Our excursion was a 5 hour bus ride from the port to the city with a few stops basically for photo shoots. So don’t take this blog as a definitive view of Ho Chi Minh City. But it was pretty eye opening.
Of course one of the first buildings we drove by was explained in detail by our young guide was the Reunification Palace. It is pretty clear that having a unified Vietnam is desired by the people. At the time the US left in 1975 the Communist takeover was rough. Now according to our guide the country is run quite democratically except there is only one political party. Who knows!
The Post Office building is still the Post Office built by the French in the 1800’s. Inside the building is a functioning post office with a million little stands selling all sorts of trinkets. We could barely move through the building. Interesting tourist event.
On to the Jade Emperor Pagoda and a walk through. This temple is a Taoism Temple which has similarities to Buddhist Temple in our minds. But the guide tried to tell us the huge differences. I remember none of the differences.
What I do remember most about the city is the driving. There appear to be no traffic laws for anything. We were told there are roughly 14,000,000 residents. And about 7,000,000 motor bikes. I am convinced that we saw everyone of the motor bikes during our drive back to the ship. And you can see they are pointed in every direction. Actually they drive on the sidewalks everywhere. The guide said that is okay because it is too hot for anyone to just walk using the sidewalks. Pretty strange ideas.
The boats and the water are also different from other of our stops. The ocean water is very muddy. Supposedly that is because the Mekong Delta is extremely muddy (and fertile). It pours huge amounts of muddy water into the ocean. Of course this area is used for growing most of the food and for fishing with these boats. I don’t plan on eating any fresh fish.
Back on board there was a Vietnamese Music performance in the theater. So we have seen traditional Thai, Cambodian and now Vietnamese dancing and music. They are all very interesting and very very different. Viking did a great job of bringing on troupes to share their local customs.
The instruments were completely unique. The music was beautiful even though I have no musical knowledge.
There were also dance segments. It was an hour long program of Vietnamese traditions.
Johnson's Travel 