Day 53 - Brutality

My praise for the Vietnamese railways was premature, albeit through no fault of its own. The two guys that occupied the spare beds in our compartment as we left Da Nang were replaced by two ladies and a child just as I was going to sleep, and at the same time a strange odour invaded the room. It was a smell I cannot quite place, but it was so bad I still felt it when my alarm rang, after my senses had about six hours to get accustomed to it. Contrary to what you may be thinking, my money is actually on the lady in the bottom bunk rather than the little girl, but whoever it was made this train trip one to remember…

I would love to tell you our 5.22am arrival in Ho Chi Minh City (which will henceforth be referred to as either HCMC or Saigon, since I don’t get paid by the word) was a pleasant one, but it definitely was not. The lack of a photographable sunrise was compounded by our inability to check in to our hostel until 2pm, which led us to essentially wander the streets until we found a place that would serve us coffee and, an hour later, breakfast. Despite having had the most expensive sandwiches in Vietnam, I was so desperate to have some food in my belly I genuinely did not care.

While we were devouring said sandwiches and looking for a Mekong Delta Tour for tomorrow I came across a Saigon Photography Tour on a website called “withlocals.com”, which pairs willing locals with tourists seeking off-the-beaten-track experiences, and promptly booked it for later today. Until our check-in time we wandered through a park packed with people performing all sorts of arts and exercise, from middle-aged people playing swords to a girl playing the flute or a couple of dancers being trained by a teacher, until we reached the Independence Palace.

Built on the site that once featured a pleasant colonial palace, destroyed in the early stages of the Second Indochina War, it was replaced in 1966 by the current structure, as ugly as any piece of architecture penned in the 1960s. Once you get over how hideous it looks, the visit to the palace is actually quite interesting, mostly due to the surprising amount of history present in a place that served its purpose for less than a decade. My favourite tale was that of the last Prime Minister of Vietnam, Vũ Văn Mẫu, who was in the process of presenting himself to the President of the Republic of Vietnam just as Radio Saigon started reading out the surrender speech, written by the President himself.

Our next stop was at the War Remnants Museum, which was probably the most gut-wrenching place I have visited on this trip. The descriptions and images of the lasting effects of the War on the people of Vietnam, particularly due to the use of Agent Orange by the US Military, were in equal parts powerful and uncomfortable, leaving me unable to divert my eyes. The exhibition on the output of War Photographers was a highlight, with the stories and work of people like Robert Capra or Larry Burrows standing out between the hundreds of contributors.

The lower floor exhibitions about the youth movements that opposed the War were thought-provoking in the sense that, at the time, they were (like most things young people are passionate about) dismissed as naïve and idealistic. In hindsight, History proved them to be unquestionably correct. This still happens today, and maybe the World would benefit from the generations “in charge” not being so smug and dismissive of those who will, one day, replace them. Then again, maybe it is human Nature to become defensive over those who will ultimately steal one’s spotlight.

Checked-in and feeling roughly one million dollars better after a shower and a fresh change of clothes, we met up with Thiem. Our guide spent the next few hours guiding us through Districts 3 and 5, where Tourists very rarely set foot, as District 1 tends to cater of the vast majority of their needs. The photography tour started at the oldest coffee house in Saigon, where Ben and I watched our coffees being made by the three adorable old sisters who run the place.

We then walked around some of the oldest blocks of flats in the city, caught a local bus to Chinatown and got to sample several street food stalls and witness people’s friendliness and happiness to get photographed by two strange foreigners, reacting with a beaming smile to the sight of our lenses. In between spots, the trend of adorable Vietnamese babies precariously placed on moving scooters continued and I am now fairly sure I have enough pictures of that to warrant an album in itself.

A delicious dinner followed by craft beer tasting wrapped up one of the longest days I can remember, with exhaustion and the prospect of a 7am leave for our Mekong Delta tour in the morning   leading us to call it a night reasonably early. Fear not - we plan on taking on Saigon’s nightlife upon our return and finish the Vietnamese part of our trip in style, so stick around for a full account of that experience…

Cheers,
J-Wowww