HCMC tour

A little after 2pm today we got picked up to do a tour of HCMC. On the tour we stopped off at the oldest post office in the city, Notre Dame Cathedral, the Reunification Palace and the War Remnants Museum. The highlights of the tour for me were the Reunification Palace and the War Remnants Museum. However, an interesting fact about the post office is that it was designed by the same man who designed the Eiffel Tower. Another point of interest is that all the materials to make the cathedral were shipped to Vietnam from Marseille, France.

Notre Dame Cathedral, HCMC

Guess who took this pic?

Post Office

Our next stop was the Reunification Palace. This site was where the first government of IndoChina resided and later became the head quarters of the leaders of South Vietnam. It was a fascinating spot because it brought back a lot of memories from my high school history classes. I remember doing a study on the Vietnam War and seeing images from the war. One I vividly remember was the one of the monk who poured petrol on himself to protest against the Catholic government and it was on the street outside this building that this happened. This is that image in case you are not familiar with it.

Monk protesting outside government buildings

We got to walk around the grounds and inside the building. Out the front they have some of the tanks that the North Vietnamese used to break down the gates. Apparently the people inside knew they were coming so they surrendered peacefully. I found it freaky going down into the basement because it would have been used as a bomb shelter during the war.

One of the tanks that broke through the gates

Meeting room

View out to the street

In the basement. We decided that this looked very much like a scene from 'Lost'

Breaking some rules ;)

Dad breaking some rules by touching the equipment ;)

The next place we visited, the War Remnants Museum, stirred up a lot emotion in me and everyone else in the tour. At this museum they had many photos on display that depicted horrible scenes from the war and also the ongoing effects that it has had on Vietnam and its people. The bottom floor was dedicated to images that showed opposition to the war and I found a photo of some people from New Zealand protesting. It also had many images of the children still going to school and still trying to get the best education even though everything around them was falling apart. I took a few pics of some of these because I thought they were very beautiful.

Protest in New Zealand

The next floor up was where I was fighting back the tears. It was where they had images of soldiers mistreating innocent civilians and I read about some horrible massacres of whole villages that took place. It was heart wrenching stuff. The worst for me was looking at and learning about the repercussions of the chemical warfare that happened in Vietnam, in particular that of the agent orange used by the Americans. It is estimated that 85 million liters of agent orange was dropped on Vietnam by the Americans during the war and about 5 million children have been affected by agent orange. Children are still been born with huge defects, big heads, small bodies, tumours etc...There were some pictures of families where all of their children were born with severe defects. They have an amazing collection of photos there and although it was intense stuff I'm glad I went to see them.

It's time for bed now because tomorrow we need to be up bright and early because we are off to the Cu Chi tunnels for another history lesson :)