Here is HCMC's Main Post Office, originally built by the French in 1891.That's Uncle Ho watching over you, making sure you get the correct postage.
Giac Lam Pagoda. Buddhist, built 1744. I was fortunate enough to be there on the 2,251st Birthday of the Buddha!
Vietnam has one of the largest Chinatowns outside of China - Cholon. HCMC has 6+million peops, Cholon = 2 million of that.
Here is the Cholon Mosque/Market. Built 1932
Here's a pic from the roof of the Rex Hotel. This pic shows some of the traffic.
Here is Tan Son Nhut airport - AKA Ho Chi Minh City International Airport, formerly known as Tan Son Nhut airbase - our main base for the Air Force fighter-bombers that controlled Warzones III and IV (The southern half of South Vietnam) and terrorized the VC; as well as the main hub for MAC (Military Airlift Command). If you were a young grunt, REMF, or whatever on your way to the Nam, you likely passed through this airbase.
In this picture - the old bunkers that we set up to keep our planes safe from Charlie's annoying and many times deadly rocket attacks. Still in use, they now house everything from equipement, firetrucks, government aircraft, housing, and storage.
Here are old South Vietnamese Air Force C-130A's. Just rusting away... this was as close as I could get in the Terminal, but I got closer on the way out. They aren't in use. It's strange, they also aren't on display, they just sit there, rusting. The Red arrows point to their tails, they are the camo aircraft. The white ones are (I think) old Soviet Illyushin (?) transports. And look at the wall next to the middle Illyushin - that's an old shrapnel barrier, now 40+ years old. We built that during the war. I was standing in front of a big picture that showed a camera with a cross though it and said "NO PICTURES". =)
Notre Dame Cathedral, Saigon neighborhood, HCMC.
Dedication at Jade Emperor pagoda
Traffic. The side streets like this are the best places to find cheap cold beer and cheaper Pho. People were generally very friendly, and once they got the clue that I wasn't interested in paying for "masajee" (it's frankly a pain in the ass sometimes to be a single white male traveling alone, if you aren't looking for boom boom or weed), I actually had some really cool conversations with them. I met people from all kinds of walks of life, including several men who claimed to have been ARVN during the War and had some really cool and harrowing tales to tell.
Here is a vid. It is not mine, but you get the drift of the traffic there. The way you cross the street is slowly walking, but with purpose, DO NOT STOP, and keep looking at the oncoming traffic. People who run get creamed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrl7eFsyln0
Liquid refreshments. Yum! The beer on our left is 333 beer, which is a staple of tourist beers in VN. I liked it. In Vietnamese, it is said "three three three", which sounds like "Baa Baa baa". However, the inside joke is that westerners say it too fast "ba ba ba", which in the Vietnamese tonal language, means "three old ladies". "I'll have three old ladies" - best said while in the masajee parlor. This fact was told to me on the plane... and I died laughing while reading my tourist guide - because it was in there too. The guy who was my stew on the plane asked me if I wanted ba ba ba, the cheeky bastard had a smirk, so I said, I didn't want three old ladies. he thought that was funny.
You should all know Tiger beer. Good stuff.
For the Red Bull - I don't drink energy drinks because they make the voices in my head angry, but I was wondering if this is the real deal or a rip off? (trademark rip offs in Asia?!!?!!!! I call bullshit...) Anyone?
Thunderheads. I was having a beer and listening to the thunder, A spiritual moment.
This was on the way to the roof of the Rex hotel. During the American portion of the war, American Army officers were billeted here. Also, this is where some of the "Five o clock follies" was given: the daily official military press briefings.
There are tons of bugs in the air at around 6 pm. There are these beautiful little birds, too fast for my digital, who come down and whirl around and eat the bugs and have the most harmonic singing. Its beautiful. As they circle, there is tension in the air, then CRACK! A thunderclap, the birds disappear, then it rains like nothing you have ever seen outside the tropics.
