Sleepover in Saigon

Pictures from first day in Saigon (My blog for the second day in Saigon follows the pictures).

Rex Hotel in Central Business District of Saigon
Note the rooftop lounge which is  bordered by a rooftop tropical garden

War Remnants Museum - Inside is a communist slanted version of the
war but I see their point. Agent Orange, B-52 carpet bombing and US high-tech weapons
did not really ingratiate most Vietnamese to the United States

Captured US Huey

British couple Brenda and Roland on the right in the open air cabana
where we had a great vietnamese lunch 

Andrew and his wife from U.S.A. Andrew served two tours of duty with the US Navy
as a "brown water sailor" in a motor river boat patrolling the Mekong River Delta.
This was his first trip back to Nam since 1975.

Look back at cabanas from bridge to buses.
Forrest Gump won the Medal of Honor near here.

Our guide Hai showing us what the VC used to dig the tunnels. He was a really great guide. 

The next five pictures depict how a VC could hide in a tunnel entrance
which was a hole no bigger than a milk chute

Tunnel Rat booby trap - don't go in this hole!
A tunnel rat was a smaller US Army volunteer that went into the tunnels with
a pistol and an infra-red flashlight in his hands and a
rope tied around his ankle. His job was simply to kill the VC in the tunnel.
If he was in trouble his mates would pull him out by the ankle.

Linebacker Tunnel Rat with no weapons.
His job was simply to get through the tunnel without getting stuck.
He made it to the delight of all, especially the tourists behind him. 

Modern VC look and smell good. The black uniform is now form fitting silk and the perfume
expensive 

A rubber plantation as seen from the bus

A typical Saigon intersection

Site of former US Embassey building.
The steel reinforced walls are still there but the building
was ripped down by the communists in the 1990s.
You may recall the Huey taking the last loads of people off
the roof in 1975 news reels.

The day after the last load of Americans left the Communist forces crashed
a tank through gates to the South Vietnamese President's Palace.
The President had fled to the U.S and I believe he died in the Boston area a few years ago.

SLEEPOVER IN SAIGON

We spent the night moored in Saigon and slept well after a very active day yesterday. This morning we decided that we were going to take a bus back into the Central business district before the ship left the harbor at 2:30 PM. So we got our act together fairly quickly and hopped on the bus, which delivered us back in front of the Rex Hotel. On the bus we ran into Roland and Brenda from just north of London, England. These kindly Brits were one of the couples that we lunched with in the cabanas the day before and we decided to team up on what turned out to be a short shopping expedition.

The Central Market is about 4 blocks from the Rex and the four of us hoofed it down to the market and for the first time ever we crossed one of those really busy roads in Saigon with no traffic lights. Now these intersections are very common in Vietnam and we knew what we were doing because, we had been given a tutorial on how to make these crossings by our guide, the day before. The rule of thumb is to walk slowly, to not make any sudden change of speed or direction and to not under any circumstance stop in the middle. This is hard to do because we are hardwired to stop and let approaching traffic yield to you, the pedestrian. In essence, since the traffic has the right of way you have to show them your intent and then let them decide which way to get around you as you steadily proceed across the road. Fortunately, a very old lady (probably former VC) crossed right in front of us and we were able to watch her. She did not hesitate and promptly succeeded. We did the same behind her and frankly the thrill was pretty amazing. Talk about trust in human nature but to be honest I thought if they wanted to hit me they could go ahead because they are all pretty small and I knew that a former linebacker could do some damage to a couple of 110 pounders on knock-off Honda 150s.

On this trip the wife has learned to negotiate. Our friends showed us how you can really do deals on stuff at a Vietnam market and Linda really likes this idea. Instead of paying $3 for one handbag you can get 6 for $10. If you know her just think of what this revelation meant to her (note to Nicole: a second package of goods will be coming home addressed to your attention). Now I also got into this too, so I am just as guilty and it was fun. I got a 26-ounce bottle of Smirnoff for $12. I saved $3 so it was cheap to begin with but it makes you wonder; how low could you go? It also gives you an idea of how much taxes we pay in Canuckland.

An interesting side note to our shopping trip was my visit to the Vietnamese bank machine. I made a small mistake today. I only removed 500,000 Dong from my account. The funny part is the fee might be more than the withdrawal. The withdrawal converted to $25, the conversion rate being roughly 2000:1. But give me a break, it looked like a lot of money on the ATM screen. The real cool thing though was the receipt. It calculated my balance in Dong. I had 99,000,000 Dong in my savings account. Boy does that look good on paper.

If you want to Google the Rex Hotel in Saigon you can read about the significance of this hotel during the Vietnam War. We decided after shopping for a few hours that we would go for a beer at the rooftop lounge where all the war correspondents drank when they covered the war. Roland and I had a Tiger beer up there and I stroked the place off the bucket list.

Shortly after the Rex Hotel intermission we jumped back on the bus and returned to the ship. We are presently making our way down a different section of the Mekong River than we came in on, a southern tributary that will point us in the general direction of Singapore. Let’s hope the South China Sea has calmed down a little, for the wife’s sake.

Here is picture from in front of the Rex:  

Jim and Ho Chi Minh

More tomorrow

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