I think this is our fourth or fifth time to Saigon a.k.a. Ho Chi Minh City. The last time we were here there was some incredible building going on, and there are so many high-rises now that weren’t here before. On our previous cruises, we have been able to dock close to downtown. This time, however, we were way out in the commercial docks, and that entailed an hour and a half bus ride into the city. The traffic here is absolutely unbelievable. It’s like a moving symphony where each person knows where they’re supposed to be and it looks like chaos, but it all works somehow. When you cross the street, you just keep going and don’t stop for anything. They will drive around you; it’s scary at first but then you get used to it and you watch the locals. I would say 70 to 80% of the vehicles on the road are scooters of one sort or another, and some of them carry the whole family on them such as the baby, two kids and the mom. It’s unbelievable how many people they can fit on a small scooter, and have bags to boot.
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Crazy traffic
Parking is very organized as you can see from the picture below. They fit in as many motorbikes as humanly possible. They ride on the sidewalk if the street is busy. |
You see everything on the scooters, including a woman wearing high heels. Unbelievable!
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| Riding scooter with high heels 👠|
Take a look at this video as words cannot describe how this works.
And we can’t forget to mention the jumble of wires:
We took the included tour, which was basically a panorama of Saigon. We stopped at a Chinese Buddhist temple, a lacquer showroom/workshop, a photo stop of The Reunification Museum, and then drove through Chinatown before heading home. We left about 3 o’clock in the afternoon and by the time we got to town the weather has started to cool down – – it was only 96°! This is a very pretty temple with lots of greenery. I did not go inside because I was not going to take my shoes off. Michael went in and he took pictures and enjoyed the sculptures and the frescos. There was a loud chanting music coming over the loudspeaker. There are homes surrounding this temple, and I do not know how they can stand listening to that chanting, as it was very repetitious. Our guide pointed out the distinction between Chinese Buddhism and Vietnamese Buddhism. Apparently, a lot of the Chinese don’t even speak or read Vietnamese language.
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| Chinese Buddhist temple |
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| Inside temple |
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| Inside temple |
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| Woman praying |
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| Opera House |
We saw the CIA building, where in the final stages of the war, civilians were helicoptered off the rooftop. We also saw some of the helicopters that they used. Here they do not call It the Vietnam war, they call it the American war.
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| CIA building |
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| Here is a picture of the original evacuation from the CIA building |
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| A busy intersection |
We went to the lacquer factory and saw demonstration of how these beautiful lacquered pieces were made. They use things like eggshells and mother of pearl for the inlay. The process to make these beautiful pieces is very labor-intensive. We saw things like jewelry boxes, bowls and plates, coasters, wall hangings and even furniture.
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| Reunification museum |
We drove through Chinatown where merchants were selling all kinds of goods for the lunar new year.
