My first impression of Ho Chi Minh City was that if Hanoi is the Land of a Million Motorbikes, as I called it in a previous post, HCMC is the Land of a TRILLION Motorbikes. The modern city absolutely teems with them. At busy intersections, stopped motorbikes at red lights extend as far as the eye can see.
My second impression, for some reason, was a craving for BBQ. Not the grill-at-your-own-table Southeast Asian BBQ that I had been very much enjoying in Laos and Vietnam and Thailand, but honest-to-goodness, real Texas BBQ. I have no idea why, but I knew that I needed it. So when I arrived at my guesthouse, I got on one of the hotel computers (I found that Vietnamese hotels almost always provided free internet access) and Googled “Ho Chi Minh City Texas BBQ”. It turned out that there was a highly-rated ex-pat run place – and walking distance from my hotel! I told my trip leader that I’d be skipping the group dinner that night and set out, mouth watering.
Texas BBQ did not disappoint. I had some amazing beef ribs, and decent, though not extraordinary, corn, potato salad, garlic bread, and guacamole, washed down with a real, live Dr. Pepper imported from Texas. Ahh, it was heaven!
The next morning we had a group trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels, an important strategic location for the Viet Cong in the Vietnam War (known as the ‘American War’ in Vietnam). The Tunnels was a strange place: animatronic plastic soldiers recreated their duties in outdoor exhibits while tourists fired AK-47s at a nearby gun range, which leant a creepy and frightening soundtrack to the steamy jungle where so many Vietnamese and American soldiers perished.
Back in HCMC in the afternoon, I visited the War Remnants Museum. It is an intense, extremely graphic documentation of the war, mostly dedicated to documenting the ‘war crimes’ committed by the United States. The exhibits included a lot of horrifying photographs, statistics, and quotations. As one might imagine, it provides a partial viewpoint on the war, but overall I was a bit surprised by its attempt at objectivity. Still, some parts were hard to swallow, especially the first exhibit the visitor sees, which includes the “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” quotation from the Declaration of Independence, meant to indict the United States as a hypocrite. I’m no war historian, but I don’t believe either side can truly claim the moral upper hand in that horrible, regrettable war.
Later, to clear my mind after an emotional day, I took a walk around the city at dusk to take some photographs. I visited the Notre Dame Cathedral, the Post Office, and the beautiful City Hall.
The Ho Chi Minh City Post Office. Notice Ho Chi Minh’s photograph on the wall in the back.
City Hall
Notre Dame Cathedral with 30 seconds of motorbike traffic
I had an early start the next morning, but I didn’t care: I was finally heading to Cambodia, the land of Angkor Wat!
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