I'm finding I gotta keep these shorter or I'm typing for an hour and trying to upload stuff, talk to everyone I can on msn messenger, email my family and route my next day via GPS and google earth and it cuts into my time that I could use to explore the town and find a decent, not so foreign place to eat.
I'm a picky eater and since it's a different country I can't tell what places are restaurants from the street in my area. The other thing is I don't want to moto across town to a place that my book mentions to find out I don't want anything on the menu haha. This is probably the biggest snag I've hit so far. The first full day (Day 2) I had here I wasn't hungry and just focused on staying cool and drinking water but this morning I was hungry and needed something so I saw a mamasan (older lady) with baked goods. I wanted a bun as I know what I'm getting haha but she slopped some funky paste, chicken and other misc stuff and covered it in cilentro (it's on everything here haha) and I could slowly eat that. I walked to Ben Thanh market and looked around at all the shops on the way and caught a cyclo (pedal trike with passenger seat in front) to Reunification Palace which is where I was going to go yesterday but ran out of time. I had the usual banter with the driver, where I'm from, how old am I, how long have I been in town, how long am I staying, where am I staying etc. Some drivers try to get you to get them to wait while you tour a museum. I take hours and I don't want to pay a guy to stand there for 2 hours waiting for me haha. They also say "After Reunification Museum I take you to War Museum, take you here, take you there, etc" to hook you in for the day and hook your money haha. There's two kinds of moto's too. Drivers will take you point A to B for a certain price. Others will take you anywhere you want but for 1 hour at a set fee, usually 100,000d/$5Cdn. Both have their positives. Anyway more on that later.
So this cyclo driver rubbed my shoulders (as he's behind me pedalling) said "after museum I take you for massage. Girls are very pretty and after make elephant trunk rise up! Women here like white elephant trunk more." I bursted our laughing for the first time in Vietnam haha. He asked "I want?" and I quickly told him no haha. I have to take meds to not catch malaria and it isn't a cure. Also conditions at local hospitals generally aren't great, but if you do need a hospital then be lucky your in Saigon as outside big cities I could go to an animal vet, wait in line with water buffalo and get better treatment. There's no friggen way I'm going to risk getting the black VD from some over used and under paid Saigon whore haha. I'm hardcore into getting the Vietnam experience, but not the VD's they caught. Plus they had free medical care and the best treatment in the world scattered across the country. So the anwer was a clean NO! No no no no no hahaha.
We hit the palace and I had to go through a security checkpoint which I thought was odd for a museum. Later I found out they hold government meetings, functions and such there too so it made some sense. Nothing was being held when I was there though. Anyways there's not much to describe but a lot more to show. I took at least 200 pics of the place and a few videos but Reunification Palace is pretty much the former South Vietnam's version of the US White House. It's fancy and nice but it's still a working environment and the President and family reside there. Now I'm not an expert when it comes to the SVN (South Vietnam) government, leaders, etc so don't quote me haha. It was built in the 1700's/1800's by the French and was a sort of fancy vacation house to French officials. When the French pulled out of VN in 1954 and the country divided into the communist North and the democratic South, it became the South's Whitehouse. In 1962 a SVN Air Force A-1 Skyraider flew over and bombed the Palace. It was flown by an undercover agent (Viet Minh/Viet Cong I'm not sure which was in power) and President Diem had to rebuild it. Diem was put in power by the US as the US was at first supplying SVN with military hardware and education on the US's systems (legal, government, military, etc) and in 1960 started sending troops over to train the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN for short) troops eventually leading to having 500,000 US combat troops in VN. Diem wasn't elected by the people, or was but rigged to win it as he complied to the US (hmm... sounds familiar haha) but the people hated him and started to rise against him. There's a famous photo of a Monk who sat down, doust himself in gas and lit himself on fire. If you like Rage Against the Machine they used it on one of their CD cover's. Anyways that Monk was protesting against Diem. Diem was also catholic and being in control of a country that's mostly Buddhist isn't good for the polls haha. Vietnam was about 10% catholic at the time and I assume it was because of french rule. The bombing destroyed the whole left wing of the palace and Diem ordered the whole palace to be destroyed and rebuilt to what he wanted (fancy fuck haha). History will show that Diem was killed and it's though that JFK and the US was behind it which I can't confirm or deny but I think that's the general though on the topic.
