Monday morning was one of our earliest alarms yet. We awoke at 5:00 a.m., breakfast at 6, then departed Hoi An at 6:30 for our flight out of Da Nang, headed for Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), DAD-SGN. We were flying on Pacific Airlines, who in March ceased operations for financial reasons and resumed service 26 days prior to this morning’s flight, with 1 aircraft in their fleet, dry leased from Vietnam Airlines. Interesting!

We made it to Saigon, collected our bags, and headed to the hotel to drop off luggage. Our guide, Puna, gave us a quick orientation tour for the area around the hotel, then we headed to lunch at Pho 2000, “Pho For The President,” which will forever be remembered where former President Bill Clinton enjoyed his first ever bowl of pho during his state visit to Vietnam in 2000. They had opened the year earlier with a different name, but capitalized on President Clinton’s visit and changed their name. To this day, they still fill up the seats. And after our lunch, we knew why – our bellies were very satiated, everything was so tasty, we were sitting in air conditioning, in a clean restaurant – what wasn’t there to love?

After lunch, we had the rest of the day free. Puna recommended several sites to visit, but most of us opted to visit the (Vietnam) War Remnants Museum to better understand what occurred, in preparation for our visit the following day to the Cu Chi Tunnels. The visit to the museum was a very somber experience. It details so many of the atrocities that occurred during the almost 20-year period of the war, and covers some of the struggles of the Vietnamese people under French rule and during the First Indochina War. They have on display (mostly) American war machines (tanks, planes, helicopters, bull dozers, and the like); replicas or actual recovered tiger cages, jail cells, and “sunbathing rooms”; recovered torture devices and ammunition and bomb casings; and various exhibitions dedicated to specific topics including journalists from the war, honored journalists killed, Agent Orange and it’s effects, and historical facts of the war. By the second floor, I was struggling emotionally going through the rooms and seeing the devastating impact on human life, often many innocent children, women, farmers, and more. I had to take a break from it and just sit in an empty hallway for a little while. I’ve decided to only highlight the experience here. I did take a lot of pictures of the reading materials and posters. As I believe we need to continue to educate ourselves to atrocities that have happened in our history, I’ve created a separate page for these materials. I didn’t want to cover it in this blog post, but I think it’s important. I’ll warn you now and on the page – there is a lot of disturbing descriptions and images. Only read through the materials if you wish to do so. The link to the page and the password is at the bottom of this post.

Looking back on the 1900s, there was an incredible amount of death and destruction. I recently had a conversation with someone about how, more or less, the world has been run by men for the better part of…thousands of years. After touring this museum, I can’t help but wonder how much kinder, gentler, and less death we would have seen throughout the world if we had many (MANY) more women in positions of power.

Most of our tour group left the museum at different times. Andrew and I, along with Joanne and Daniel headed back to the hotel to freshen up. Andrew and I decided it was time for another foot massage – it had, after all, been well over an entire week since our last one (evil grin!). We went to one that was recommended by Puna and Tanz in our group went to it when we were at the museum. We opted for the “Foot, Leg, Arms, and Shoulder” 70-minute massage. It was wonderful, sometimes painful, but got out all the kinks and our feet still feel great. After I turned over onto my stomach, the small Vietnamese woman walked up my body length and used her feet to dig into my buttocks, back, and shoulders and really worked out all my knots. We both ended about the same time and paid our whopping bill (for both of us) of $22.80, and tipped our masseurs.

Our group dinner was for 7:00 p.m., so we had a little time to kill. We stopped at a craft brewery near the hotel and both opted for a beer/seltzer flight to sample their various concoctions, aside an order of “extra crispy” Parmesan potato wedges that were divine. I really enjoyed the “chanh muoi,” which was basically a salty lemon beer – shocking, since I’m not a beer drinker. Next was dinner at Pizza 4P’s (“pizza for peace”), a sustainable restaurant that also grows much of their own produce and purchases their meats from local farmers in a wonderful farm to table concept. We all had some incredible salads, pasta, and pizzas, alongside some of their own locally brewed ciders and beers. Their cider is made with apples and local pineapples, and whey water recycled from their cheese-making process. It was one of the best ciders I’ve had!

The group departed, but Gavin & Louise (from Ireland) came along with Andrew and me to have a drink somewhere, after a quick stop at a minimart. We found a beautiful rooftop bar atop a luxury hotel not far from where we were staying. Many of the restaurant or bar cocktails we’ve had have been very sweet, overly sugar, or just poor renditions of what we know and love. But this place had some fantastic cocktails, perfectly balanced, with layers of flavor and depth. All 4 of us were pleased and enjoyed looking out at the Saigon skyline, watching numerous dancing light shows across the city. We thought it was odd for a Monday night, but it seems like Saigon is quite the happening city. We were happy with our first, albeit long, day in Saigon and looking forward to a few more days here, with some good chunks of free time.

Signing off for now, talk soon travel friends!

Jeff

Click here to visit the War Remnants Museum page.

Password for page: peace