I just returned from a 6 day trip to HCMC.

It was a real pleasant surprise, a country I'll definetly go back to.

HCMC is very beautiful at night, all lite up and the harbor is great also.

One day (and that's enough the 2 or 3 day trips would be repeadative) I went to the Mekong Delta. $6.00 for the day, bus, ferry, motor boat and canoe rides, meals, drinks etc. couldn't beat the scenery or the price.

I also did the Tunnels, they really kick the s**t out of Americans, it hasn't crossed their minds that it's not the people it's the Gov't. I don't recommend this excursion, especially if you're American.

They have hop on and hop off bus service through out the country. A trip from HCMC to Hanoi is somewhere between $6 and $14.00 and you can stop and hop off anywhere they stop and get back on when you're ready. However these rates are almost double what the Vietnamese pay, hope you don't mind.

They also have two menu's in some places one for V and one for you, but food is so cheap even at the inflated tourist prices you'll only need a few bucks a day. Even at the best hotels in town the buffet is about $10 to $12 dollars, but you get lobster, crabs, fish wellington, roast beef, yorkshire puddings, all differnt types of sea food, and regular V food plus deserts, soups etc. It's a great place to dine rather than eat.

If you're looking to get a visa here's the real low down on how to get it if you're in a hurry.

1. If you're in Cambodia you can get a visa in 5 minutes for US $30.00 in Shinokville.

2. If you're in Bangkok, you can go to the Vietnam Embassy and get it in 1 day. Cost US $88.00 appr.

Obviously, Cambodia is the cheapest route if you're visiting Cambodia on you're way.

Thanks for the tips.

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Patrick A. Inouye, LMT
volunteer trip reports moderator

Can you go into a bit more detail about your tunnel experience - that is, why Americans shouldn't go? I don't understand.

Thanks for the post - Viet Nam has been on my list for some time.

Carberry

Thank your for your trip report. I was in Phon Penh �n January, but as I was only eight days, I decided not to travel to Viet Nam an stay with my friends. By the way, could you get us some more informations about hotels (in which one did you stay od did you visit).

Jan

Dear Carberry,
The tunnels in it`s self was an OK trip, what was wrong with the experience was the slant the V took against the americans. I was a one way trip to hell.

I can say this, I am not an american but I feel the whole tour including the video produced by the gov`t was wrong, hurtful and not represenative of the people (american)

Instead of them tell us (you) how bad, wrong, unjust, violent, and the worlds great terrorist (Amereicans) they could have led the people on tour in such away that you would have come to a similar conclusion without the critiqic.

I beg to disagree re Cu Chi tunnels. As an American, I understand that there is bias in Viet Nam about the "American War"- but the tunnels are a case in point illustrating what the American soldier was up against and why the Americans eventually left Viet Nam. The US greatly underestimated the tenacity of the North Vietnamese soldiers who believed they were fighting the enemy and they were fighting for their country. The power of totalitiartian government and propaganda is important to witness. I spent 3 weeks in Viet Nam this past summer and I am itching to go back ASAP. If you get a chance, go see the film The Fog of War which is an interview with Robert McNamara- and listen to his reflections on the war.

I just got back from a trip to Vietnam & Thailand also (my second time in both countries). As a Vietnamese American, I have some different viewpoints:

* I totally agree that Vietnam is a beautiful country and I would love to visit again.

* HCMC, or Saigon, is a fabulous city. However, it is a big metropolitan area similar to others in Asia. You can't really see the beauty of Vietnam and its people until you visit the countryside, ie, the Mekong Delta or my favorite city in Vietnam, HOI AN.

* Hoi An is a little city in central Vietnam about an hour drive from Da Nang. The more I visit this city, I more I love it. There are many art galleries, shops, restaurants, and tailors in this tiny town. This is the city that I feel time stands still!

* There are several other cities worth a visit: (1) Ha Noi, the charming capital of Vietnam and a side trip to the spectacular Ha Long Bay; (2) Hue, the old capital of Vietnam and home of the poetic Vietnamese royal tombs; (3) Phu Quoc Island (if you want to relax and have a whole beach for yourself)

* There is hop on/off bus service between Saigon & Ha Noi. It is extremely cheap and the best way to see the landscape of Vietnam; however, I would not recommend it unless you are ready for an adventure. The roads are not in its best condition and the drive is very bump at places. Instead, just take a flight on Vietnam Airlines. It is safe, quick, and relatively cheap. And yes, starting 1/1/04, foreigners pay the same as Vietnamese! There is no need to buy tickets well in advance. You can buy them when you are in Vietnam since tickets are readily available and a lot cheaper in Vietnam.

