Here we are in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly called Sai Gon, or Saigon. One of our guides told us that only people who are sentimental for the past call it Saigon.
The city is on the Saigon River and the international airport is called Saigon airport, so 'Saigon' has not disappeared completely.
The first thing anyone notices about Ho Chi Minh City is the traffic. Ho Chi Minh City has a population of 10 million people and 8 million motorbikes. Here in Australia, we assume that traffic will stop on red lights and allow us to cross the road. We wait for the little green person to light up before we cross the road.
But not in Ho Chi Minh City, no sirree. There are traffic lights, but a red light is advisory only. If you think the traffic will stop for a green pedestrian light, you are wrong. It keeps going. There are some traffic lights at major intersections where the traffic stops, but as a visitor it's impossible to predict which ones these are.
Traffic flows like a river. It flows around pedestrians. Like a river, it doesn't stop. When you cross the road, you need to be like a fish swimming across the current. Look ahead, move steadily and (like a fish) don't stop. The traffic will flow around you. Drivers expect you to keep moving at a steady pace, and they all drive around you. It's all very zen.
One guide told us: If you stop, you die. Another guide told us that our ancestors will protect us. Just walk steadily.
It takes a while to get used to.
Motorbike riders carry everything on their bikes: flowers, dogs, luggage, the whole family. Two adults and two children are not uncommon on one bike. But it all works. There is no aggression, no impatience — apart from many many tooting horns. It all sort of falls into place. Like flowing water. Like, being zen, man.
Ho Chi Minh City has a streetscape much like Hanoi, with both Asian and European influences. But it's even more energetic and vibrant than Hanoi. (Some may say chaotic. Not me.)
I loved the interaction we had with people while we were on the hop-on hop-off bus. The primary school children waved and called out enthusiastically as we passed, and the locals having their wonderful Vietnamese coffees smiled and said hello from a distance.
Sixty years ago, this was the city at the centre of the American war effort. This city would have bustled with the South Vietnamese military, GIs, the CIA, the Viet Cong under cover. The War Remnants Museum displays some American army and navy hardware left behind: Chinook helicopters, M41 and M48 tanks, bulldozers, flame throwers, howitzers, 175 mm guns ...
... but the hardware is a sideshow. The museum focuses far more intently on the effects of the war on the Vietnamese population.
A large exhibition of photographs called 'Requiem' is displayed on one floor. These are photographs taken during the American war by 130 photographers from 11 countries who were killed or went missing while they were reporting on the conflict. The exhibit includes pictures taken by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong combat photographers as well.
There's a poignancy to the photos, knowing that all the photographers are dead or missing. Some of the pictures are labelled as the last exposure in the camera before the photographer was shot, or stepped on a landmine, or simply disappeared. The collection was created in the 1990s by an American ex-combat photographer who had the idea to bring together the best photos from war photographers on all sides. Negatives were rescued from rubbish dumps and dusty attics in places as far apart as Hanoi and New York; once the prints were selected, a number of ex-Marines who served in Vietnam funded the collection and ensured that these photographs are now on permanent exhibition in Ho Chi Minh City.
We did not have television at the time of the Vietnam War, and this war was really remote. But Life magazine trickled through, and I still remember the impact of these types of images. The impact of stories like My Lai, as well.
An even more grim exhibition is displayed on another floor of the museum: the effect of Agent Orange on the country. Deforested and poisoned land, deformed human foetuses, disabled children and adults — the emphasis is on how the consequences of dioxin have persisted over decades, and affected not only generations of Vietnamese children but also the children of other nations who fought in the war. To the casual tourist's eye, there appear to be many, many, many adults who live with disability in Vietnam.
Under the Obama administration, the US helped not only to clear land mines and other unexploded ordnance but also to support Vietnam's disabled people. A moral obligation that should continue, surely, but let's not hold our breath about the next US administration.
One more grim warren while we're down this particular rabbit hole. The 'tiger cages' were built in 1940 by the French to incarcerate nearly 2000 political prisoners; the USA continued using them in the 1960s and 1970s. The cages were subterranean chambers with ceiling bars, where guards could poke at prisoners like tigers in a Victorian zoo. People seem very skilled at devising awful methods of imprisonment: in the cages that look like chicken batteries, up to seven people were confined at one time.
And of course, where there were the French, there was the guillotine.
Time to hop out of the rabbit-hole of pain and misery and focus on something more light-hearted. Like dogs! Like delicious food!
Early in the morning, this space opposite our hotel was used for tai chi, jogging and general exercising. At night, it became the dog exercise park and hang-out.
It was fun to meet and greet the doggos on our way back from the various restaurants we tried in the evenings. From the street food market ...
... to a slightly more upmarket restaurant ...
... to a BBQ restaurant where the prawns are swimming around the tank when you order them, and then they are cooked over the small brazier by the waiter five minutes later. The beef was cooked over the fire as part of our second course. But who's counting? While we're sitting there at our sidewalk table, the local squid vendor passed by on his motorbike aka mobile food stall, just in case we'd like a serving of squid from him at the same time.
Our young waiter was happy to pose with the oldsters. He had done such a great job of taking our orders, bringing our drinks (on repeat), cooking and serving our food (also on repeat), that he deserved every bit of his tip. One thing is for sure: eating out in Vietnam is one of life's great pleasures.
And then back across the river of traffic, in a state of very zen.
Next time — Cu Chi tunnels and the Independence Palace.
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