Back in Saigon
We only had a day in Da Lat, the next morning we flew back to Saigon for our 8pm flight to Hong Kong and then to LA. We had some time to kill in Saigon so we went to the War Remanents Museum which was a museum of the vietnamese experience of the American War (we call it the Vietnam War, they call it the American War). The first floor of the museum made me hate my country so much. They had photos of American soliders killing villagers, throwing people off helicopters to their death, napalm and burning people, hauling blown up dead bodies off roads and other numerous horrible shit that goes on during war. They had big display about the Mai Lai massacre and huge display about the destruction that napalm and agent orange caused the environment and people in the country. They even had 2 aborted agent orange fetuses in glass jars. lots of photos of kids born all fucked up because of agent orange.
The second floor of the museum made me proud to be american. the second floor was about how people in america protested the vietnam war and did not want the american military to be there. They had tons of photos of protests in america, along with letters that people had written to the vietnamese, even a letter from Ho Chi Minh to the american people, acknowledging their protests and encouraging them to continue. They had displays on the Kent state shootings and the american students who burned themselves to death in protest of the war. They even acknowledged that the american soliders were forced to come to vietnam, they had lots of photos of americans burning their draft cards. Overall, 3 million vietnamese people, soldiers and children and over 60,000 americans soldiers were killed in the war. sad to the max.
after the museum we walked to the reunification palace, which used to be the American Embassy in Saigon, and is now a museum, perfectly preserved from the 1960s. It was closed for lunch right when we got there so we didnt get to see it. As we were walking away it started to rain hard and we were scrambling to find a place to hide from the rain when a security guard let us use his little shack to wait out the rain. As we were there he asked us where we were from. We said the US and he asked "what state" - which was surprising because most Vietnamese would ask where you were from and you'd say "US" and that's all the english they would know.
So we said "arizona" and the security guard was like "ah John McCain!"
We laughed! He knew alot. He asked us if we liked John McCain and we said no. He asked us if we liked Obama and we said yes, he asked us if we liked Bush and we said no. He knew a lot about American politics surprisingly. He was very nice.
reunification palace in Saigon/HCMC:
That was our last day in Vietnam. We flew back to the US that night.
Overall my trip to Vietnam was amazing. The food was amazing, the prices were amazing, the people were friendly. The country seems like it's doing very well. Except for all the communist flags and propaganda posters everywhere you honestly would not be able to tell it was a communist country. They had KFCs and Pizza Hut (no mcdonalds though which is the first country i've ever been to without an McDonalds), everywhere people had food carts and shops and restaurants. They seemed to be very hard working and proud of their history. They should be proud, they defeated the best military in the world with hunting traps and hand dug tunnels. You could tell they were very proud of their military as well. One night i watched a vietnamese soap opera set in the 60s. From what i could tell, the main girl had met this american GI and they had fallen in love, but her father was like "hell no to that" and wouldnt let her see the GI, then one night she was in an alley with her brother and some vietnamese gang tried to rape her and they killed her brother and 2 american soldiers (a white guy and a black guy) saved her and then her father finally let her bring her American GI boyfriend to dinner to meet her family but he was still very wary of the solider. it was interesting to watch.
Everyone had iphones and there were internet cafes everywhere. it is a very young country. lots of people in their 20s and 30s and lots of young children and babies. Not a lot of old people but there were some.
I had never been to Asia before this trip and now i want to go back and do north vietnam, cambodia (which i hear is amazing!) and Laos. I want to check out Hong Kong more because we had a layover there and saw some stuff but i would love to see more of the city. It cost a lot of money to get to vietnam but i calculated that i spent only $200 for the entire time i was there, that includes hotel, transportation, food, beer, tours, shopping, etc.
I definitely recommend checking out this country if you ever get a chance. it was really amazing.
You can see all my photos hereAnd read my quick write up on the trip for PoolBoy here:
International Wang Search
