Hello everybody,
We flew into Saigon, Vietnam last Monday, the 11th. As soon as we got on the airport bus, we realized how crazy and fast paced this town really is. Its hard to explain, but imagine the roads you drive your car on being swarmed by hundreds of scooter drivers weaving in and out of themselves hauling everything from babies under thir arms to furniture strapped to their seats . This was a constant attraction while walking the streets (and trying to cross them). Saigon is a very busy city and is pretty commercial for having communist leadership. Their economy is on the up and up with western investment increasing, but the majority of the people still seem quite poor.
While there, we visited the "Vietnam War Remnants Museum". This place was very informative, but everything there highlighted the horrible things that the Vietnamese people experienced during the war. It was an exhibit of how THEY saw the war so it was quite interesting and very Anti-America. We did do some serious damage to this country. I was searching for ways to justify our fighting here and came up with nothing that is worthy of the losses that both sides experienced. This was also the case on the next day when we visited the Cu Chi tunnels on the outskirts of Saigon. This was an area with heavy fighting and is significant because of the network of underground tunnels and living quarters that the Viet Cong had built there to stay out of sight from U.S. soldiers. We got there and immediatly watched a video that highlighted a 12 year old Viet Cong girl and her "heroic" achievement of killing 18 Americans. (Weird) Then we heard our guide speak of how much craftier and better prepared the Viet Cong were from the Americans as he showed us gruesome traps that were placed around the jungle forest to kill Americans. We don't feel that these war exhibits were misleading or not accurate. They were very factual actually and we learned alot, but it was hearing about it from the Vietnamese point of view that made the experiences a bit strange.
What we have sadly realized on our first few days in this country is that the massive sacrifices of the Vietnam war were made for nothing in the end. Obviously, the communist government to the north prevailed and took control of the whole country. But now, only forty years later, the communist strong hold here is dwindling every year and capitalism is naturally growing stronger. Unfortunatly, this country would probably be in the same position now if the war never took place.
The people here in Vietnam are very friendly. Not the "Thailand friendly" that usually disinigrates when you use the word "NO", but an authentic kindness. Especially impressive since only 40 years ago the only westerners here were killing everything in sight. Either they are very forgiving here or just very forgetfull!
Our next destination is the Mekong River Delta!
