Day 52 - Ho Chi Minh City (aka Saigon)

Today the three of us got up to go to the Royal Palace that is now just a museum since the fall of Saigon in 1975 during the war. The real palace is now in Hanoi, but this palace has not been touched since the end of the war. All the remnants including war strategy maps and furnishings were left behind.

Then we went to the American War Remnants Museum. This was an interesting museum, because they showed most of the portrayal of the war through photos, very few words. The first exhibit gave the history of the war including maps and statistics, but the next exhibit was just pictures taken of the villages, the soldiers, and destruction. The third and fifth museum (the biggest exhibits) showed the affects of the toxic chemicals that were used during the war that on the villages, the people, and the crop lands. If a picture did not portray someone who was burned or wounded from the direct attack of the chemical it was a picture of someone who had a birth disorder or got another body deforming disease because they ate food from crops that had the chemicals in the them. They say the chemicals are still causing many birth defects to this day. Not only was it hard to look at some of the pictures but the homeless people on the street brought the whole reality to life with heads that were bigger than two basketballs and no limbs with burned faces. It is a reality that is hard to miss in the country. I would have taken more pictures but I did not want to see some of the images again.

We spent the rest of the day going to the Notre Dame Cathedral, seeing another Chinese pagoda, enjoying a traditional Vietnamese meal where we made our own summer rolls, and shopping in the large market.

BUT that does not cover the two highlights of the day... First, it started to rain so we went into a department store to wait and the first song we heard was by Kenny Chesney. Here are three Americans singing and dancing in the middle of the store. It was great! AND that night the Vietnamese football (soccer) team played Thailand for the Southern Asian championship and WON for the first time ever!! It was a moment in history for the country so the street went insane. At one point in an intersection there were at least 20,000 people waving flags, banging pots and pans, and standing up on their motorbikes screaming. I have never seen any sporting event like it!! What a night to be in Vietnam!!