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The weather forecast for Sunday had suggested that it could be wet, so we decided to make this a day in HCM, with lots of indoor activities.

After breakfast on the rooftop again, blessedly cool in the early morning breeze, we asked Nang to organise a taxi to take us to the Notre Dame Cathedral, where there was a mass in English at 0930. The distance is not huge, but quite frankly, being a pedestrian in this central part of Saigon is not at all pleasant as you have basically to walk on the road, because the footpaths have become parking spaces for scooters. God knows where the cars go! Anyway, it costs about 2 dollars to make the trip - and took about 15 minutes - in slow traffic.

We were a little early, so stopped in at a grand old dame of a colonial relic - the post office. It is spacious, and airy, and despite having become something of a tourist attraction in its own right, provides a range of postal services that we don't have at home - like flowers by telegram, and for some reason a US Postal service desk. The nature of the latter we could not divine. Speaking of the divine - off to mass.

The Cathedral is another colonial legacy, and has survived remarkably well. Catholicism is the second religion here in Vietnam, and most of its adherents must have been at mass - the massive space was filled. And this was after previous masses at 0530, 0630 and 0730 with more to come. The translation seems to be different from our new version, but suffering from the same problems - reverting to less transparent language for the average Joseph or Mary in the pews. The announcement of a collection in the hundreds of millions was staggering - but then we remembered it is dong, and a million dong is roughly 50 dollars.

Next stop was the Reunification/Independence Palace (Wikipedia link will give you all the fine detail). Older readers will remember the images of the North Vietnamese tank breaking through the gates. This remarkable building, erected in the early 60s by the President of South Vietnam, was designed by a French trained Vietnamese architect. It reflects a sensitivity to both Vietnamese tradition and the architectural sensitivities of the time. It manages to balance the need to give a sense of power, with the need to deal with the local climate, and is, in places, quite beautiful. This airy elegance is counterbalanced by the machinery of war that occupies two levels of basement - bomb shelters, map rooms, radio rooms. All the equipment was state of the art up until the surrender in 1975 - and all provided by the good ol' U S of A. Thoughts of the folly of war are never far from mind here!

As museums were closed for a couple of hours in the middle of the day, lunch seemed like a good idea. By sheer good fortune we stumbled on a restaurant recommended by both Nghia (a young fellow at the hotel) and Trip Advisor, although spelled differently by each - the Nha Hang. It is a huge, rambling establishment which seems to specialise in barbecue. We got a seat in the front courtyard and enjoyed pork and tofu dishes respectively, along with a couple of lemon sodas.

Suitably refreshed, it was off to what is now called the War Remnants Museum. It used to be called something like the Museum of American War Atrocities, and quite frankly, that is a fair description of its contents. This is a totally new building since my last visit, but the message is the same. While it is a very one sided view of the atrocities of an atrocious war, it is a very different side from the one we were fed during the war. Neither side had any shining knights. For those of tender disposition, the photos of war wounded and particularly the deformities caused by Agent Orange are more than a little hard to take.

Another two dollar cab back home to freshen up, then back to Kim's Cafe for tea. En route we thought we had sussed out the location of the tailor recommended by Nang - but subsequently discovered we were wrong. Stopped in at a couple of shops and picked up DVDs in a much less crowded environment than the Ben Tanh markets. We haggled in a kind of half hearted way and ended up getting The Borgias, Madmen Series 1-4, and Boardwalk Empire Season 2, as well as a book for Anne to read for about $23. I'm sure we could have beaten the price down, but it feels exploitative.

On TV caught the second half of Man U v Man City in the third round of the FA Cup and the second half of "The Tourist" - mainly for the setting in Venice!

The internet seems to be a bit twitchy here. I needed to send a couple of files to work for printing, and they were too big to go on Outlook. It took about 4 hours to upload to Drop box. I think they must have their uploads throttled down. Meanwhile, for some reason, Outlook keeps dropping out. I am hoping it is related to internet rather than a software problem.