Day 20 October 15

We disembarked the ship in My Tho this morning and loaded onto the buses for the 1 ½ hour ride into Ho Chi Minh City. Interestingly enough many Vietnamese still call it Saigon and we often forget and do the same.

Once we were in HCMC the bus stopped in a few famous places to do a quick overview of the city. The first place was the Presidential Palace which was very famous in 1975 when the North Vietnamese army invaded and overran what was then Saigon. The haunting news reels of the last helicopter taking off from the top of the Palace where hoards of people were trying to escape as the Communist tanks broke through the Palace gates. Today it is a beautiful park-like area with little to remind one of that day except for two tank replicas off to the side of the driveway. Alan toured the inside of the Palace and BJ sat outside and people watched.  The inside of the palace included reception rooms that were familiar from news releases from the 1970s. The presidential and vice-presidential reception halls, the conference room, banquet hall, and suite of the ambassadors were all preserved as a museum. The grand staircase, which had been destroyed by a bomb dropped from a stolen American plane shortly before the palace was overrun, has been restored. The president’s personal residence was also open to the public.

We then went to the HCMC post office. This may not sound exciting, but it is a massive building designed and built by Gustave Eiffel of tower fame. 

After reboarding the buses, we proceeded to a very high end lacquer work shop, Minh Phuong, where we were shown their techniques and were able to do some shopping. Unusual for us, we actually purchased a small painted tray. It will be easy to get back in the suitcase and will be a great addition to our travel treasures.

We drove past the Central Market, which is about 4 blocks from the hotel, and then got to the hotel. Binh, our tour director, had gone on to the hotel with our luggage so it was already in our rooms. Both Sa, our tour guide, and Binh recommended a small collection of restaurants from across the back entrance to the hotel, so that is where we went. There is everything from tacos to banh mi and a very nice sit-down Vietnamese restaurant called Hoa Túc.  That is where we went and had a delicious meal of crispy featherback fishcakes, shrimp and pork belly in a creamy coconut sauce, and baby squid with ginger, tamarind, and lime leaves. I had coconut ice coffee and Alan had traditional Vietnamese coffee with condensed milk. It was delicious. Back to the room for our traditional afternoon rest.

In the early evening we all met with Binh so he could tell the group the plans for the rest of the trip. Everyone but us is leaving Tuesday. We leave Thursday which gives us a bit more time in HCMC. We then walked to Xu Restaurant just down the street where we had an amazing traditional Vietnamese dinner including spring rolls, duck breast, a beef dish, and a variety of desserts including a delicious kumquats dark chocolate truffle.