Exploring the sights of Ho Chi Minh City

Before I get back into Vietnam, I wanted to make an official announcement. At 4:30 pm today, I signed on the line of my new contract, ensuring that I will be staying in South Korea until March 2011. I will be moving to an apartment within walking distance of CIS at the end of February but have yet to hear what classes I will be teaching come March. More details to follow!

And now back to the good stuff!

Our flight out of Vietnam was at about 5:30 pm, so we decided Wednesday would be best spent in Ho Chi Minh City. We signed up for a private city tour as we figured this would be the easiest way to ensure we saw all the sights without having to worry about getting around (since there is no subway system). We met our tour guide and driver around 8:30 am and headed to our first destination - the Reunification Palace. The palace used to be named Independence Palace, but was renamed at the end of the Vietnam War. Currently it is just a museum, however, it used to be the official residence and working place of the South Vietnam Presidents. The Vietnam War ended at this palace when the North Vietnam Army drove a tank through the main gates, forcing the South to surrender. Meg and I quickly discovered that we were visiting the palace on field trip day. Hoards of Vietnamese school children were touring the palace - and they loved us. I didn't think it was possible to feel more like a celebrity than I did when I first arrived in Korea...but it is. Every single child was waving and saying hello to us - most of them more than once! We were both slightly surprised how excited the children were to see us since we had heard that some people in Vietnam are still fairly anti-American. However, Meg and I never felt any animosity towards us at all while in Vietnam. For the most past people simply ignored us and went about their business.

From here we head over to the War Remnants Museum. The building contains several exhibits related to the war - photographs from during the war, pictures drawn by kids about the war, war equipment, graphic photographs and stories about the effect of Agent Orange, and even three jars with preserved fetuses due to exposure to dioxin. This was the one place in Vietnam where Meg and I felt slightly uncomfortable being American. The museum is run by the Vietnam government and everything is written from a very anti-American perspective. The museum actually used to be called 'The House for Displaying War Crimes of American Imperialism and the Puppet Government' (referring to South Vietnam). Later the museum was renamed the 'Museum of American War Crimes' and it wasn't until quite recently, when relations with the US got better, that the current name was adopted.We didn't feel like people were opposed to us being there, it was more strange and disconcerting to read about America in that light.


We finished up our tour by seeing some other sights around the city such as Notre Dame Cathedral, post office, opera house, and city hall. We ended the tour by heading over to the Jade Emperor Pagoda which was built by the Cantonese community around the turn of the 20th century. The pagoda was full of beautiful carvings and beautifully decorated alters and very different from any of the temples I have visited in Asia. After finishing our tour we had enough time to do some last minute shopping to get rid of the last of our dong before we headed out to the airport.

Upon our arrival back in Cambodia we were instantly reminded of the difference between the Cambodian people and Korean people. Cambodians are much more laid back and easy-going. The people at the visa processing station were joking with us about needing 2 copies of our pictures so they could keep one for themselves, the guy running the taxi service was bantering with us about giving us a discount for singing over the radio, and when we went through customs we literally just dropped our form on a pile...there was no one there to check us. Throughout the whole trip we remained really impressed with the level of English Cambodians spoke. Many of them spoke better than the Koreans we run into on a daily basis, even though there is not nearly the same emphasis on learning English in Cambodia as there is in Korea. We discovered that it was very easy to have conversations with Cambodians and even joke with them, something that doesn't happen very often in Korea because Koreans have difficulty picking up on English sarcasm and humor.

We finished up our night by heading into downtown Siem Reap for crocodile burgers (which were delicious) and beer. Then it was back to the hostel to repack and attempt to catch some 'ZZZ's before getting up super early on Thursday to catch the bus to Sihanoukville where we would be for New Years Eve as well as the rest of our vacation!