On the first two overnight trains I was accustomed to waking up to fields of rice paddies or soaring mountains. On Monday morning I awoke to the middle of congested, noisy city. As the train passed through the heart of Ho Chi Minh the Doppler effect - when noises rise and fall as the train gets nearer and further away from the source – was in full effect. I could hear escalating car horns, motorbikes, and chatter as the train passed the railroad crossings. It was quite a different feeling.
I woke Stephen up. ‘I think we’re here.’
No sooner had I said it than our door opened. The conductor looked at us, ‘You two for Saigon, right?’
We nodded.
‘This your stop.’
Stephen and I walked off the train, and into the suffocating heat of Ho Chi Minh[1] train station. It was noticeably hotter than any other place we’d traveled to.
I looked at Stephen. ‘We did it dude. We traveled the entire Reunification Express.’
It felt good. The whole idea to travel the length of Vietnam via train was a random idea that occurred to me when I discovered a single train line traversed all of Vietnam. And although I did research to make sure they actually ran, and they were safe, and all that jazz – I also heard stories of the coaches being infested with roaches and rats, Westerners being targeted for theft…the list goes on and on. It felt good to be standing in Saigon knowing we’d made it through all of Vietnam on our own.
After passing through by far the nicest train station we’d seen in Vietnam, Stephen and I found a cab to take us back to our hotel. The entire city was on fire, brilliantly alive with a distinct pulse and feel. It was more like NYC than any other place in Vietnam, and for that there was a tiny sense of comfort for us.
The hotel we booked at told us they actually didn’t have space, but booked as at their sister hotel around the corner. We followed a hotel worker to the other hotel and while we were checking in the concierge told us to be very careful in the streets. Saigon is far and away the most dangerous city in Vietnam. Tourists have to be careful when walking around with dangling cameras, jewelry..etc. Whereas I had no issues walking around Hanoi with my camera I figured I’d have to play Ho Chi Minh by ear.
We dropped our stuff in the room and headed out in the city.
(I should add that Stephen and I are exhausted. We’ve been gone for a week and a half, but with all the traveling we’ve done it honestly feels like we’ve been gone for a month).
Our first stop was Pho 2000, a place made famous when they served Bill Clinton (the first active US president to visit Vietnam after the Vietnam war) Vietnam’s famous pho noodles.
Then we walked through Ben Thranh market which, ‘has everything commonly eaten, worn or used by the Saigonese: vegetables, meats, spices, sweets, tobacco, clothing, hardware and so forth.’ (As we walked in I noticed ominously uniformed, ‘tourist safety police guards.’)
The market was interesting, and as I mentioned of the street market in Hoi An, definitely a place Anthony Bourdain would visit…but after spending two weeks being harassed to buy everything and everyone under the sun we couldn’t deal with the constant barrage as we walked around. We eventually left the market because we were frustrated.
We walked through a massive roundabout, which has a giant statue of Tran Nguyen Hai in the center, and were crossing the street when we saw our third traffic accident. Similar to the accident I saw coming back from Tam Coc, an old man lost control of his bike and slammed into the pavement. Poor fella – it couldn’t have felt good.
We walked around the city (the first day we go into a new city we like to walk around and just get a feel for the place), but as I mentioned before, we were both hot and tired and didn’t sleep too well on the overnight train from the night before. We stopped in at a hip café to have an iced coffee and then continued on to see the Hotel De Ville, Notre Dame Cathedral, Post Office, the outside of the Reunification Palace (where north Vietnamese tanks barged through to officially end the Vietnam war) and finally to the War Remnants Museum, which was once known as the ‘Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes.’ Hmm – glad they changed the title, the original one isn’t too welcoming to Americans.
After paying 10,000 dong we entered the museum and viewed a variety of American fighter planes, tanks, bulldozers, helicopters, Howitzer guns…etcetera. There was an old Vietnamese man walking around selling books. He was missing a leg and both arms, I’m sure from the Vietnam war. I tried to offer him 20,000 dong but he refused. He said he wouldn’t accept donations, that he was there to sell books and didn’t want money for nothing. I insisted but there was no budging this guy.
The next two hours I spent looking at pictures and reading anecdotes from North Vietnamese soldiers, family and children. Suffice to say…I saw stuff so disgusting and vile that I didn’t think it was appropriate to photograph, or really, to discuss in general. I think its something each person should experience for themselves if they feel so compelled. That being said, I made the following observations:
· I am amazed at otherwise normal and humane humans beings ability and willingness to inflict pain, suffering and torture on each other
· America did horrible things beyond what I thought our country was capable of
· Agent orange was a horrible genotoxic contagion that’s still wreaking havoc in Vietnam.
In summary, I thought there was a powerful quote from Robert S McNamara, ‘yet we were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why.’ And yet it seems like the US continues to engage in wars around the world. Those that ignore history are condemned to repeat it.
After the museum Stephen and I were wiped. We walked home through the bustling traffic and ended up enjoying a few beers ar Allez Boo, a bar a few blocks away from our hotel. We needed to unwind. Beer helped.
[1] Most of the world calls Ho Chi Minh by its official name, but the locals use the old term Saigon. I switch back and forth between the two, so for reading purposes Ho Chi Minh = Saigon
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