For the next 5 days we are in downtown Saigon. They call it Ho Chi Ming City now. Much of its history extends from when this area was French Indo-China.
Of course - there is a lot of history from the Vietnam War. In the 1950s - 1960s - 1970s - this was the proxy battlefield between USSR and China on one side and the USA and its allies on the other. 58,000 Americans died here fighting this futile war. The soldier were never given the chance to win. Eventually Nixon's secret plan was to just leave and in 1975 - we did.
Today Vietnam is a communist country of 95 million! Compare that to 300 million in the USA and 1.3 billion in China. It is becoming a world economic power.
Our Riverside Hotel dates back to the French period. We are close to city hall and several museums.
The Vietnam money is the Dong. 23,000 Dongs = $1. So a nice dinner can cost you 1 million dongs. The money is plastic and difficult to counterfeit. We had a very nice Italian dinner with drinks - and left one million dongs with tip.
We are at 11 degree north - more tropical than Miami or Hawaii. It will be 90s degrees ever day we are here. The air pollution makes my throat raspy. I cough a lot.
There are lots of gasoline scooters here - and the air smells of gasoline. I have seen scooters going down the street with 4 people on them. No electrics!
This place reminds me more of Cairo and Bangkok - than say Beijing or Shanghai.
When Lulu is done her presentations - we will go out touring.
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