Saigon

We were a little nervous heading into Saigon because we had heard a lot of negative things about the city, both online and from Vietnamese people in Hanoi and Hoi An. People told us stories about jewelry and purses being ripped off of people on the street, as well as that there was not much to see in the city.

We were pleasantly surprised to find a bustling, clean cosmopolitan city. While we stayed fairly alert outside, we had no issues with theft and actually found the street hawkers to be fairly laid back compared to those in a city like Rome. The city was incredibly lively at night, and we stumbled upon a main avenue in which seemingly thousands of people were just wandering around and hanging out on a Saturday night (including a group of teens living out a real-life scene from a Step Up movie in a break dance competition).

The huge crowds of locals and tourists in the city's main plaza.

The view from our hotel's rooftop bar.

(We went to that huge building's 52nd floor for views the next day.)

In front of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee (City Hall).

Later that night, the street transformed into what we could only surmise was a type of youth communist propaganda shoot, incongruously set to the music of the Beatles blasting from a nearby bar.

We stayed in District 1, the tourist and ex-pat center. (The city has 24 districts, not unlike the arrondissements of Paris. The city had a definite French feel, with wide boulevards converging in a roundabout.) There were tons of international chains and some streets were virtually indistinguishable from streets in New York. There were also a number of cool rooftop bars with Western prices. We took a break from Vietnamese food for a few meals and had excellent French and Italian meals. 

Outside the Municipal Theatre (formerly the Opera House).

Outside the Saigon Notre Dame Basilica.

In a park in one of the city's many roundabouts.

The view from a bar on the 52nd floor.

One of the sights we visited was the Independence/Reunification Palace, where the north Vietnamese tank famously crashed into the gate to end the Vietnam War. It served as the home and office of the President of South Vietnam in the late 1960s, and the rooms are meticulously maintained in the midcentury modern style.  We also got to tour the underground bunkers that held communication equipment and military planning rooms.

In front of the Independence Palace.

Inside the Independence Palace.

The city view from the Independence Palace.

We also got a chance to try a ride on a motorbike through a food tour that gives each guest a private moto driver. The tour was great and brought us into a number of neighborhoods that tourists to Saigon rarely see. Even the rain just added to the experience.

The pouring rain didn't stop us!

They didn't actually let us drive, don't worry.

On the food tour, our stops included a beef noodle soup shop (bun bo hue), a DIY barbecue place, and a seafood place.  Our guides also convinced us to try balut, which is a fertilized duck egg; we each managed only a few bites.

First stop: bun bo hue (beef noodle soup).

Stop Two: barbecue!

Barbecue prawn.

Our guides were both our drivers and our chefs.

Bolut: fertilized duck egg.

Yum...?

We did a day trip to the infamous VC Cu Chi tunnels from the Vietnam War. It was fairly disturbing to see that the former gruesome battlefield has been turned into a tourist amusement park, complete with a shooting range, gift shop, demonstrations of VC booby traps, and chances to climb through the tunnels. It was incredibly eerie to walk through the jungle with actual gunshots ringing out around us. We did a quick hike through a short section one of the tunnels. It was stiflingly claustrophobic despite being widened to fit Westerners. The speedboat ride to the tunnels up the Saigon River was nice, though!

A booby trap set up by the VC.

A VC trap door, but widened for tourists.

The next day, we walked to a small art museum housed in a set of beautiful French colonial style villas.  We had also hoped to get to the War Remnants Museum, but it inexplicably closes for two hours in the middle of the day for lunch.

Ho Chi Minh City Museum of Fine Arts.

Finally, we bid farewell to Vietnam and headed to Cambodia! We had a great time visiting Vietnam, and despite reading many things before we left about the people being unfriendly and focused only on scamming tourists, we had nothing but positive experiences here.