I spent a couple of days in Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon as it is still widely known. It is a vibrant, noisy, international, big city and I had a great time here. It seems so much bigger than Hanoi, I can only relate this to the number of motorbikes, Hanoi has 2 million, Saigon has 5 million. The city is full of life and interesting places, here is a selection of my favourite photos:
Check out the big portrait of Ho Chi Minh (Uncle Ho) on the far wall.
There were beautiful maps on the walls
And the old telephone booths had been turned into ATM booths - genius.
Every hour is "rush hour" but nobody rushes.
It's incredible what can be transported on 2 wheels, this one isn't even that overloaded. Also, check out the woman feeding her baby on the back of the bike in the background.....
It is perfectly acceptable to drive on the pavement if the road is too busy or you need to go the wrong way down a one way street.
And when it rains in Saigon, it rains......
I think my favourite building is the post office (really!). It was designed by Gustave Eiffel (your man who did that tower) and it was beautiful inside and out.
Ho Chi Minh appears throughout the city (and indeed Vietnam), here is a huge statue outside the People's Committee Building.
The Reunification Palace is also unsurprisingly patriotic, but I wasn't so keen on the style of the building - it was a weird mix of Soviet and French styles (not to be recommended for interior design), with huge imposing hallways and rooms, ornately decorated but with barely any furniture.
The most interesting parts (for me at least) were the helicopter on the roof and the "war rooms" in the basement (somewhat like the Cabinet War Rooms under Downing Street in London).
And of course the motorbikes, mopeds and scooters were out in force throughout the city, these are some of my favourite photos:
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