Saigon
Officially now called Ho Chi Mihn City after President 'Uncle Ho' who liberated Vietnam from the French and the Americans. There are significantly less pictures of him around than in Hanoi - no surprise there, and the people still refer to it as Saigon.
Although hanoi is offically the capital, by all intents and purpose HCMC is the main hub of the country. Our time in the city has been spent in the multi screen cinemas, in KFC, in the water park, as well as all the cultural and historical spots.
The Re-unification Palace is a shadow of it's former self when the french were here. The original french palace was bombed and an autere soviet looking palace replaced it. In 1975 the north Vietnamese troops raided the palace and officially ended the war - the south vietnamese president handed over power and the country was united. Nearly a million south Vietnamese where forced to leave the country (mainly for the US), but the poorer ones got on boats - ie. the boat people.
Still today, if you or any member of your family helped the Americans in any way during the war, your career prospects are severly hindered. There are lots of cyclo drivers in Saigon who were professors, doctors, teachers, but there citizenship was taken away and they can't work or own a property.
We spent a harrowing afternoon walking around the war remnants museam which gave a no nonsense display of the atrocities the Americans committed in the war. Completely objective of course! There were photos of agent orange victims with no skin on their bodies and the grandchildren (3rd generation) of exposed people with horrible deformaties. Photos of the fighting were brutal and we came out feeling emotionally exhausted. Thankfully Saigon has great ice cream so that cheered us up!
We sepnt another afternoon at Saigon's Dam Sen waterpark. It had wave pools, a lazy river and water slides and literally thousands of kids. We were the only white people there, so were treated like celebrities with everyone wanting to talk to us and of course splash us!
