Saigon - Delving into the Vietnam War

Going into today, I knew it would be emotional - delving more into the Vietnam War - and I think it was a moving experience for everyone - even the students who were not around when this war took place. 

We started the day with a trip to the Saigon post office.  This post office was built in the late 1800's during the French colonization of Vietnam and the Indochinese empire.  It has distinct French architecture, with a Vietnamese twist with murals of maps of Vietnam and Cambodia from the late 1890's and a picture of Ho Chi Minh displayed front and center.  Our guide had said that it was designed by Eiffel - but it was actually designed by Alfred Foulhoux.  One remarkable thing about this post office is that, although it has become a tourist attraction, it is still a working post office!  Outside the post office are 2 statures - One depicting education and the other depicting the postmen of the Vietnam era. 





Right across the street from the post office is Notre Dame Basilica - also built during the French Indochinese influence.  In front of the church is a statue of the Virgin Mary which was given to Saigon from the Vatican.  Currently the church is undergoing renovations as you can see by the scaffolding on the sides. 

From there we walked over to the Reunification Palace - formerly Independence Palace (housing the President of South Vietnam) - formerly Norodom Palace (during French colonization) and also referred to as the Vietnam White House.  This was the site of the fall of Saigon when the North Vietnamese tanks crashed the gates. Our guide gave us a brief overview of the French colonization of Vietnam - and the struggles to become independent of France.  After the Geneva Convention, the palace was renamed Independence Palace and was rebuilt according to Fengshui  with it being built on the Dragon's head, so the palace was also called Dragon's Head Palace. 

We took a tour inside the palace and could see the stark differences between the Palace in Hanoi where Ho Chi Minh resided and how the President of South Vietnam lived.  This palace contains the largest lacquer painting in all of Vietnam and is located in the Ambassador room where the President entertained foreign dignitaries.  In February 1962, two fighter pilots from the South Vietnamese Air Force, who were actually spies for the North, bombed the palace leading to it's reconstruction. 

In a relatively short period of time, this palace was the home to 4 South Vietnamese Presidents - one of them lasting only 2 weeks and the other only 36 hours.  Our tour guide told us there was a conspiracy theory about the assassination of the first South Vietnamese President Diem on November 2, 1963, and the assassination of President Kennedy only a few weeks later on November 22, 1963.  I will leave that up to your own thoughts!

Our guide had a very interesting take on the Vietnam war - different from that which we learned in the North and I would be happy to explain those in more detail once we are state side.  He did explain to us that while economically Vietnam is a capitalistic country, politically it is communist and, as such, there is much that cannot be spoken about.  They are closely monitored by police and have "undercover" police walking around listening to people and also monitoring social media.  He even told us that there is a referendum in place that will limit access to social media sites like Facebook and that it might become nonexistent in Vietnam in the coming years.

On a different note, we noticed that the trees were all numbered with the city and it was explained to us that they are numbered to count them and, perhaps, should one fall down or be damaged in some way - you could inform that city that tree #45 was down - and they would know exactly what tree and where it was located and get it taken care of!  Pretty interesting! 

 From there we went to the War Remnants Museum which had many photo exhibits displaying the realities of the Vietnam War - including the impact of Agent Orange, even 4 generations later.  There were many US military vehicles - boats, fighter planes, tanks, etc. on display, a replica of the jail, tiger cages, etc.  It was a very moving experience - and difficult to take it all in.  The kids all walked away from it moved - for everyone involved! 


 Then it is was off to lunch and a little bit of home at the Hard Rock Cafe.  I think they all needed that little bit of comfort after an emotional day.  After lunch - it was off to the market to do some souvenir shopping and practicing our bartering skills before coming back to the hotel for a little down time before dinner tonight at the third president of Vietnam's home (before he was President) and then a trip to the night market.  Tomorrow - we are off to the Cu Chi Tunnels on our way to Cambodia to beginn our journey there.