Day 14: Saigon (Thursday, July 10)

Thursday was Amanda’s last day in Saigon before flying over to Bangkok to meet up with Ashish and Matt K., so we decided to make the most of our time and explore the city. We started at the Reunification Palace – an open air residence of the ruler (president) of South Vietnam. It was originally built by the French but subsequently destroyed and rebuilt during the Diem regime following France’s exit from Vietnam. The best part of the museum was a film showing a lot of the history of Saigon through the war with both France and America. There is also a Huey on the helipad, as seems to be the case with just about every museum we’ve been to so far. Our favorite room in the palace was the Gaming Room; as you can see in the picture, there is some choice furniture in the room and the barrel-like bar in the back is priceless.



After getting hurried out of the museum (time to close for an hour and half lunch, after all), we went south to the Ben Thanh Market. Big mistake. Hot, tight, crowded, with vendors reaching out to touch you and full of stuff we didn’t need. Everyone raves about it, so maybe we just weren't in the right mindset... regardless, we did a quick pass through and booked it back towards Notre Dame and the Post Office to grab lunch.

After two weeks of eating great Vietnamese food, we broke down and went for something different… very different. Just down the street from the palace and just north of Notre Dame, we found Au Parc – a great place with very fresh and tasty Middle Eastern food. The little room we ate in was so bright and airy, we had to have a candid photo.



Our last tourist stop of the day was the War Remnants Museum. Like all other war-related museums in Vietnam, there is a large collection of military equipment (tanks, planes, rocket launchers, artillery pieces, etc) . The War Remnants Museum also has a brief history of both the war with France and the war with America, complete with full listings, pictures, and badges of the various US Service Units that were in Vietnam for the war. The two showcase pieces of the museum, though, are photograph collections. The first, known as Requiem, was actually funded by Kentucky and showcases the work of the many professional photographers that were involved in the war. The collection serves as a tribute to the numerous photographers that died during action, and it does an outstanding job of capturing the scene of both daily life and combat throughout the war. The second exhibition is of photographs of the victims of chemical warfare during the war. It is a compelling case against the use of chemical agents as the effects are shown both on the immediate victims, as well as, on their children (i.e., lots of birth defects). The museum also houses a replica war prison, but the Hoa Lo prison in Hanoi (“Hanoi Hilton”) is much better, so no need to spend time in this section.




Needing a little pick-me-up after the War Remnants Museum, we walked back to our hotel by way of some good shopping streets. We didn’t actually buy anything, but there were a lot of great little houseware and clothing boutiques. We made it back to the hotel just in time for Amanda to collect her bags and head off to Thailand. Now it’s just Matt and Viv for the next week – finishing up in Saigon and then exploring Laos – before we meet up with Ashish, Amanda and Matt K. in Siem Reap.




For dinner this evening, we went to Xu, just around the corner from the Sheraton. There is a cafe downstairs and a restaurant and lounge upstairs. The food was great, and surprisingly the wine list was reasonable too. Most of the other wine lists we had seen thus far were pretty boring and/or very expensive. We definitely recommend a meal at Xu!