The main reason why I wanted to see it is that April 30th, 1975 two North Vietnamese Army T-59 tanks hit the palace, one crashed into the main gate, the other ran into the palace to raise the Northern Flag (or at least the blue/red flag with yellow star, the VC flag). The crew that ran in to raise the flag wasn't stopped because the SVN government was waiting for them. The NVA steam rolled over the country and the ARVN did not put up much resistance. This wasn't because they were bad soldiers (though they were generally regarded as such compared to US troops) but because they were ordered to fall back and flee south letting the north take one province at a time. By April 1975 they were outside of Saigon and millions of people fled into the city hoping to be saved by their government or at least the US. They weren't. But on the 30th when the flag was raised it marked the end of the war and for the first time in 21 years Vietnam was whole again and for the first time in over a century the Vietnamese were in charge of their country and not under foreign rule.
It's a nice place and I can't describe it, just look at my pics :) The two tanks that first went to the palace are on the site as monuments and it was a good place to visit. Sadly they do have underground bunkers and bomb shelters but they aren't open to the public. History of the Underworld got my hopes up as they toured it.
Next I hit Binh Soup Shop, near the airport and it's just like every other soup shop. Oh, except the 1968 Tet Offensive, a plan for the NVA and Viet Cong (VC) to take over the country over the Tet holiday (like Christmas and New Years wrapped in one) by violating the ceasefire (ceasefire as SVN troops all went home to celebrate as did enemy troops) was planned upstairs! And it worked... kinda? They hit every big city and provincial capital in SVN, took over the US Embassy in Saigon, bombed the media center and put up a good fight. By the end of the week though they lost 38,000 troops compared to 2,000 US troops and the allied forces took most places back with in a few days except the holy Hue city and Khe Sanh (more on that later). It failed tactically but Walter Cronkite said the war is now unwinnable (that fucker haha), as with other reports capturing the news. This is how it was a success. The US media told everyone at home the war couldn't be won and with plenty of protests the US started leaving Vietnam in 1969.
I ate Pho for the first time which is noodles in a soup like broth and had meat in it. My driver, nice guy ate with me and I asked him if the meat is chicken or beef. It sooooo wasn't chicken and it was way too stringy for beef. A side note on the way to the soup shop I saw a man selling puppies. They were in a cage on the back of his moto and there was about 12 cute little bastards. I wanted to buy them all to save them from the cage and possibly dinner. Thinking of this and chewing the strange meat I had to keep telling myself it wasn't dog as it might not have been. I went to swallow it and my body said "I'm not letting you do it! Get it out!" and I almost choked and threw up (choked as I wanted it down, threw up as my body trying to reject it). I got it down after a small fight and had to wash it down with water since I didn't wanna puke in Vietnam. So yes. I might have eaten dog. Lesson learned: never let someone else order for you as I told my driver I wanted to eat and he barked at a lady for Pho. 2) If you are wanting to eat, tell the people you're with you only eat chicken! haha. Oh and my driver missed me almost puking thank god haha. He did get to laugh at me trying to use chop sticks though :) After the Pho we went upstairs to the meeting room. The room is actually for rent but I'm sure it would cost a lot more. We went past a little crawl space door which was a tunnel used to sneak Viet Cong officers and officials, including the predisent of North Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh and perhaps General Giap (main enemy general in the war) in to plan the Tet Offensive. That tunnel I assume was connected to the Cu Chi Tunnel system which was a set of tunnels stretching 250 miles (more on that later)They had the room set up with a table for tea, pictures of all the famous officials and an alter for the shop owner who was Viet Cong. I was told to sit in the 3rd seat and my driver took a picture of me. A man looking after the room told me to use a tea cup and kettle and pretent to pour tea haha. I did and they got a picture. Then they told me that was Ho Chi Minh's chair and his tea set!!! So yea, I sat in the enemy leader's chair. That's like going to the US and sitting in the chair Hitler used in a secret meeting haha. I was stoked hahaha. They told me that not every tourist not allowed to sit in chair for photo and I lucky guy which I prefer to believe :)
After that we hit the site of the US embassy which is famous because of the attack during the Tet Offensive, it had at least one bombing that I know of but I wanted to see it because when Saigon was falling to the enemy (April 1975) the US did not help the people of Vietnam and evacuated US staff and citizens. I think there were some special occasions for Vietnamese, like wives, staff that worked there, probably whores, etc. People wanted to get away and the enemy was right outside the city. We're talking about millions of people running down the street with everything they could carry running for their life. At the embassy people knew of the evacuation or just wanted US help and they swarmed it to the point where people are being kicked off the fences by the US Embassy Marines. At this time all US troops were pulled out of SVN but the US Marines have the duty of guarding US embassy's world wide so they were security. The thing is though, if someone made it over the fence they would be evacuated as it would be a breech of security to open the gate to let one person out while 500 tried to get in haha. There's a famous photo of people on the roof in a line trying to get onto US Navy helicopters. US President Ford(fucker) would evacuate the US workers but not help the millions of people who were slaughtered trying to get away. The evac was a military operation and the US Navy had the new F-14 Tomcat (my favourite aircraft) escort the helicopters, not shoot down enemy aircraft attacking innocent people. Anyways that was a sad ending to a sad event. Today the old embassy is gone, but the US consulate is built on the site. I couldn't get any major pics as it's taboo to take pictures of government buildings as I could be planning something bad. I got a picture of a monument on site and across the street is a building the same design as the old embassy. I could only get a quick one though as a security guard gave me the evil eye and I jumped back on the moto haha. We also drove past the Canadian consulate as it was closed at the time and we made our way to Cho Dan Sinh aka American Market!
