We'll keep the red flag flying here.
Ho Chi Minh City has on occasion been referred to as the Paris of the East, a title which has not only been used to describe its northern neighbour Hanoi, but has been liberally applied to everywhere from Prague to Shanghai. Still, Vietnam was once the backbone of French Indochina and at the turn of the 20th Century, its capital was here in Saigon.
Though other influences have come to define the last seventy years, the colonial legacy lives on in the elegant architecture, the occasional street or bakery with a French name and the prevalence of coffee and the small baguettes used to make the Vietnamese sandwich bánh mì.
Saigon's Parisienne Walkways
It was also interesting to see Communist imagery; the hammer & sickle and the gold-on-red star of the national flag itself; displayed prominently around the city with the knowledge that there really was some weight behind it, for Vietnam is a Socialist single-party state and they remain genuine political symbols. In Central and Eastern Europe, such symbols were displayed as historical and even nostalgic symbols of a bygone era. Here, like in neighbouring Laos and China, it is alive and well.
Excusez-moi, où est l'hôtel de ville?
As I turned to my Rough Guide to Vietnam to help me explore the city; the blend of French and Communist themes were perhaps exemplified by my first stop, the elaborately columned pastel château still known as the Hôtel de Ville, which you may recall from your secondary school French is nothing to do with a hotel, but is the Town Hall. These days, it houses the organisation known as the People’s Committee of Ho Chi Minh City, but it amounts to the same thing.
"In front is a statue of Ho Chi Minh himself..."
In front is a statue of Ho Chi Minh himself, the man from which the city takes its modern name, the Communist revolutionary and first President of (then North) Vietnam from 1945 until his death in 1969. The new statue has recently replaced an older one of Ho Chi Minh teaching a child.
Looking down Nguyễn Huệ Street.
Now he stands alone, raising a hand as if in greeting or salute, and faces Nguyễn Huệ Street, the wide and recently pedestrianised boulevard which cuts like a vast skyscraper-lined canyon through the dense city towards the river which still bears the name Saigon.
...et de la cathédrale? Merci.
I then walked northwest, where the 19th Century Romanesque Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Saigon provides a focal point on the square called Công xã Paris, revealing another colonial legacy: the small but significant Catholic minority. I had heard the European style cathedral was a popular place for wedding photographs, and sure enough, I spotted a happy couple doing just that.
"...the dazzlingly yellow General Post Office"
On the same square is the dazzlingly yellow General Post Office, another grand colonial construction retaining its original function, flanked today by more modern statues of revolutionary soldiers. It resembles a European railway station and was designed by none other than Gustav Eiffel himself! Inside, colonialism and communism are once more intertwined; 19th Century maps of Saigon’s streets and telegraph lines develop the postal ambience, while at the back of the hall, a huge portrait of Uncle Ho smiles down upon his busy citizens.
The post office interior.
As I walked back towards the centre of town, the heat of the day brought on a thirst. At the perfect time I spotted a young woman selling coconuts, and for the price of just over £1 she cleaved open a fresh one for me. Perhaps I could have haggled or found one for cheaper, but on my first day that’s a price I’m still willing to pay. Passing the Hôtel de Ville again, I posed coconut in hand under the palm trees, for a tropical tourist moment in my Hawaiian shirt and hat, looking every bit the daft newcomer.
Let's play 'Spot the Tourist and see how much we can charge him for a coconut'
For an early lunch I had an apple crepe and an avocado & dragon fruit smoothie at La Fenêtre Soleil, a breezy café on the upper level corner of a busy junction which despite its French name serves Indonesian cuisine alongside its sweets and shakes. Cool and dim with bare brick interior walls, it’s was the perfect shelter from the hubbub of the busy junction below where a traffic police officer directed a dense convergence of traffic which I later navigated across to reach the Ho Chi Minh City museum.
Sun streaming through the window at La Fenêtre Soleil
The museum fills Gia Long Palace, the 19th Century French mansion which housed the Governor of Cochinchina. This confused me a little at first as the nearby Reunification Palace, which I was to visit in the next couple of days, stands on the site of another purported governor’s mansion. But Saigon was at one time capital of both French Indochina and the smaller administrative region of Cochinchina, which roughly corresponds to the southern third of Vietnam. Thus the city housed two governors and two governor’s mansions.
Gia Long Palace, home of the Ho Chi Minh City Museum
The museum isn’t huge, but features an impressive range of exhibits including: some of the treasures of the Thăng Long Imperial Citadel on loan from Hanoi; histories of industry like carving and metal work from ancient times to the present day; the traditional dress and wedding ceremonies of Vietnam’s many ethnic minority groups; details of the revolutionary struggles against the French, Japanese and Americans; and some detail of the modern successes of the city in the 40 years since the country was reunified.
Highlights from the museum collection
A highlight was the military hardware on display in the grounds outside the museum which is always fascinating to see up close: an anti-aircraft gun, an American helicopter, a Soviet tank and a couple of fighter jets. Similar weaponry surrounds other museums in the city. Unfortunately, the working day was drawing to a close and I missed seeing the bunker below the museum when they started to shut up shop.
The Soviet tank
I was also feeling a little too tired to read all the information cards after spending the day walking around the city while still recovering from jet lag. I’d have liked to see the bunker and spend some more time appreciating the detail, but as the entry fee is a little under £1 it won’t cost me too much to go back there someday.
Posing in front of military hardware.
I walked back towards the general Phạm Ngũ Lão area (the backpackers’ district) where I visited Huỳnh Hoa, a small sandwich shop famous for its bánh mì, which Tien had recommended. It looked a little rough and ready, but you could immediately tell it was popular from the gaggle of bikes crowding the entrance and the queue inside.
The popular sandwich shop Huỳnh Hoa, famous for its bánh mì, as evidenced by the crowd of people and motorbikes.
It was a takeaway, so I walked back to eat it in the Phạm Ngũ Lão park, struggling through the busy roundabout where a statue of a boy on a horse had pride of place. I would later learn that this was Thánh Gióng, a Vietnamese folk hero. The sandwich contained a pork paté, sliced cuts of other meats, cucumber and chilli. It was spicy and delicious, though I was a little dehydrated at this point, and a drink would have gone down a storm.
"The sandwich contained a pork paté, sliced cuts of other meats, cucumber and chilli. It was spicy and delicious."
That evening, though I was still tired, I went for a couple of beers on Bùi Viện, the bar street. The beer had a mid range price, about 70 000 ₫ for 500ml, so just over £2 a pint. Not dirt cheap, but still cheaper than you’d find in any non-student UK pub (except Churchill’s limited edition Silver beer, a bargain at £1.90 when it was available last year.
I got talking to a trio of British travellers from Liverpool and Edinburgh, one of whom was living in Bangkok. They were only there for another night before heading off to some other place, so they called it a night fairly early, but the Bangkok guy was positive about his time there and told me that I was in for a good experience.
Still a little jet laggy (I know it’s taken me a while to write this blog, but we’re still on my first full day!), I threw in the towel at about 11pm, and went back to the hotel to try and salvage my sleeping pattern. It was just about when things were really getting busy, running the gauntlet of crazy pub crawls. Maybe in a few days, eh?
A final obligatory shot of bikes, here cruising past the Thánh Gióng roundabout.
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