Wednesday 20th March
Overnight we have sailed further south along the Vietnamese coast to the port of Phu My. This is a commercial port and we are here so we can travel over to Ho Chi Minh City. The coach took two hours to get to the city but is was interesting to see the stalls and small shops that lined the road on the way. Some were no more than shacks and amongst them we some much grander houses. We passed rice fields and rubber plantations. On the roads there were lots and lots of motor bikes. Our guide told us there were 30 million in Vietnam. Cars are expensive and high car tax discourages car ownership to stop the roads getting too congested. Ho Chi Minh City is still seems to be called by its old name of Saigon and it is a lovely place to visit. We had just over four hours in the city and started with coffee and delicious cake in a cafe that looked down towards city hall and some lovely gardens in front of it. We then set of to buy some cards and find the post office. Many buildings in Saigon were built when it was under French rule and are in the French colonial style, Saigon post office is a good example of this. It has a beautiful vaulted ceiling and the original wooden phone booths looked just like the ones in American films set in the 30's.
The photo shows the place we spent most of our time - Reunification Hall or Independence Palace. The first palace on this site was built by the French and finished in 1871 and is was the Governors Palace. It was called Norodom Palace. In 1954, when the French had withdrawn from Vietnam and the country was divide into two, it became the residence of the prime minister of South Vietnam Ngo Dinh Diem and renamed Independence Palace. In 1962 two pilots from the Saigon army bombed the palace and it was demolished and today's building replaced it. It became the Residence and working place of the South Vietnamese President until 1975 when the Liberation Army' tanks crashed through the gates and raised the flag of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and saw the end of the Vietnamese war. Inside the building was lovely, very light and airy. The main rooms used for government meetings and state banquets were internal rooms with glass walls full of glass doors that let light and air flood in from the corridor on each side. Right at the top of the building is the dance room, on three sides it leads out onto the roof terrace, on one is a heliport with an army helicopter on it. The views over the city were lovely and with all the doors open it was quite cool even though it is very hot outside. A wonderful place for a party! The design of the building was really lovely, I didn't expect to like it as much as I did.