One Year Away

Joseph

Ho Chi Minh city was better known as Saigon before the communists won the “American War” and renamed it after their hero.  It was where we landed after a 2 hour flight south from Hanoi.  The city is larger and more commercial than Hanoi, similar to the difference between Beijing and Shanghai.  Its attractions for tourists are mainly related to the Vietnam War, or as it is known here, the American War.  As we had other plans for south Vietnam we decided to stay only one night.

Since we had only one day we immediately set off on a walking tour of the city that took us by some of the major sites.  We passed several of the narrow and tall Vietnamese houses which are unlike any others I’ve seen outside of this country.  The government here passed a law that houses can use no more than 80 square meters of land in the countryside and 60 square meters in the city.  In practice this means that houses are 4 meters wide, 15 or 20 meters deep and several stories high.  It’s really funny to see these tall narrow houses all over the place, even in rural areas where there are open fields to either side of a single house.

For lunch we stopped at a restaurant called Pho 24 where we had one of my favorite dishes; Pho Bo, or rice noodle soup with beef.  It is served in the countless local restaurants for breakfast and lunch.  Despite how odd it would have sounded to me a few months ago I now even look forward to Pho Bo for breakfast!

Our main stop during our walking tour was the Museum of War Remnants, which was previously known as the Museum of American War Atrocities.  Around the buildings that house the exhibits are displayed captured American tanks, artillery and airplanes.  The signboards clearly state how many of each there were in the country during the war.  The message they want to send is clear; despite having all the advanced weapons and vehicles the Americans still lost the war because of the bravery of the North Vietnamese soldiers.

The museum houses a collection of photos and artifacts from the war that leave little doubt about  which side the curators were on.  Despite the heavy slant of the exhibits it is difficult to not be moved by the photos of dead or mutilated children, the victims of napalm bombs or the huge numbers of birth defects caused by exposure of the parents to the defoliant Agent Orange.  The exhibits don’t make for a nice pleasant afternoon but they were important to see.  We left the museum feeling numb and didn’t speak much.