Reunification Palace, Ho Chi Minh City

An early morning flight to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).  It was very very warm and humid when we arrived as we set off to explore the Reunification Palace.  It was originally a French style building but was bombed during the Vietnam War during a failed assassination attempt on  President Diem.  The building was demolished and rebuilt in a Vietnamese design.  The design has won many awards and takes on Feng Shui principles and is beautifully furnished inside.  The blip shows the outside windows which represent bamboo and are in sets of 9, a spiritual number.  A large number of the rooms are open to view and we had a quick wander around past the secret escape door before heading to the basement where the war communications area was, see extra.  On April 30th 1975 a tank of the North Vietnamese army bulldozed through the main gate ending the Vietnamese War.

A quick walk through the local market and then lunch in a Pho cafe, one the locals use.  It was very good.   After this we headed to the War Museum where the top floor had many photos taken by war correspondents both during the Vietnam War and after.  It was very harrowing, the war situation and scale of it and the effects of Agent Orange on individuals and their subsequent children for a long time afterwards.  The second floor had details of massacres and the bottom floor protests from army officers and others, Resistance magazines, posters and photos and articles of protests from around the world.

We were by now pretty exhausted and returned to the hotel to check in.  In the evening we and two others visited a very nice vegetarian restaurant for a meal.