Ho Chi Minh City
Our last full day in Vietnam today, and fortunately, the weather was quite nice despite the forecast for more rain. By the time we have checked in with the kids and are leaving the hotel (around 10 am), it is already getting hot. By noon, we both have a good case of the sweats, that sunscreen only makes worse.
We have no set destinations, so mostly wander around the 1st district, where our hotel is. There are some art galleries nearby, so we look a bit through those of course, but that budget is already stretched a little thin, so we come away empty handed (so far anyway).
Around lunch time, we find ourselves near Reunification Palace, where the first North Vietnamese tanks broke through the gates to mark the fall of Saigon. Apparently, everything has been left exactly as it was on that day in 1975, but we don’t get a chance to see inside as it’s closed until 1:00, and we’re not interested enough to stick around in the heat for an hour.
Fairly close by is the War Remnants Museum, so we figure we’ll give that a try. We haven’t gone out of our way to focus on the war sites while we’ve been here, but I think it would be interesting to see how the same events are interpreted from the Vietnamese perspective. This is not to be though either, as we arrive to find the museum is closed until 1:30.
Tired and overheated, we decide to just head back to the hotel for a break. I try to convince Ang to hire a motorbike taxi to take us, but she’s not up for riding sidesaddle, so we hoof it instead. The Chelsea – Barcelona game is on the TV, and while I don’t watch much soccer (little people being the exception), in an air conditioned room I find it pretty engaging.
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We wandered the streets some more, and after walking a couple of miles looking for a restaurant for dinner, ended up about a half block from the hotel. The good news is that it is close to a bakery we found (and have hit a couple times already) so desert is only a few steps a way. We figured there would be more great bakeries like there were in China given the French influence, but they are actually few and far between.
Tomorrow evening we catch our flight back to Vancouver through Hong Kong, so are debating how best to spend it. There is a tour of the Cu Chi Tunnels that takes about 5 hours that is on the list, but sleeping in and doing a whole lot of nothing by the pool is running a very close second. Its hard to believe that by this time tomorrow Vietnam will be behind us. We are able to see that the weather is good in Seattle, so at least there won’t be any big shocks to the system.