Feeling hot, hot, hot!

Thursday

Late breakfast and late start today. The plan today was to visit the Ho Chi Min City Museum and the Reunification Palace, which is where the North-South war ended when the north's tanks barged down the gates of the presidential palace effectively turning Vietnam into a single nation.

A soon a we stepped out of the cool hotel atrium, we knew it was going to be a long hot day. It was about 36C and 90% humid. Angela wasn't feeling to good to start with (another dose of food poisoning), but as we set off through the city she was feeling a lot worse.

First off the agenda, was a visit to the memorial of the self immolating buddhist monk, who's main claim to fame in the west was that he was on the cover of a Rage Against The Machine album.
He was protesting about the massacre and imprisonment of buddhist monks by the new communist government from the north. He chose the busiest intersection in Saigon and sat in the middle meditating while a second monk doused him in fuel and set light to him.
It was such a horrific thing to do that it propelled the nation into stopping the persecution of religious sects.

It was a reasonable walk through hot noisy streets to get there and we were followed all the way by a cute girl, probably Callum's age. We couldn't decide whether she was just curious, or whether she was looking for a pocket to pick, but she realised we were taking notice of her and she disappeared after that.

The memorial was pretty impressive, and was on the intersection where the act took place. It was hardly a peaceful place to have a memorial with the traffic roaring away in the background, but it did seem fitting considering. Apparently the monk's remains were cremated (a little ironic) after his heart had been removed to a local temple. This apparently assures him everlasting life.

Next stop was the Reunification Palace, but on arrival we found it was closed for lunch. Lunch seems to begin at 11am here and runs until 1.30 pm for most government run museums etc.  Sounds just like government departments at home.

Instead, we trudged on to the HCM museum which didn't close for lunch for some mysterious reason. We had real trouble explaining to the ticket woman that there were only five people in the Williams family, so we ended up paying for Christopher as well; it was just easier to sort it out between us than explain.

Museums, apparently, are THE place to get married. The building was quite nice albeit a little tatty around the edges. For the puposes of the wedding, they had wheeled a beautiful old citroen out from under the cover at the back of the building, so the happy couple could have their photos taken in front of it. It was a bit tatty on the inside and could have done with a polish, but I'm sure they can photoshop that in.

The other thing you do at museums, is have fashion shoots. There were two gorgeous but vacant looking girls posing against the architecture. Apparently purple ugg boots, black mini skirts with zips down the sides and puffy yellow blouses with wide brimmed floppy hats are the next big thing in Vietnam.

What you don't have in museums in Vietnam is a lot of interesting old stuff. It seemed to be a collection of slightly related things that someone had decided probably shouldn't be thrown away or sold on at the night markets. 
There were four large rooms over two levels containing left over stuff from factories, temples and a closed down craft centre. Oh and more left over stuff from the various wars. Oh and a room full of old money.

If I was a school kid in Vietnam, I would be dreading the visit to the HCM museum, knowing full well that it would be impossible to come up with an interesting trip report.

What I didn't understand was why there were massive 3" thick steel doors between all of the rooms. I'm of the opinion that if someone in authority thought it was only worth showing in a museum, then it's very unlikely that someone else would ever consider it worth stealing.

By this time Angela had hit the wall and needed the support of an air conditioned toilet. We went back to the hotel, which was fortunately quite close to have a half hour's AC comfort before heading out to lunch, which Angela skipped.

We decided to give the Reunification Palace a miss, fearing another museum cop out.

On our way out in the morning we had passed the first pie shop we've seen in Vietnam. This particular pie shop is either a tentative foot in the asian market for Brumbies, or it's a knock off copy (called Crumbs). Either way, the kids were all desperate for an Australian beef pie and they weren't disappointed.
We went to the day markets for adult lunch where Kyra and Ron opted for the pho. I wasn't really hungry - the heat has that effect on me. I did manage to get a cool beer in though.

We then went off shoe shopping (again), which was partially successful.  Kyra and I then went off to hunt for the Saigon Ginkgo outlet, while the others went back to AC comfort. We were out to buy some more tees and shorts which were a bargain compared to home. It started raining on the way there which cooled things down a little, but just like Brisbane ten minutes after it stopped raining things were twice as unpleasant as before. We snuck in a coffee before heading back to the hotel.

Back to the night markets for dinner and we were a lot more restrained this time, with the total cost being about $5 a head.

Looking forward to our Mekong delta tour tomorrow, but are dreading the heat. Angela's feeling a lot better this evening, so hopefully all should be good for our final big adventure off the beaten track.