Touring

Our first stop of the day was a tour of Independence Palace.  Our tour guide was very sweet and very funny, informative but keeping it light. We all enjoyed her a lot.  At the end of the tour, there is a “documentary film” about the war.  Jeff and I saw it the last time we were here, and I had completely forgotten about it.  The quality is extremely poor, both the film itself and the sound quality.  You could label it North Vietnamese propoganda, but in truth, it’s probably not much different than something Fox News would generate if the roles were reversed.  History told from the perspective of the victors, which, I guess, is generally how it is done.

At the Cathedral we took lots of photos before we even went in.  There was such an air of excitement and celebration.  Lots of beautiful young girls in their New Year finery, getting their pictures taken and taking pictures of each other.  I’m not sure if they were each there with their own photographer, but there were literally hundreds of people there with DSLR’s shooting photos.  Everyone seemed happy to pose for us or anyone else who asked.  The cathedral has a beautiful red brick façade, so is quite popular as a backdrop.  Jeff had a blast with the camera.  I took my phone and got some nice pics of the happenings and the brick walls.

The inside of the Cathedral was quite underwhelming.  It’s a very plain building, but it does have interesting side altars.  One side altar held statues of St. Patrick, St. Joan of Arc and some other Saint we were unable to identify.  After looking around, we sat down in the front  where a small group of faithful were singing the rosary.  I couldn’t say it was chanting; it was too musical for that.  It was lovely though.

We caught a cab back to the hotel from there, a distance that would normally be easily walkable, but we were walked out.  When we got back here, the cabbie asked for 24,000 VND, which is just over a dollar.  The smallest bill any of us could find was a 200,000.  That poor guy was just beside himself.  We did dig up some smaller bills, but he refused them, so we didn’t know if they were counterfeit or what the issue was.  Finally he said (in some distress) “One dollar, one dollar.”  Jeff gave him $3 and he was happy.

We hired a driver and guide for the evening to drive us around so we could see the streets that have been so beautifully decorated for New Year.  It ended up being very close to our hotel (actually, back toward the Cathedral), so we could have done it on our own, but after we drove up and down the streets, our guide took us to a kind of fair-grounds where a big stage was set up for entertainment.  

Jeff headed toward the stage where a young girl was singing her heart out. I turned into the other area which was set up with hundreds of vendors selling flowers and calligraphy and paintings, etc.  There were so many lovely things.  Jan seemed a little distressed as she looked at it all and realized she couldn’t buy any of it or she would be out of room in her luggage before we even leave Ho Chi Minh City.  She did throw herself into taking photos, though, so perhaps that helped ease the sting.