Chi tunnels to crawl through tiny underground tunnels used by the Viet Kong during the war. A rather well trodden path through the jungle leads you to the “replica” tunnels for tourists. The whole place has an almost Disney feel about it with dodgy animatronics and overly smiley demonstrator. That and some massively over the top 60’s propaganda movie about how peaceful vietnamese people were before the americans “bombed them back into the stone age” as one American solider is reported to have said.
Saigon was fun, not our favourite place in Vietnam that’s for sure but still some interesting days out and fun evenings with traveling friends. We enjoyed eating food other than Vietnamese for a change, from sushi to amazing indian curry.
