We meet the girls around 11.30am at the big indoor market in district 1, this place is great to walk around and explore. It has a few main walking ways with shop after shop from food to shoes, over bags and all other kinds of souvenirs. It also has so many small corners and alleys (just as big to fit one person walking through), that it’s hard to see everything and not get lost. The quality of the things are not always the best and you can definitely get your souvenirs or bags way cheaper somewhere else because prices are higher due to the value of tourists visiting and buying, so be prepared to negotiate if you like something.
We only had some fresh made juices and then made our way to the war museum. Like most places the war museum and many other sights have a lunch break, what we didn’t know at that point.
War Remants Museum: 7.30am – 12.00pm & 1.30 – 5pm, Entrance fee 15000Dong
The girls (Lisa, Star and Marissa) walked and Hakan and me had the scooter, so we arrived first and saw that it was closed. We informed the girls and went also for lunch to the food street market we seen on the way. It’s a great little place with a lot of stalls in a big hall sheltered from the heat of the sun. The walls are filled with graffiti and next to the entrance were massive red wings. It screamed for a picture, And the outing of being a fucking tourist.
The food was alright but not massively overwhelming, it was alright and we were ready to go again to the museum.
We arrived short after they reopened and saw already massive amounts of people standing at the entrance and more busses coming filled up with people.
I didn’t know what to expect from the museum, I just knew that it would be a not easy to see all this. In the area in front of the building you could see all kinds of vehicles, planes and helicopters used in the war. We made our way into the building and I took one of the information flyers, what showed all the exhibitions on the different levels. Historical truths, Vietnam – war and peace, Agent Orange during the Vietnam war, Agent Orange effects and war crimes are just a few of the exibitions you can see and each one of them just hits you like a hammer. Not only they tell you all the specs and numbers in detail but also show you all in pictures. War photographs tell the horrible truth and colours of the war. My body felt heavy and I was very close to crying so many many times, that even now writing about it, my throats feels closed up. War is a massive bitch and killed so many innocent people.
The most shocking and horrible of them all was the Agent Orange effects exibithion, just a few Gramms can kill a population of 8 million people and the amount used in the war and what it does to people, is just horrific. I felt so drowned in emotions hat I had to stop and breath a few times before I was able to continue.
I don’t get that people feel pride in going to war and fight for their country, it definitely changes you and makes you loose all sense of humanity. Or how else can you explain that you see photos of Vietnamese kids slaughtered. One story about two little kids that got shot next to a field and the text written underneath said “… they came out of a field and soldiers shot them and then walked towards and finished them off” yes these words were used and describe exactly what was going on. They just “finished them off” innocent kids aged 5 and 6. Heartbreaking and horrible and even harder if you know that this is just a few decades ago.
The visit of the war museum will definitely change you and I would recommend it to everyone, to see how horrible the Vietnam war was.
Our next stop was the Saigon Central Post Office so we used the walk to talk about the things we’ve seen in the museum and to have a breath of fresh air.
The Saigon Central Post Office is