Our trip to South Vietnam — 2017
By: Shoubhik Bose
Tags: Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City, Travel, History, Saigon

Our trip to South Vietnam — 2017

On April 29, 1975 Saigon, which was under the occupation of USA, fell to the communists from North Vietnam, signalling an end to the 20 year Vietnam war. The city was renamed as “Ho Chi Minh City” after their revolutionary Ho Chi Minh who had fought for Vietnamese independence and reunification.

Saigon was witness to the first televised urban battle where the largest helicopter evacuation in history had taken place from inside the US embassy in the heart of the city.

The American radio station were to play Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas,” the signal for Americans to move to the evacuation points.

Saigon was renamed to Ho Chi Minh City after the liberation.

Prior to the Vietnamese reunification, Saigon was the capital

of South Vietnam while Hanoi was the capital of North Vietnam.

Getting There

We stayed in Ho Chi Minh City for about a week for work and travel.

One needs to apply for a VISA approval online a few days prior to the travel ( which can be issued in half a day ). Using the letter of approval, one needs to get a VISA stamp at the Tân Sơn Nhất airport on-arrival.

History tip:

In 1975, The Tân Sơn Nhất Airport was bombarded by the North Vietnamese liberation army before Saigon was liberated. The runway was rendered un-usable for evacuating the Americans, which led to the largest helicopter evacuation in history.

First meal — King Prawn!

King Prawn served the Vietnamese way

History Walk

Having read a lot about the Vietnam war and how it had changed world politics, we went to the War Remnants museum to see the Vietnamese perspective.

The museum used to be known as the ‘War Crimes’ museum before normalization of relations with US.

The Calcutta Connection — opposition to the Vietnam War

The museum was strewn with photos of posters from all around the world who had opposed the US involvement in the Vietnam war.

Ho Chi Minh was the the North Vietnamese communist leader who fought against the Americans in South Vietnam.

The French connection — the colonial past of Ho Chi Minh City.

The French-era post office in Ho Chi Minh City.

A symbol of socialism inside the post office.

The Opera House adjacent to the under-construction metro rail. Japan has been a good friend of Vietnam post-war and has helped rebuild the country’s infrastructure.

Mekong Delta — the “biological treasure trove”.

A 2-hour bus ride from Ho Chi Minh City brought us to Mekong Delta which is called the “biological treasure trove” of the East. “Over 1,000 animal species were recorded between 1997 and 2007 and new species of plants, fish, lizards, and mammals have been discovered in previously unexplored areas, including the Laotian rock rat, thought to be extinct.”

We boarded a private boat which took us to one of the provinces inside Mekong Delta.

We were served Jasime tea with lotus seeds and local honey. We had sugar-coated ginger and sugar-coated banana fry, a typical Vietnamese way of drinking tea. ( We didn’t have to pay for any of this, but we liked it so much that we bought the honey! )

The love for tea

Being a bengali, it wasn’t hard to share the immense love for tea which the Vietnamese had.

Quán cóc ( ‘hot’ or ‘iced’ green tea ) is a part of Vietnamese culture.

‘Tra Chanh’ ( Lemon tea ) is used as a slang for hanging out thanks to the popularity of tea amongst youngsters!

I did get chance to touch their pet snake as well as hold their beehive.

We walked down to another hut in the vicinity where local performers sang Western and Vietnamese contemporary songs.

The locals offered us exotic fruits which Mekong Delta is famous for.

Vinh Long Rambutan

We boarded one of these hand-driven(‘rowed’) blue boats to head for lunch where they had cooked chicken specially for us. Interestingly, the boats were driven by a male member of the family but always navigated by one of the female members of the family.

Lunch was overwhelming — we had Vietnamese ‘sushi’ spring rolls and the Vietnamese rice ball, all cooked in an open kitchen in the village, for us.

Catch of the day ! The locals taught us how to make sushi rolls by taking out the fish crumbs from the cooked fish.

Post-lunch we hopped on to one of the boats to relax while we headed back to the assembly point from where we had started out trip.

Pagodas of South Vietnam

A visit to this part of the world couldn’t be complete without a visit to a Pagoda. Quan Âm Pagoda is a Chinese-style Buddhist pagoda in Ho Chi Minh City. Founded in the 19th century, it is dedicated to the Chinese goddess of mercy and the Chinese form of the Indian bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara.

On the way back, we stopped at Ben Thanh market where shopkeepers encourage you to haggle, if you don’t you literally get chased down the street by the shopkeeper.

Our stay and commute

We stayed at a hotel called “Bong Sen Saigon” — whose name had a funny similarity to the colloquial term used for Bengalis.

Kolkata has taxis which have a meter but rarely agree to run on meter.

Bangalore doesn’t have taxis other than the app-aggregators.

For a change, we loved the ‘Vinsun’ taxis in Ho Chi Minh City which run on always run on meter, were equipped with GPS and always had electronic payment machines.

The local currency was Vietnamese Dong and 1 Indian Rupee equals 355.11 Vietnamese Dong — and that implied I was a Vietnamese millionaire ?

Cost of living, urban commute and business — Vietnam surely has come a long way from decades of turbulence. For someone born in a tropical country, Vietnam is a great place to unwind and learn about world history.