My first full day in Saigon was spent doing nothing more complicated than walking, trying to stay in one piece while just trying to catch as much of the flavor of the place as I could. Lonely Planet generally puts a good self-guided tour in their books, and the one for Saigon was pretty epic – taking in everything from propoganda stores, presidential pho places, to the best place to have a drink at sunset.
But first... a quick note about the language. Vietnamese is hard to learn... really hard. Each word or syllable has four different tones, that each make the meaning completely different. Okay, that's fine – but the main downside is that the Lonely Planet phrasebook really can't convey the proper way to actually MAKE the sounds. So, it's all about just giving it a whirl and hoping you don't insult the person by accident!
A quick example... “Xing Chao (Sin Jow)” can either mean hello or 'can I have soup'?
Cool – enough of that... it was time to hit the streets. I braved the even-more insane traffic of some main streets, and ducked into Pho 2000... famous for, well, it's pho, but also since that was were President Clinton tried Vietnam's signature dish:
Next was a wander through one of Saigon's many indoor markets – which is always an interesting assault on the senses! From very bloody butcher sections to clothes, knock-off sunglasses, and everything in between – this market had it. Even supposedly damn good coffee, if you're into that sort of thing:
Meandered over to the Fine Art museum next – and had my first experience with the, ah, alternate explanation for the Vietnamese War. So much of the art dealt with how the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese survived the onslaught of the 'puppet' South Vietnamese Army and the Americans, it takes you aback.
And of course, there's the occasional translation that doesn't quite come out right:
Exhausted from this oh-so-grueling 1 km walk, it was time for an ice-cream break at a place called Fanny. (I'll pause a second while the Brits stop chuckling at the 'other' meaning of the word.) If you’re confused – click here.
It didn't take me long to realize that there is a MASSIVE contradiction in Vietnam. I mean, sure, nominally, it's a communist country, and you'll see the red star or the hammer/sickle flags everywhere. However, that's a facade only – because the Vietnamese have an exquisitely honed sense of capitalism... buying and selling with enthusiasm.
Nowhere was this more apparent than the center of downtown, where there's a French colonial building that was triumphantly taken over by the Communists after the war. Fair enough, more power to ‘em. Yet, when it is completely surrounded by seriously upscale brands like Hermes, Gucci, and dozens more – it begs the question of which ideology won the war... really?
There's even a store called DOGMA nearby, that specializes in selling reproductions of propoganda posters and other communist stuff for top dollar. And not just Vietnamese War era stuff – they are the first place I've ever seen that sells actually ultimate frisbee discs from the local team as a fashion accessory:
After lunch, it was time for the 'must-do's' of Saigon... the War Remnant Museum and the Revolutionary Palace.
Talk about a downer – the War Remnant Museum doesn't pull any punches, showing incredibly graphic pictures and exhibits of the effects of war on the local population with My Lai and other atrocities. Of course, it was heavily one-sided, with lots of mentions of the South's 'puppet soldiers' and so on, and never a word about the North's own massacres.
But regardless – you walked out with a gut-sense that war is truly hell.
More poignantly – they have an annual children's poster contest, asking for their interpretations of what the war must have been like. Again, it takes you aback to see the US pictured as the 'bad guy':
After that, I was pretty drained, and headed for the old presidential palace – where the North's tanks crashed into the gates in '75, marking the end of the war.
In yet another contradiction... this palace was renamed the Revolutionary Palace as a triumph of Communism, yet is rented out daily for corporate functions such as a Novartis sales conference.
Weird.
To wind things down, I finished the walk on the rooftop bar of the new Sheraton, with some pretty damn good mojitos to help me try and put Saigon into perspective.
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