Days 2 and 3 in HCMC
Breakfast at the hotel on day 2 offered some interesting choices- spaghetti Bolognese
, fried rice and pho. There was, apparently also toast and cheese, but somebody got to it before me.
After breakfast we took a walk to the local market, about the size of a small town shopping mall. Mostly clothing and crafts, it seemed to be laid out by groupings- all the t-shirts in one area etc. Based on the back and forth between merchants I suspected that they are probably all selling stuff from one central vendor. Any colour or style they didn’t have seemed to be just a yell away and someone would come to supply it. Priced did not change much either.
After checking out of our hotel we cabbed it to Hotel Elios, our home for the next 3 days. We arrived at 11:30 am and were allowed to check in immediately, even though check in time was 1:30.
The first order of business was getting a SIM card set up for one of our phones. A data plan for a month- 4Gb of data cost just over $7.50 US.
Or next stop, lunch which obviously meant pho.
We then spent the balance of the afternoon shopping.
Dinner was at a seedy seafood restaurant located over 3 floors near the river. Red Lobster it was not! The owner’s wife was grilling up all the shrimp on a grill in front of the restaurant and the stairs to the top dining room were surrounded by tanks of fish , shrimp, crabs, lobster, tiger shrimp, etc. Fearing death by seafood we kept things simple- shrimp with Choy sum and a non descript noodle dish called Noodle with 10 items.
The following day we joined a city tour for the morning. Our first stop was the reunification palace much rebuilt since the days when helicopters lifted the last of the US out of Hanoi after the city had been overrun
The Note Dame Cathedral was under Reno so outside photos only. Then a quick look at the city post office, a large yellow building with a variety of architectural features.
The final stop of the morning was the War Rembants museum,
It consisted of about 12 rooms with photos that documented the V.A. rious aspects of the war. from the in itial occupation by and defeat of the French. Included were the rarely discussed war crimes of the US Military, the effects of Agent Orange, the brutal torture of prisoners and the various ways the US showed total contempt for the rules of war. Most graphic were photos of bombing victims and children deformed by dioxin. Once again, the US doing is “Christian Duty” to save the world from evil!🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤮🤮🤮🤮!
After a stop for lunch we drove to the Cu Chi tunnel complex, a network running more than 200 km some 70k NW of the city. Part fighting bunkers and part air raid shelter, it housed thousands of Vietnamese and protected them from US bombing. It also served as a staging ground for VC forays into the area around Sai Gon.
Our guide showed us a selection of B.C. booby trips designed to maim, not kill, thus drawing in more of the injured man’s comrades to save him as well as slowing them down due to need of evacuate the injured to the nearest field hospital.
We were offered and took up a chance to go down into the tunnels. We managed about 100 yards before it became too tight, dark and claustrophobic so we bailed out early! For myself my height
Forced me to my knees as the ceiling was too low to squat and rn at the same time.
With their bombing sorties over the area the US did collapse many of the upper layers of the tunnel system, and to this day Vietnam is still trying to recover victims of these bombing runs, believed to be almost 100,000 in number..
The ride home took until the early evening to return us to our hotels, hot, sticky, grimly and a tad grumpy.
After a quick shower, we found a closer seafood place for dinner- grilled octopus and a seafood noodle option before we rushed home to brace for our 5 am wake up the next day.
, fried rice and pho. There was, apparently also toast and cheese, but somebody got to it before me.
After breakfast we took a walk to the local market, about the size of a small town shopping mall. Mostly clothing and crafts, it seemed to be laid out by groupings- all the t-shirts in one area etc. Based on the back and forth between merchants I suspected that they are probably all selling stuff from one central vendor. Any colour or style they didn’t have seemed to be just a yell away and someone would come to supply it. Priced did not change much either.
After checking out of our hotel we cabbed it to Hotel Elios, our home for the next 3 days. We arrived at 11:30 am and were allowed to check in immediately, even though check in time was 1:30.
The first order of business was getting a SIM card set up for one of our phones. A data plan for a month- 4Gb of data cost just over $7.50 US.
Or next stop, lunch which obviously meant pho.
We then spent the balance of the afternoon shopping.
Dinner was at a seedy seafood restaurant located over 3 floors near the river. Red Lobster it was not! The owner’s wife was grilling up all the shrimp on a grill in front of the restaurant and the stairs to the top dining room were surrounded by tanks of fish , shrimp, crabs, lobster, tiger shrimp, etc. Fearing death by seafood we kept things simple- shrimp with Choy sum and a non descript noodle dish called Noodle with 10 items.
The following day we joined a city tour for the morning. Our first stop was the reunification palace much rebuilt since the days when helicopters lifted the last of the US out of Hanoi after the city had been overrun
The Note Dame Cathedral was under Reno so outside photos only. Then a quick look at the city post office, a large yellow building with a variety of architectural features.
The final stop of the morning was the War Rembants museum,
It consisted of about 12 rooms with photos that documented the V.A. rious aspects of the war. from the in itial occupation by and defeat of the French. Included were the rarely discussed war crimes of the US Military, the effects of Agent Orange, the brutal torture of prisoners and the various ways the US showed total contempt for the rules of war. Most graphic were photos of bombing victims and children deformed by dioxin. Once again, the US doing is “Christian Duty” to save the world from evil!🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤮🤮🤮🤮!
After a stop for lunch we drove to the Cu Chi tunnel complex, a network running more than 200 km some 70k NW of the city. Part fighting bunkers and part air raid shelter, it housed thousands of Vietnamese and protected them from US bombing. It also served as a staging ground for VC forays into the area around Sai Gon.
Our guide showed us a selection of B.C. booby trips designed to maim, not kill, thus drawing in more of the injured man’s comrades to save him as well as slowing them down due to need of evacuate the injured to the nearest field hospital.
We were offered and took up a chance to go down into the tunnels. We managed about 100 yards before it became too tight, dark and claustrophobic so we bailed out early! For myself my height
Forced me to my knees as the ceiling was too low to squat and rn at the same time.
With their bombing sorties over the area the US did collapse many of the upper layers of the tunnel system, and to this day Vietnam is still trying to recover victims of these bombing runs, believed to be almost 100,000 in number..
The ride home took until the early evening to return us to our hotels, hot, sticky, grimly and a tad grumpy.
After a quick shower, we found a closer seafood place for dinner- grilled octopus and a seafood noodle option before we rushed home to brace for our 5 am wake up the next day.
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