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October 10 - Vietnam: Ho Chi Minh (Saigon)

I woke up unwell.  Something I ate clearly didn't agree with me, and - as I lay there - I was convinced that I would be bed-ridden for the rest of our time in Saigon.  But by the time Jon woke up, I had stopped running to the bathroom and felt much better.  I even felt OK for some breakfast in the Club Lounge.

War Remnants Museum

At 9:45, we decided to go to the Reunification Palace which a number of people had recommended to us.  But it closed for lunch at 11:00, so we decided to catch two cyclos to get us there a bit faster.  They were pedaling so slowly that we changed our destination to the War Remnants Museum which was open until 11:45.  (These cyclos, by the way charge by the hour so it's no wonder they were pedaling slowly.)

The War Remnants Museum is a popular place among western travelers to Saigon.  It chronicles the atrocities of the War - especially the "American War".  We had been forewarned that it was full of propaganda, but as Lonely Planet says, "Despite the relative one-sidedness of the exhibits, there are few museums in the world which drive home so well the point that warfare is horribly brutal and that many of the victims are civilians."  Indeed, the captions were very anti-American, but almost all the photos were taken by US photographers.

It was a pretty powerful exhibit.  The yard of the museum was filled with US military equipment, and the exhibits inside were mostly photographs with some displays of arms.  The photographs definitely showed a different aspect of the war (as long as we ignored the captions beneath the photos such as "American soldier smiling after shooting man.")

The entire experience was an interesting contrast to US Strikes in Afghanistan. I can see why people questioned US presence in Vietnam.  However, there is no gray area to our attacks in Afghanistan.  None at all.  

We stayed at the museum for about an hour and a half, and then took our cyclos back to the hotel.  The guys were pedaling even slower this time, and were trying to take the long way around to the hotel since we were close to the 2-hour time frame and they wanted to extend it to a 3 hour fee.  So we told them that I was very sick and might throw up soon.  (Which wasn't true).  I didn't know these guys could pedal that fast!  We made it back in record time.

Lunch

Lunch was at Restaurant 13, a place right around the corner from the Renaissance.  The food was good, and although the waitresses were less than thrilled to be working, the man who ran the place was very friendly.  He also had an American flag for a tie pin.

Reunification Palace

After lunch, we walked to the Reunification Palace.  The palace was built by prior rulers of Vietnam, and now is an important symbol for the communist government.  The palace was the called the Independence Palace when - on April 30, 1975 - Communist tanks crashed through the wrought-iron gate in an internationally televised take-over.  General Minh - who at the time had power - said to the VC Officer who'd come to arrest him, "I have been waiting since early this morning to transfer power to you."  The VC officer replied, "There is no question of your transferring power.  You cannot give up what you do not have."  This moment is very meaningful to the Vietnamese.

The architecture of the palace is distinctly from the sixties, and Lonely Planet says it "is an outstanding example of 1960s architecture".  Of course, I would never choose to put the words "outstanding" and "1960s architecture" in the same sentence, but that's just me.

We were given a guide who took us around the different floors.  It was myself and Jon and a guy from Melbourne who was a complete moron but I'll save that for another journal entry.  Regardless, the tour was pretty interesting because the inside of the palace was kept exactly the way it was in April of 1975 - a testament to VC might.  Unfortunately, we couldn't go to the third floor because the conference room was being used by the "First Annual Menopause Convention".  I'm not kidding.  But no worries.  We figured it was in our best interest to avoid the third floor even if we had to miss the glory of the "Red Room".

The coolest part of the tour was the basement, which was a network of tunnels and hallways.  This is where the War Room was and also where the President had his bomb shelter built.  In one of the war rooms was an amazing map of Vietnam, and other rooms had various 30-year-old computers and telecommunications equipment.  In the President's War Room (a different War Room), we could take pictures of ourselves sitting at the President's desk.  So Jon sat down and I sat on his lap - a Vietnamese Monica Lewinsky!

Sorry.  Bad joke.

Cyclo Trauma

After the palace, we walked over to the "backpacker area" to book a trip to the tunnels for tomorrow.  On our way there, we were trying to cross through a traffic circle (roundabout) when we had a little trauma.  Now, when one wants to cross a street in Vietnam, you must make up your mind and just cross - letting the cyclos, motorbikes, and bicycles find their way around you.  It's much like a game of Frogger.  The Vietnamese do this instinctively (it's a way of life here), and we've gotten used to it over the past 10 days.  Of course, it took a while and few false starts, but we eventually got the hang of it and can now cross heavy traffic with the best of them. 

So we were in the middle of a traffic circle and needed to get across the 4 lanes of traffic to get to the other side.  We stepped out into the street and began to look for the break in the first lane.  I was standing to Jon's left, and traffic was coming from the right.  Unfortunately, an ambulance came onto the street so our foray into traffic was a bit premature.  At this moment, a cyclo driver passed inches in front of us.  For whatever reason, the man put his hand on Jon's chest and shoved him backwards.  Jon instinctively reached out with his left hand to push him back, but the cyclo driver shoved Jon's arm back.  Right into my face.

I had been talking at the time (I have no idea what I was saying), and screamed out because Jon's elbow in my face was the last thing I was expecting.  Also, I had bit down painfully on my lip and my nose felt a bit bashed up.  The cyclo driver continued on and disappeared into traffic.  Nothing was bleeding, but I felt a bit bruised up and kind of shaken.  So we continued across traffic and found the street we were looking for.

Backpacker District

We found a place to book a trip to the tunnels for tomorrow, and also found a place selling CDs.  So we hung out in the backpacker district for a while.  There were some bookstores selling photocopied Lonely Planets, and we wanted to stock up while we could, despite the added weight of the books.  So we found LPs for Thailand, Australia, and Singapore.  

Then we began to walk back to the hotel but were caught in a sudden thunderstorm.  So we ducked into a nearby bar and ordered a beer to wait out the storm.  My nose was hurting considerably by this time, and I'd developed a painful headache.  We were kind of worried that my nose was broken, but we didn't know what a broken nose looked like.  We figured that - if it were broken - it would be crooked or bleeding or something.  But it just hurt a lot.  It must have been quite a sight, though, because we were sitting in a bar tracing the outlines of each other's noses to see if there was an obvious break.   There didn't seem to be any problems, though. 

The rain storm was a heavy one so we ordered another beer and waited for a while longer.  When it looked like it was letting up, we left and began the walk back to the hotel.  Unfortunately, it started to rain even harder so we were a bit wet by the time we got back.  But no worries because it was time for drinks and hors d'oeuvres in the Club Lounge.  

Club Lounge

Jon decided to get in a quick run in the gym and I worked on the journal.  

Jon Goes for a Run at the Renaissance Gym (special appearance by Jon:  run #11)

After the rainstorm I decided to get in a nice run at the gym before heading to dinner.  It's just a treadmill but it counts for a run and I'm using the 2002 NY Marathon as my training goal--now we just need to be back in the States next November!

We met in the Club Lounge and had dinner and a few beers.  At 8:00 "Double Jeopardy" was on HBO and it was pouring outside so we settled in for a good movie.

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