In November of 2019, we took a trip, to Vietnam and Cambodia that included an AMA River Cruise along the Mekong River. As one does in Asia, mostly for the street level motor vehicle pollution, I brought along a paper mask. I didn’t need it and removed from my travel kit before we traveled to Mexico in mid January. It never occurred to me I’d need the mask in the Baja Sur, a remote tourist area in Mexico with lots of dessert and sea, but by the time we flew home through LAX at the end of January, cases of Covid -19 had passed through the airport and I’d wished I’d left that mask in my travel bag. When I can travel again, I will always have one with me, wherever I go! (Click here to see our post here about Baja Sur and the Sea of Cortez)
Covid -19 is also the reason it’s taken me over a year to write a report about our trip to Asia. During lock downs and with almost all travel ground to a halt, I was too busy rearranging trips and chasing refunds and vouchers to write about one of my last trips. Now that a vaccine is available and the possibility of travel is tangible, it feels like time to share this trip and prepare for a future where we can safely travel the world again! (Click Here to see our post here about upcoming trips)
Saigon
Independence Palace in Ho Chi Minh City, the modern name for Saigon, a name still used by many in the city today.
The trip was pulled together by a pair of expert travel agents- Jay Paul at CruisePlanners and Amy at Active Travels a membership based travel advisor. We could not have had the experiences we had without their assistance. An important part of traveling to the part of the world is ensuring that you have the proper visas. We purchased these services from operators trusted by our Travel Advisors. This includined streamlined customs and immigration assistance. These services were worth every penny paid, allowing us to relax and enjoy our arrival after a long flight, rather than be overwhelmed with paperwork in a language we don’t speak. We are not compensated by these travel advisors for recommending them .
We were unprepared for how incredibly friendly the Vietnamese are towards Americans There is a very ugly history between the countries because of the Vietnam War. Having been just small children during the conflict, we spent time watching Ken Burns’ excellent documentary and were very concerned about we would be accepted as Americans in Vietnam.
We had no reason to worry! Our arrival in Ho Chi Minh City was expedited by a visa services company who arranged our transfer to The Sofitel Saigon Plaza. Our friendly South Vietnamese guide who drove us for the next two days, On our way to the Sofitel, our guide explained his father had been a South Vietnamese officer and spent extensive time in the re-education camps after the war. Because of the family’s affiliation, many were not able to find employment in good government jobs in Vietnam and had emigrated to the US, including his wife and two children. He explained that he had a relative visiting from the US, and invited us to come to his home and meet him that evening. He gave us the address, and while it’s an experience I’m sure we would have loved, visiting with a local family in their home; we were simply too jet lagged to get our heads off the pillow after 8 PM.
An apartment building hosts a variety of “shops”
Cu Chi Tunnels and Vietnam American War Museum
The next morning our guide took us to the Cu Chi Tunnels on the outskirts of Saigon. This interactive historical park glorifies the bravery and ingenuity of the Vietnamese in the face of their civil war. The network of tunnels served as shelter and transportation into Saigon for the members of the NVA and Viet Kong during the conflict. It is a painful place of memories for Americans, especially for anyone who may have served in Vietnam. With the deep jungle stretching out from the park and it’s labyrinth of narrow tunnels, with visitors invited to “shoot” historical weapons of the era on a shooting range, and many inventive weapons and traps on display, I imagined it felt and sounded very much like the war, but without the terror that must have accompanied soldiers on all sides of this sad conflict.
Warning: may be upsetting to some viewers. The sounds of the park, including gunfire
Many of our fellow travelers on the river cruise who lived or served during those times expressed that they could not visit the Chu Chi tunnels, while others felt it was a way to learn and heal. This would not be the only place we visited in Southeast Asia with a dark and difficult history, but for us, learning from history is one way to prevent future atrocities.
Dong Khoi Street Area
Our visit coincided with the wet, hot, rainy season. The soaking rain held off for our visit to the tunnels in the relative cool of the morning. In the afternoon, when the showers came, we had arranged a visit at a local café run by a member of the new generation of Vietnamese. Duong Dang shared her life engaged in the new economy of Vietnam where young people are encouraged to run businesses. We also shared a “typical” Vietnamese lunch at her table at the café.
A highlight of our visit to Saigon, was meeting and enjoying a typical lunch with Duong, Dang, a member of a new generation of Vietnamese entrepreneurs .
We had a lively, and open discussion about the challenges and rewards of running a business in Vietnam and enjoyed many local typical dishes that Duong Dang ordered for us to try at her table. We spent the remainder of the afternoon, on our on on foot, where we could easily explore the top “sights” in Saigon including, the famed French Colonial architecture, and sights of historical interest during the war, such as the US embassy building where the dramatic helicopter withdrawal of embassy staff occurred during the war. We got a “birds eye view of the city form the modern Bitexco Financial Tower Observatory.
Getting Around Saigon
Saigon is a motor bike city…most people travel on motor bikes, sleep on them, drive their unhelmeted children to school. text, carry items and even shop on them, pulling in front of a market and ordering items while still on their bikes, and them driving off. During the frequent pouring rain storms, everyone pulls over and the driver pulls a poncho over the whole bike except for the drivers eyes, and carry on.
This makes the city challenging to navigate on foot, because the bikes have the practical right of way on any paved surface including the cities sidewalks and crosswalks . In general, things visitors want to see in Saigon are usually within easy walking distances from tourist hotels, but pedestrians must be hyper aware of motor bikes whenever walking in the city!
For more on Vietnam and Cambodia, please see our upcoming posts: Cambodia and Ama Dara Meekong River Cruise