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HCMC has 4 million motorbikes and they often come in all directions!
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Dining out in Vietnam is good value.
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Enjoying some traditional Vietnamese food with Sophie.
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All sorts of dried fish and shellfish.
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Street vendor selling water lilies.
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Mekong Delta – where the Mekong river empties into the South China Sea.
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Hammock time!
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View from Reunification Palace. Communist tanks crashed through these gates on 30 April 1975. This date marked the end of the Vietnam War and the formal reunification of Vietnam into a communist state.
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Old telex room in the bunker at the Reunification Palace. The maze-like bunker basement served as a wartime command centre.
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Radio room
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Helipad
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One of many entrances to the Cu Chi tunnels. The tunnels were the improvised response of a poorly equipped peasant army to its enemy’s high-tech ordnance, artillery, helicopters etc.
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At its peak there were more than 250km of tunnels. The network, parts of which were several storeys deep, included numerous trapdoors, constructed living areas, weapons factories, command centres etc. I crawled along an enlarged, cleaned-up, claustrophobic part of the tunnel for 10 metres and that was all I could handle without feeling sick.
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Re-constructed booby trap. The tunnels allowed the Viet Cong to mount surprise attacks wherever the tunnels went and to disappear suddenly into hidden trapdoors without a trace. After large numbers of US casualties from unsuccessful ground operations, the US declared Cu Chi a free-strike zone: little authorisation was needed to shoot at anything in the area.
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Agent Orange is a herbicide and defoliant used by the US military as part of its chemical warfare program during the war. The Red Cross of Vietnam estimates that up to 1 million people are disabled or have health problems due to Agent Orange.
Gooood morning, Vietnam!
| 23 imagesHO CHI MINH CITY
Chaotic, energetic, loud and in-your-face, Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) is Vietnam at its most dizzying. It is a city of contrasts – from grand colonial buildings left over from the French to century-old pagodas in small alleyways. The traffic is certifiably crazy with 4 million motorcycles in a city of 9 million.
Formerly called Saigon (still very much used by locals as well as foreigners), this city was originally part of Cambodia until the 17th century. In the mid 1800s, Saigon was captured by the French and became the capital of the French colony of Cochin-china. The city also served as the capital of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) from 1956 until 1975 before falling to the advancing North Vietnamese forces and was renamed Ho Chi Minh City.
Ho Chi Minh was the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary who sought independence for Vietnam from France. He served as prime minister and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). He was also a key figure in the foundation of the Viet Cong (Vietnamese communists).
When you think of Saigon, you can not help but think of the Vietnam War, or the American War, depending on where you are coming from. The war was protracted and bloody. The Vietnamese government estimates that in 20 years of fighting, 4 million civilians were killed across North and South Vietnam, and 1.1 million communist fighters died.
US figures covering the American phase record 200-250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers killed and close to 60,000 US soldiers dead or missing.
Once a town held hostage by its past, HCMC seems to have come a long way since the war. Today, the city is vibrant, modern, and marching ahead at a fast pace. However, the impact of war is still very much felt by many Vietnamese today, in particular the many weak and silent victims of Agent Orange, a herbicide and defoliant used by the US military as part of its chemical warfare program during the war.
Worthy Reads
Cu Chi: The underground war http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/720577.stm
Agent Orange http://www.history.com/topics/agent-orange
The Big Picture http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/05/vietnam_35_years_later.html
A Fish Called Wander 
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