The foreboding was increased by a one hour delay at the airport due to “technical difficulties”, more specifically, a low pressure tyre, to which I saw the ground crew trying to attach various pumps that looked better suited to a bicycle. No chance of a new tyre of course, being Vietnam. Saigon was named by the French when they captured it from the Nguyen dynasty in 1859 (cf Hue). Once the French were ousted in the 50’s, it became Vietnam’s capital city until 1975 when the victorious North Vietnamese bestowed this honour on Hanoi (the heartland of the communist north). They renamed Saigon HCMC after the recently deceased founder of the Vietnamese communist party.
The symbol for many of this final victory of the north Vietnamese communists over the republican south (in spite of the best efforts of the US) was a tank crashing through the gates of the Presidential Palace, now called the Reunification Hall and this was our first stop.
The building was definitely more important historically than architecturally, resembling a student hall of residence with furnishings from Heals rather than Ikea. The fourth floor was where a north Vietnamese soldier first raised the communist flag over the city in 1975 and was also the site of the bombing of the then Presidential Palace by President Diem’s own air force in a failed assassination attempt in 1962. Large red circles mark the spot of the actual impact of the bombs dropped by helicopter and a replica helicopter is still there today. Diem ordered a bomb shelter to be built in the basement but didn’t survive its completion as his own troops murdered him the following year (second time lucky). This network of bombproof tunnels was later used as a communication centre and war room with interesting maps and room after room of communications hardware that you could replace these days with one laptop and coordinate attacks from the safety of your island paradise.
Talking of attacks, the War Remnants museum was pretty horrific, so much so that Karen only made it half way around. Even though there was an obvious communist bias (no details of the atrocities committed by the north Vietnamese to the south Vietnamese and the US) the displays were chillingly instructive. US army soldiers holding up dismembered bodies as trophies; mal-formed foetuses from Agent Orange victims m(the chemical used to defoliate large areas to spot the enemy more clearly); the Son Mai massacre – the killing of a whole village including woman and children, suspected of harbouring communist soldiers to “teach them a lesson”. The guillotine used by the French even in the 60’s was also on display along with some of the tortures in the notorious “Tiger cages” of high security prisons. I know I’d have preferred the former. You get the picture – pretty grim stuff. In the end, around 3 million north Vietnamese were killed, many civilians, and a further 1 million injured, compared to just 58,000 US troops and several hundred thousand south Vietnamese.
The picture gallery was slightly less horrific and showed a more balanced view of the battle. All photos were from photographers who died pursuing their career as a tribute to their bravery, including the famous Robert Kapa’s last roll of film before he trod on a landmine in 1954. I returned to Karen and the kids guilty that I felt no emotion at all, just stunned by the depths of inhumanity brought out by war.
There was no respite at the Chu Chi tunnels either with displays of the Viet Con traps mostly involving sharp bamboo spikes; trap doors concealed beneath leaves on the ground and presumably slow, painful deaths. The US were no angels either and there were displays of the various bombs used in their more hands-off approach to killing. The huge cluster bomb was particularly gruesome, each one containing hundreds of tiny bomblets inside tubes of the mother bomb, designed to disperse over a large area and injure rather than kill. This was considered a more effective weapon, using up more of the enemies man hours in medical care as opposed to grave digging
The tunnels themselves were an extraordinary tribute to the inventiveness of man in extreme circumstances. They were begun in the late 40s during the Veit Mings battle with the French that reopened and extended to over 200km in the 60s to combat the US. Claims in a famous guidebook that the tunnels stretched from HCMC to the Cambodian border are apparently bogus but the tunnels around the Chu Chi area are extraordinarily extensive, in many places on 3 or 4 levels and including kitchens, weapons factories, field hospitals and command centres. There were even babies born in the tunnels, including one of the ladies still working there today.
The entrances to the tunnels were originally tiny (22cm by 30cm) and I worried after forcing my hips through and getting stuck under the armpits, that I would be left rather like Pooh bear in rabbit’s hole to fast for a week until slimmed down sufficiently to get out again. Most of the tunnels have been enlarged both in width and height (from 80cm to 1.2m). Basically, Harley can run down them, Ruby has to stoop slightly and I have to crawl painfully in the dark hoping Harley and Ruby don’t fall down the various drops, trip up the stairs or get spooked by the resident bats. After two lots of 20m, I’m knackered, filthy and sweating like a Scandinavian sauna attendant, happy to see Karen’s smiling face (she wisely remained above ground). In spite of, or maybe because of a gammy knee and severe back pain, it did bring home to me how terrible life above ground must have been to endure such hardship below (ie 50,000 tonnes of bombs over 420 km2, in other words over 100tonnes per km2 excluding the various chemical weapons such a napalm). No matter what your political beliefs, you have to hand it to the stubborn VC. Enduring those terrible conditions probably won them the war as it was from these tunnels that the infamous Tet Offensive of 1968 was planned, launched and coordinated and not long after, the US were on their way back home.
The rest of HCMC sort of pales into insignificance. The breakfast views from the 11th storey of our hotel were great, as were the 26th floor sunset ones from the Sheraton cocktail bar. The zoo was fully of mangy, cramped and generally ill-treated animals but you could argue that with so many people below the poverty line, what chance have the animals got. Anyway, the kids didn’t seem to notice and enjoyed the train ride, although Ruby did wonder what a hobbling, barely alive rabbit was doing on the Rock Python enclosure. At least the latter was well nourished.
The French quarter was, as you might expect, pretty from the outside but without real substance e.g. a beautiful Notre Dame replica that, once through the doors, looked like an ordinary church hall. Also a picture postcard 18C post office with tacky souvenir shops inside, although to give it credit, it was still functioning. Emblazoned on the outside were plaques of distinguished French men of letters and science, although you might have thought why not write them inside on one of the stamps.
In spite of some of the less pleasant parts of Vietnamese history being suddenly bought into sharp focus, we did enjoy HCMC. We enjoyed good food, wine and shopping during our stay which is more than could be said for our next, mercifully brief stop at the fishing port of Rach Gia.