Plan a trip to Vietnam? Feel free to email me with questions, or just buy me a ticket and I will be happy to be your personal tour guide!

I totally agree with the positive comments about Vietnam. It is a truly wonderful place.

The Cu Chi Tunnels do give a rather biased slant on it and any Americans that are in any way touchy about it may not like it. I don't know what they expect.

Certainly a few I've bumped into in Saigon after going there were a bit put out saying "the whole information was all lies". Mentioned a few films they'd watched as a reference !!.

We all know Hollywoods' track record of conveying what actually happened in certain previous conflicts is rather less than impressive after all. The above certainly proved that.

However, I would definitely recommend going there to see the place. It's astonishing what they actually managed to do down there. If you're claustrophobic then you won't get very far !!.

A fabulous Country.

Is there still a "Museum of American Atrocities" (not sure if that ws the exact name) in Saigon? When I was there in '95 I even made a second visit to the site, as it was fascinating.

"THE WAR REMNANTS MUSEUM"

Ho Chi Minh City-Vietnam

I was at both the museum and the Cu Chi tunnels a couple years ago and felt it was an incredible, moving experiance..and I am an American.

Info on museum: 28 Vo Van Tan St. District 3 Ho Chi Minh City
Tel. 8290325-8295587

This is a direct quote from the museum's brochure I was given there.

" Yet we were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why." Robert S. McNamera
IN RETROSPECT- The tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam.
Preface XVI-Time Books, N.Y. April 1995
Brochure first page:
The following figures represents a part of those terrible wrong doings. In the Vietnam war, the US government molbilized 6.5 million young people who took turns in fighting. The total US forces reached 543,400 men engaged, including 70% from the army, 60% from the Air Force, 60% from the Marines and 40% from the Navy.
22,000 US plants and factories supplied the war with their products.
75,850,000 tons of bombs of all kinds were dropped over Vietnam plus 75,000,000 liters of defoliants-including dioxin-were sprayed over croplands, farmlands, forestlands and villages in the southern part of this country. In World War two, the US had dropped 2,057,244 tons of bombs over different battlefields. According to the figures made public by the US government, 325 billion dollars were spent for the Vietnam war.
In North Vietnam bombs and bullets destroyed or heavily damaged 2,923 school buildings-from primary schools to to colleges-1,850 hospitals, wards, nurseries, 484 churches and 465 temples and pagodas.
Nearly 3 million Vietnamese were killed, and 4 million others injured, according to incomplete figures.
Over 58,00 American armymen died in the war. Yet long-term consequences have not been completetly determined in the Vietnam war. In retrospect, it is not for inciting hatred, but just for learning lessons from history: human beings will not tolerate such a disaster happening again, neither in Vietnam nor anywhere on our planet.
(end of brochure)

So, there you have it from the source. The museum was a very somber place with very graphic photos of napalm and frag bomb victims and other things way too vivid for me to describe here. It was full of war machines, downed helicopters, seismic bombs, US tanks, planes and tons of other war machinery. I felt very 'wierd' being in the museum (especialy as an American) and for some time after. Having not all of the facts and history..I can't comment on the accuracy of the above brochure.

Yet I did have a great time in Vietnam..everybody I met was friendly..food was excellent and I would go back and explore it further in a heartbeat. Vietnam is a very beautiful country with wonderful, polite people. I stayed at the Sofitel HCMC and was really impressed by the ammenities and quality of service. I also got to fire an AK-47 on full auto at the shooting range ajacent to the tunnels. The Cu Chi tunnels are a must see for any visitor. I recommend it highly. Another must see is the Rex Hotel (former HQ for American officers) and the roof top garden restaurant and bar.

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MRKEY




[This message has been edited by MRKEY (edited Feb 14, 2004).]

Apparently the Vietnamese government renamed the museum. It definitely was once called the Museum of American Atrocities.

My second visit I was with a friend who served as a doctor in the air force during the Vietnam War. He was only in Vietnam during the war for a couple of days, but spend a lot of time at a hospital in Thailand. About five minutes touring the indoor part of the museum, was all he could stomach.

