Sai Gon, Vietnam

Jade Emperor Pagoda
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Just after the last American troops left Vietnam in 1974, Hanoi successfully took Saigon. They renamed the city Ho Chi Minh City, and renamed many of the streets to fit in with their socialist credo. This left Laurie and I in an interesting position. What to call the city? Do we honor the traditional name, Sai Gon, (each syllable in Viet Nam is its own word), or do we refer to the city by its new name, Ho Chi Minh City? We thought that perhaps in the north, we should refer to it as Ho Chi Minh City, while in the south we should call it Sai Gon. What we found, was that it varied from person to person, regardless of where they lived. Some people in Hue called in Sai Gon, some Ho Chi Minh. Some people in Hanoi called it Sai Gon, some Ho Chi Minh. Same thing in Hanoi. But, most people, still called it Sai Gon. We called it Sai Gon, and still do.

Rex Hotel, downtown Sai Gon. Where many western reporters stayed during the Second Indochina War. The penthouse bar is particularly famous with famous views of the city.
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Here's something about Vietnam that you might not know. They have some of the world's best coffee. Seriously. Everywhere that we went we were having coffee! Hot coffee! It was insane. Why would we have coffee as I'm sweating I've never sweat before? But it was SOOOOO good. It was rich, it was creamy. It was insane. It was good coffee. They have Highlands Coffee there, sort of their answer to Starbucks. It's posh. You sit at a table and somebody comes by and takes your order. Your coffee order. Pastries are encouraged. Sure, you can go to the counter and order your coffee, but why would you? They serve the coffee in a mug, but its in a metal filter resting over your cup. The coffee drips through, filtering at the table. (We were curious what they would do if we ordered some to go. How would that work?) Anyway, great coffee in Vietnam.

Everywhere that we went we were having coffee!

Yeah, I'm bad like that.
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Originally, we really had no interest in anything about the American/Vietnam war. We wanted to see culture and pagodas and tombs and the rivers, etc. But, you can't help but be interested in the war when you go. It's too important a part of the history of the area. And most people really don't realize what the Vietnamese have been through. They fought the war against America right after a war with France. Also, most people don't realize how Vietnam was affected by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia. Also, the forces of China and Soviet USSR had a big impact on the area. This country has seen more than its far share of suffering and struggle. And Saigon, as the center and capital of the Southern Vietnamese movement against the Socialist North, really was the epicenter of the political side of much of this strife. For instance, as were walking down this street Dien Bien Phu, I didn't realize until later that this very street was the site of last battle in the French Indochina War. And when you walk down Dong Khoi, you see the hotels that the press stayed in during the Second Indochina War, (what Americans would call the Vietnam War), and you see famous destinations where famous stories were written and filed, and more than a few bombings occurred. I mean, Sai Gon is the location of that famous photo of the North Vietnamese soldier being executed, with a point blank shot to the head, by a southern Vietnamese. So, there is a tremendous amount of history here, and it's important history, and to think that it hasn't shaped present-day Vietnam would be ridiculous. A short drive out of the city and you can visit the Cu Chi Tunnels. These are tunnels that the Vietnamese dug deep into the earth and used as bunkers, hospitals, and to mount attacks. They were made so tiny that only the smaller Vietnamese soldiers could fit in them. Americans rarely knew where they were, and when they could find them, it was incredibly difficult to do anything about it as you didn't know how deep and far they ran. Many argue that they played a major role in the Vietnamese victory of the war.

EVERYBODY uses motos.
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We opted to not really visit as many sites here. We didn't go to Cu Chi, (although, at the Cu Chi Tunnel tour you can fire an AK-17 if you want, but I'm not really a gun guy, and Laurie certainly isn't in to guns, but still ....), because we really only had two days in Sai Gon. We mainly just walked around. We loved it. Now, we talked a little bit about crossing the street in Hanoi. When you get to the city center at Sai Gon, they have dressed guards to escort tourists across the street. Yeah, crossing the street is so difficult that they position a uniformed local at each downtown intersection to help you along. The traffic here is worse, but it's also not in some weird ways. You see, the streets are bigger, and there really is much more traffic, but, because it's not as many tiny streets, there's more organization to it. There are crosswalks. There are traffic lights. In Hanoi it's smaller and less organized, so it's more chaotic, even though the traffic, (while still by anybody's stretch of the imagination is ludicrous), isn't as bad as Sai Gon.

There's not much more to add. We're off to Phu Quoc.