DAY 41  - Saigon, Vietnam   (Day 1 of 2)

February 7, 2024

Today we had a tour of the city of Saigon - now Ho Chi Minh City.  We had been warned of the busyness and craziness of the city....but we had no idea!  With all of the motorbikes and vespas...and seemingly no rules....just crossing the street was an adventure.  The advice was to just keep walking and don't make any sudden moves, and they will figure out where to go and how to not hit you!  It took some doing, but we made it safely home.

We had a few stops at both interesting and historical sites, but to me the fascination here was just watching the people. I took tons of pictures of people on the street....lots of videos that unfortunately can't be downloaded onto the blog...pictures of alleyways and intersections.  It was challenging to capture to real feel, but here is a sampling of the sites and views of Saigon.


It was getting close to the Lunar New Year celebration, so we saw lots of traditional costumes worn by the locals.


This is the Post Office...designed and built by the French when they occupied Indochina in the late 1800's


Ho Chi Minh's picture inside the Post office.

This was the Presidential Palace for South Vietnam during the US involvement in the war.  Lots of meeting rooms and strategy rooms.  It was eventually bombed by a North Vietnamese pilot who infiltrated the South's Air Force and dropped two bombs on this instead of going to his assigned mission in the north!  






























































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