We woke up and got ready in our normal shorts t shirt and flip flops combo only to get outside and realise that its not going to work because its raining buckets outside!! So off we went to change :) We later found out that Typhoon Pakhar had hit Vietnam which was the reason for the weather...
http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-03-nasa-typhoon-pakhar-vietnam-landfall.htm
Rainy weather means the perfect time to go to some museums, so that's what we did. First up was the War remnant museum which is a museum that recounts the horrors of the Vietnam war, mostly from the Vietnamese perspective. It was definitely an eye opening way to spend some hours and some of the pictures are quite disturbing. The americans basically went into villages and destroyed everything in site. They also dropped tons of poisonous gasses (Called Dioxin - or Agent Orange) on the country which destroyed all vegetation on the ground. This is still causing birth defects in country some 50 odd years on.
We then stopped for lunch at a restaurant to get out of the rain, which was really good. Traditional Vietnamese food in a cute colonial type building. There were tons of locals there too which is always a good sign. I had my first Pho (a noodle broth soup) which was delicious and we also had some soft rolls (like an un-fried springroll) served with a peanut sauce which was amazing.
After lunch we went off to the reunification palace, which is bascially the Vietnamese version of the white house. In 1962 the palace was bombed and part of it was destroyed beyond repair so it demolished and rebuilt. This means that the entire palace is built in the 1960s style and is frozen in time...It's pretty amazing in a kitschy cool way. It even has a cinema room and a gambling room!
After that we went off to our hotel to chill out for a bit. We then went for dinner across from the hotel( and even that short walk left us soaked) as it was raining even harder by then. We ended up in a place owned by a German guy and his vietnamese wife. So we both went for some western options.A burger for Jeremy and 'beef stroganoff' for me, which was more like a creamy bolognaise! The best part of the night was watching their little girl cockroach spotting. Because of the rain the cockroaches all come out the drains which was pretty gross,but this little girl would shout and point them out to her dad who would have to sweep them away. We named her the cockroach spotter...
Love
Candice
US Fighter jets outside the war museum
Lunch
The cockroach spotter :)
After the rain...
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Location:HCMC
