The train brought us to Saigon rested and ready to go. We walked the 3k to the hotel like usual. No taxi needed when you have been laying for hours. Our hotel was ready for us and we just rested for an hour and headed out. The mission was the War Remnants Museum.
The museum could have a better title. Maybe, American Aggression in Vietnam Museum. There was only one sentence about the French that I could find. Oh well. This is THE museum tourists go to in Saigon. We saw people from the train, and it seemed like all the white people in Vietnam had made it to the museum too. There were a few Vietnamese and other Asians, but most were white. Outside was piled high with US military aircraft and munitions. Inside had mostly pictures, and a few smaller items. I could see this museum bothering a lot of Americans, but for us it was a great one sided depiction of the war. Yes, it was horrible, and there were acts committed that were severely wrong, but this museum showed it through one set of eyes. In a way, it should. In another way, it should not. I went inside being a open minded American with a brief history already in my head, but if you were already looking for more fuel to hate America, this was the place for it. I was more impressed with watching the other visitors reactions to the displays and pictures. They had pictures of Agent Orange victims and napalm strikes. Those hit people really hard. By visiting US military museums and watching TV myself, I had already seen most of these images. I am just afraid of the 20 something year old college students going in this museum and letting their learning end when they leave the museum. The other young travelers I have talked to know absolutely nothing about the history of Indochina and the conflict between Vietnam and the USA. To get your complete education from this one museum would be a shame. The emotional impact of the images presented in the museum is severe, but I think further research into the politics of the war would be more effective in hopefully not seeing history repeat itself.
After that, we got a bite to eat and headed back towards the hotel. We briefly walked through a huge market, and after being harassed to buy things, we got out of there quickly. Our route took us through a park right by the hotel.
My attention was caught by some men kicking what looked to be a shuttlecock in some sort of game. As we tried to watch, a few people tried to sell us the item that they were kicking. The game worked like this: Three men stood together in a line facing the other three men 10m away or so. They would kick the shuttlecock back and forth. It looked like they would get a point if someone dropped the shuttlecock or when they fired it to the other team and the other team missed the return. Kind of weird, so I took some video.
As we were watching, some people came over to talk with us. Once again, like in Istanbul, these were students at the university trying to work on their English speaking skills. Here we go! A crowd quickly gathered and my first reaction is to watch my pockets and look for a way out, but these students were the real deal. They had notepads and pens to write new words and had some very good questions to ask us. Our conversations went from person to person with some students with good skills dominating the scene. That is fine, but I was trying to share the talk to the others around. They were thankful for that and we could have talked forever. When we left we were walking along with a girl and chatted a bit. We were tired and said we had to go, but wanted to see her again, maybe at a restaurant or for coffee. So, we set up a time in 2 days to meet. It will be in the moring and she wants us to meet her and to show us her section of town. What?? This will be spectacular!
We came back to the hotel and mentioned this to the hotel owner. He said that there are a lot of scams out there with people getting drugged and their money stolen. I brought this on myself and offered my info to her. It is too bad that tourists have to be paranoid, but it makes sense. Our new friend Sheila sounds super cool and has already been to the USA. It goes without saying, we would LOVE to have a local from Saigon show us around!
Tomorrow it will be the Cu Chi tunnels and then the next morning we will meet with Sheila for a tour of Saigon.
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