Princess and Toolmans adventures: Vietnam: Saigon / Ho Chi Minh City part 1

The last ticket in the prepurchased travel chits were for travel from Mue Ni and to what was formerly called Saigon, now called Ho Chi Minh City.

As we arrived, it was clear that this large city also has lots of scooters. There were heaps!

Half way down this alley is the accommodation we booked for our stay in HCMC.

Our hostel had some cute and friendly puppies for Princess to cuddle.

This is the view from the room, with the access street(alley) pictured earlier running up from the bottom left.

Our room was small but complete, with a bed, TV and small bathroom on the other side.

The next morning, we headed out for a walk around HCMC to see the important sights.

Our first stop was Reunification Palace, formerly South Vietnam's Presidential Palace. It is kept just as it was the day Saigon fell to the North.

The storming of the palace on April 30, 1975 marks the fall of Saigon.

This was the first tank to crash through the gate, and bring about an end to the war. The rest of the Viet Cong army were not far behind, and quickly captured the Palace.

The South offered an orderly handover to the new rulers. As explained by Wikipedia:

However, the North Vietnamese were uninterested in a handover and simply took the city, arresting Minh. The gates of the Independence Palace were destroyed by PAVN tanks as they entered, and the NLF flag was raised over the Palace at 11:30. At 15:30, Minh broadcast over the radio, stating "I declare the Saigon government...completely dissolved at all levels." The dissolution of the South Vietnamese government effectively ended the Vietnam War.

We wandered around looking at the gardens and monuments. Toolman inspects this jet fighter.

We headed inside to see the 1960s communist style.

Here is a large meeting room, one of many.

A grand dining hall, left in is original 60s state.

Here is a stately office, cordoned off to stop rude visitors tampering with the desk. As we saw in Dalat, many tourists need this kind of hint..

The office wouldn't be complete without a stuffed leopard, apparently.

We wandered around lots of smaller offices and meeting rooms, each with a unique color scheme and style.

Check out the 60s colour tones!

This is a large and grand circular carpet. Mr. guy-in-red can't read the "keep of the rug" sign.

From this vantage point looking over the front lawn, you could have watched the tanks roll in.

Here is a picture showing the event - I bet Minh and his soon-to-be-ex government were pretty scared at this point.

The upper level had this nice zen-like garden.

Note the tower on the rocks, with a godzilla-sized frog to its left.

There were lots of odd gifts on display, such as these elephant boots. Poor Ele-phante'...

We went all the way to the roof, another great view over the lawn, with HCMC in the background.

Parked on the roof is a helicopter left from the war.

We headed down into the rabbits warren of a basement, and looked all the old hardware they had stocked inside.

There were all sorts of radio transmitters, amplifiers and receivers.

This looks like an operator station for patching communications together.

Another cool looking something.

Charlie in the trees!

From the palace, we headed towards another museum, doing our best to avoid the swarms of scooters.

On most corners are huddles of men smoking tobacco in pipes, just like in Hanoi.

We arrived at the War Museum, which documents the history of Vietnam. It has lots of hardware on show, left over from the war.

Not sure who owns this helicopter.

This mean looking gun is mounted inside the helicopter.

Yes, lots of the items are from the USA.

Some old-looking planes ...

... and some newer looking ones.

There are some truly mean looking tanks. Look at this one's huge barrel!

The same tank has some kind of shovel scoop at the rear, presumably to clear dirt, mud or snow?

A more conventional looking tank.

The caterpillar tracks are very solid looking.

Here is an example of the BLU-82 seismic bomb. It will destroy a 100m radius, and inflict damage in a diameter of up to 3.2km.

As well as the hardware exhibition, the museum documented the brutality of the war. Yes, that's a NZ flag above.

There were many grim and saddening photos, with plenty of the propaganda and other documentation of the events.