We pulled into a parking lot and I didn't know why until I saw tanks, jets, guns and missiles haha. My driver told me to jump on the tanks and he'd take pictures. I doubled checked if it's okay, as these are museum pieces and he said it was. Fuck it, I wanted to jump on tanks hahaha. So I got pictures on a T-59 Tank, same as the one that crashed the palace, an M113 troop carrier with .50 cal (I think it was chinese version) and 106mm recoilless rifle. This was a big thing to me because as a group we've played with unarmed Canadian M113's but being on a US one with nice guns on it, it was great. I also got a picture on a 40mm Anti-Aircraft-Artillery (AAA) gun which was even more cool because you could rotate the gun and change the angle of it too! I felt like Jane Fonda (bitch) when she went to North Vietnam to spit on America and she got to play with an AA gun that shot down her fellow countryment and tortured them. Another awesome thing to see was a Surface to Air Missle (SAM) launcher. I think it was an SA-2 launcher which is big as the missile is the size of a telephone pole hahaha. It's almost as big as a fighter jet it's trying to shoot down haha.
I had my shot so we continued to go to Cho Dan Sinh.
We got there and my driver wanted to come in with me but I said I'll be hours (and was haha) and he wanted to wait. I just wanted to pay him and explore haha because it's said that there's a lot of American War items inside. I got excited planning this trip when I found out, but also heard that the communists destroyed everything that was from the US and SVN government (In my one picture there's a SVN flag on a jet and it has a big black "X" over it haha) so I didn't want to get my hopes up. Just in case I didn't expect anything from what I had already seen, zippos and patches.
JACKPOT!!!!!!!!! I need to fly my Vietnam guys over for extra man power. There's so much stuff that I can't do it all myself. I tried to control myself and looked as I planned on going back to buy. I also have a list of things people wanted so I'll get that together tomorrow. I picked up a Military Police (MP) helmet for our Derek as it was painted all up in that unit's colours. The power of bartering, they wanted $40 USD but I got it down to $28 :) I also found an ARVN 2-pocket pack for around $30USD while I just checked on ebay and their going for at least $179 (which is a ripoff in USD anyways). I also picked up a few patches as I'd like to find a bunch of 173rd Airborne, the unit we re-enact as the patches are made in Vietnam. They're lower quality but because it was made in Vietnam during the war they are worth more since now factories in the US spit out thousands of hi quality ones. I'd also like to have a full colour and olive drab (OD) patch of every major combat unit that served in Vietnam. Do a nice picture frame display with them and a map of VN in the center.
Tomorrow I'll try to pick up the following...
Vietnam wants:
Sean = lw rucks
sam = mint arvn/tropical ruck
brit = zippo - arvn ruck
josh=zippo or usmc kit (forget which or both), m55
derek=XL or Large Long ERDL and OD pants, ERDL Boonie- 7 3/4 Size, MP stuff
kirshin: arvn ruck
And some items for myself of course, sorry guys but I call first dibs haha. I'm uploading a video that I can link here showing the market. It has pretty much everything Vietnam wise: helmets, uniforms (mostly reproduction), boots, packs, web gear and some modern stuff like PASGT helmets, Arid MARPAT, Desert Tiger Stripes, ACU and misc era kit. I can't guarentee you anything but if you guys need anything let me know ASAP. Also I could easily spend my whole trips budget here but I can't, not yet anyways haha. If I do find something you want I will email you the price from forcerecon85@hotmail.com, If you could paypal me at the same email address that would help me out a lot more instead of getting paid in two months and possibly not find you more gear in other parts of the country. Not sure if I said it but Facebook is banned in Vietnam so my main form of comms is my hotmail email or if you have an account, post on my blog. It's late so I should hit the rack. See you guys later.
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