Tuesday, Day 3.
After teaching, we dropped our stuff off at the hotel and snagged a taxi to District 1, the 'heart' of HCMC. We used the Lonely Planet's 'HCMC walking tour' as our guide and wandered around. Jesus, and I thought traffic was bad in GoVap district. Yikes!!!
Yes, we actually crossed the street through the mass of motorbikes all by our little lonesome selves, mom terrified all the way. It was worth it, though, because we saw some killer sites.
Probably the most amazing site was the Reunification Palace, once called Independence Palace until April 30, 1975. The decor is exactly how the president from 1963-1975, Nguyen Van Thieu, lived in it. The basement held all of the radio and communications equipment and war rooms, and even a 'war bedroom' for the president. I took lost of pictures that I will try to get posted soon.
We also walked past the Notre Dame Cathedral and over to Ben Thanh Market, which was a maze of textiles. We didn't stay too long there, but Anthony bought a couple of TShirts and I got us each a pair of sandals. I'm not sure how good my bartering skills are in the grand scheme of VN prices, but we managed to get the T-Shirts reduced by more than half, so I felt successful. I just hope I don't find the exact same pair of sandals in Go Vap for 3$$. You know??
After teaching, we dropped our stuff off at the hotel and snagged a taxi to District 1, the 'heart' of HCMC. We used the Lonely Planet's 'HCMC walking tour' as our guide and wandered around. Jesus, and I thought traffic was bad in GoVap district. Yikes!!!
Yes, we actually crossed the street through the mass of motorbikes all by our little lonesome selves, mom terrified all the way. It was worth it, though, because we saw some killer sites.
Probably the most amazing site was the Reunification Palace, once called Independence Palace until April 30, 1975. The decor is exactly how the president from 1963-1975, Nguyen Van Thieu, lived in it. The basement held all of the radio and communications equipment and war rooms, and even a 'war bedroom' for the president. I took lost of pictures that I will try to get posted soon.
We also walked past the Notre Dame Cathedral and over to Ben Thanh Market, which was a maze of textiles. We didn't stay too long there, but Anthony bought a couple of TShirts and I got us each a pair of sandals. I'm not sure how good my bartering skills are in the grand scheme of VN prices, but we managed to get the T-Shirts reduced by more than half, so I felt successful. I just hope I don't find the exact same pair of sandals in Go Vap for 3$$. You know??
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