Good Morning, Vietnam! - Saigon Day 1 - March 22nd

Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in 1976, but our guide said most people still call it Saigon, its name for the previous 350 years. Confirmed by the name of the most popular local beer:

Saigon is the city of motor bikes: 9 million people and 4 million bikes.

I took a “Good Morning Vietnam” tour, focused on places related to the War. Trigger Alert (not a joke): It can be disturbing.

Above is the Rex Hotel, where many GIs picked up girls in the “American Bar” on the upper floors. Below is the former Presidential Palace, renamed the “Reunification Palace” in 1976:

Here is the tank that knocked down the gates of the Presidential Palace in 1975 and is now a national monument. President Thiệu had already left; he died in California in 1998.

Here is the F-4 whose South Vietnamese pilot strafed and bombed Thieu’s palace late in the war before flying north and defecting. Turned out he had been a spy for the North all along. He is a national hero. The plane is now also a monument on the grounds.

Here is the current American Consulate, built on the site of the former US Embassy, where the iconic “last helicopter out” photo was taken. That structure no longer exists. The current US Embassy is in Hanoi. Relations were normalized between the two countries in 1996. People waiting in line are applying for visas,

We visited the War Remnants Museum, which chronicles the “American War” as it is called here. Much US war material is on display. This can be disturbing to visit, as the museum highlights the millions of Vietnamese who were, killed, maimed and born with birth defects. It focuses on events like like My Lai and the "heavy US use of chemical weapons:" over 75 million liters of Agent Orange and other defoliants that included over 60,000 pounds of dioxin. Dioxin remains active in the soil and water in many places; and was found in mother's breast milk during and after the war.

Below, a B-52 Seismic Bomb:

Seismic bombs were used to attack VC underground networks, and we visited the tunnels of Củ Chi, an immense 200 km network of multi-level connecting tunnels about 45 km west of Saigon along Highway 22, the main supply route from Cambodia. The Viet Cong used this complex to launce the 1968 Tet Offensive. As many as 16,000 hid underground here at any given time.

The entrances were small and well concealed. I was able to fit, but barely, after watching a guide demonstrate:

Underground conditions were miserable – everyone had intestinal parasites, 50% malaria, and poisonous snake and insect bites were common. But the multi-layered nests were extremely effective in hiding the Viet Cong, who on occasion dug 5 km tunnels to get beneath the big US camp at Củ Chi and attacked the GIs inside their own base.

There is a firing range at the Củ Chi complex where for $20 you can fire a banana clip of live ammo from an AK-47 (or an M-16):

At the Củ Chi Site, which is a national monument, there are examples of the “tiger traps’ deployed in the jungle against the GIs.

Here is a tableau of how the VC constructed improvised delay mines to destroy US Tanks using recycled ordnance.

One last shot of a tunnel entrance:

All in all, a very sobering day. Our tour guide was from My Lai. He and his family were not in the village when the massacre occurred. They had gone to visit relatives in a neighboring village and stayed overnight. However, since the war ended, five of his relatives have died of cancer.

Tomorrow: a river trip on the Mekong. Then a day at sea where Joani should have time to sort her Angkor Wat photos.