You can move through this site and through albums on this site by clicking on the pop-up menus above (for example, “Photo Album 2012”) or by clicking on the forward “>” or backward “<“ arrowheads at the top of a photo display.
Or Is It Ho Chi Minh City?
According to the guides who spoke quite openly about politics, you can call it either Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City, although the choice of names seems to be a preference of what was South vs. North Vietnam. The people we talked with seem to be less concerned about the American War era (“That was your war, not ours”) than they are with the French and Chinese, both of whom are disliked. However, the country still reflects the influence of all three of those cultures. And of course, capitalism still thrives in this Communist country.
Saigon is 12 million people and 7 million motor scooters, all of which seem to be on the roads at the same time.
The Presidential Palace is the one that was crashed into in 1975 by the North Vietnamese Army tanks, an act that effectively marked the end of America’s military involvement in that country.
On our second day in Saigon we drove out to the countryside (many rice fields) to the Mekong River delta, caught a boat that sailed up the river to one of the many islands where thousands of people live and work (fishing, honey production, coconut products). Many of the islands are laced with canals and we took a ride in a sampan through some of these. Very “Apocalypse Now” (look it up, future generations).
