We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City -- which everyone in south Vietnam still calls Saigon, except in official government documents -- after a short flight from Dalat.
First stop was the Chinatown wholesale market. Nice thing about a wholesale market is no one tried to sell us anything!
We visited two pagodas where the predominant features are various alters and LOTS of incense. The spiral incense you see in the photos burns for a whole month.
Late in the afternoon we were taken on a Cyclo-tour for an hour, seeing the sights around the financial center of downtown Saigon.
Saigon feels very different from Hanoi – much bigger, more crowded, more prosperous, more modern. There are more tall, very modern, new buildings here than in downtown Seattle. Many joint venture projects have poured money into this place recently. North Vietnam “felt” like a communist place, while Saigon feels like a turbo-charged capitalist environment.
We took this picture of Uncle Ho in front of the People’s Revolutionary Committee Building (aka: City Hall) both for its being a major sight, but also because we thought our blog reader tCL would like it.
In the evening we took a dinner cruise on the Saigon River, on a “dragon boat”. The city lights by night were spectacular.
We’re staying at the Majestic Hotel, built in 1923 and one of the places many American journalists stayed during the Vietnam War (which they refer to here as the Civil War).
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