Walking Tour

Monday, December 28 – HCMC doesn’t have a ton of style. It’s a bustling metropolis, but there’s no royal palace, no old quarter, nothing remarkable in terms of architecture and history. Perhaps that’s due in large part to the years of conflict in the area. But whatever the reason, there’s little to do in the way of tourism. Even our Lonely planet guide book had little to recommend for filling two days worth of visit.

On day one we decided to take the self-guided tour set out in the Lonely Planet guide. It took us the better part of the day (although we started late) to get through the walking tour. Here’s a rundown of the few sites we saw:

• Ben Thanh (Central) Market: Another huge covered market selling everything from soup to nuts. Truth told, we’re a little marketed out.
  
• The War Remnants Museum: Basically a photo gallery chronicling the independence of Vietnam and the atrocities committed by Americans. You can imagine it was a bit one-sided, even if it’s mostly true. The most interesting part was a gallery called Requiem that featured the work of photojournalists (from both sides) who died in the war. Requiem alone was worth the price of admission and felt like a more balanced and even-handed portrayal of the horrors of war.
  
• Reunification Palace: the place where the Viet Cong (North Vietnam) finally defeated the Viet Minh (South Vietnam) and reunified the country. In fairness, we didn’t take the tour. The guidebook made it sound kind of boring – especially for a couple of Vietnam History Neophytes. Plus the museum was closed for lunch when we arrived.
  
• Notre Dame Cathedral: Just an old church – recommended by Lonely Planet for its architecture. And really, that’s all we saw of it.
  
• The Main Post Office: Probably one of the prettiest examples of colonial architecture in the city – and that’s not saying a whole lot. Here we found two things of interest: A giant painting of Uncle Ho (Ho Chi Minh) watching over his postal workers, and a bowl full of paste for brushing on stamps (self-adhesive stamps haven’t made it to Vietnam yet).
  
• The Jade Emperor Pagoda: An old Chinese Buddhist temple located along the walking tour. We would eventually see several more examples of Chinese temples on day two.