_______________________

Here is a travelogue that talks about the name change.

http://www.nytheatre.com/nytheatre/onroad2.htm

This afternoon was devoted to the War Remnants Museum which is thankfully no longer known as the Museum of American War Atrocities, but it might as well be. The point of view is clearly one sided, but certainly not untrue. An American who signed the guest book argues that the Viet Cong too committed atrocities, and cried that the museum was propaganda. Most of the rest of us Americans neglected to sign the book and allowed it to remain the forum of Europeans and Asians wondering if we were about to repeat ourselves in Iraq.

{As I transcribe this entry from my notebook on 12/26/02, I remember the War Remnants Museum in Saigon as the first really tough experience on the trip. I had been doing a good amount of research on the war, so the facts presented in the museum weren't completely new to me, but the images were striking. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, yes. When is the last time you were able to HEAR a thousand words in a row, all of them, each of them? The images in this museum, in their relentless presence are each worth a thousand heard words. At first I was embarrassed as an American. Ultimately I was embarrassed as a human.}

Thanks for the good info, I'm planning a trip there sometimes soon..

I have vacationed in Vietnam several times. And in Laos and Cambodia.

Three of the greatest places anyone could wish to visit. THE nicest people on earth and SO forgiving of the atrocities inflicted on them largely by Americans.

As to anyone saying the Vietnamese slant on the war is biased you are kidding right?

You ARE kidding right???

Lets see how you in the USA would feel one day if someone dropped 75 MILLION litres of the most carcinogenic, mutagenic, Dioxin defoliant liquids on earth onto you - Agent Orange.

USA (and also Australian) military that even went NEAR those sealed canisters are still suffering. Skin diseases, horrible baby deformities, all kinds of terrible medical side-effects - 30 years on.

Imagine how it was like to have this evil stuff indiscriminately dropped on your HEAD? By a scared US military - a good % of whom were so off their face with Heroin addiction they did not know or care what they were doing to whom. On your crops you ate, on the animals you ate and milked? And all this on mostly innocent farmers?

Craig6Z is correct ... on my first visit, a long time back that is what the Museum was called.

And "American War Atrocities" was a very apt name IMHO.

Anyone who has been to Laos and seen first hand the insane carpet bombing done there will not be too forthcoming with their comments.

Unexploded USA ordinance is still a massive problem in the countryside, killing and maiming hundreds of innocent Laotions each year. Same in Cambodia. But they are not Americans, so they do not count of course.

Some notes on my second visit to Vietnam (+ Laos) and Cu Chi tunnels etc:

http://www.glenstephens.com/indochina.htm

And do not forget neighbouring Cambodia where the USA secretly funded the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot to wipe out a third of the entire population by genocide "as those guys are better to have in our pocket and so not join the Viet Cong commies".

http://www.glenstephens.com/cambodia.html

That year Henry Kissinger - who secretly approved all this won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 right in the middle of all this. Go look it up.

www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,900496,00.html

http://laughingmeme.org/archives/000180.html

Adolf Hilter was a nominee in 1938 of course for the Nobel Peace Prize, so history does sometimes tells us strange things when you look back on it.

My tip in Vietnam ... spend a few days in Hoi An in the centre of the country, near Hue or Dan Dang. Each time I go I get about 20 vietnamese silk shirts hand made. A few $$ each. A special kind of silk that is impossible to crease. Superb for travelling.

Must be time for another trip actually ....



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Try and make it down to SYD for "OZ FEST 2004" - May 21-23

~ Glen ~ sipping bubbly from UA 747-400 exit row 15A near you SOON!

So true ozstamps..it was your links above that inspired me (post Baht Run days) to travel to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. I had to see it first hand and it forever changed me. Although I split it up into 2 different trips..Vietnam and Cambodia & Laos..I was apalled by the attrocites of Pol Pot..especially after visiting the Killing Fields and the prison (torture) museum in PP. Quite an experiance.

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MRKEY

I travelled to HCMC monthly for about a year and a half, and love the place to bits. The people, the culture, the food. Wow.

I also visited Cu Chi tunnels, and it was a most provocative experience. I would recommend all visitors to Vietnam to take the tour. The war has always been presented from the viewpoint of the Americans. The Vietnamese deserve to tell their side of the story.