Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh City & Zero Degrees of Separation in Chau Doc

In one of my earlier posts I talked about how the Hanoi was incredibly busy. Well, Ho Chi Minh City (or Saigon as I will call it because it is less characters to type) is like Hanoi on drugs. They have tourist police whose main duties appear to be helping foreigners cross the road, on account of the insane traffic. I actually preferred Hanoi to Saigon, and I can't quite put my finger on the reason. It may be because Saigon is so big that it is just another crowded polluted megacity. Hmmm sounds like London.....


The Reunification Palace in Saigon was the seat of the South Vietnamese government up until they collapsed in 1975. If you ever see a photo of the final helicopters evacuating the Americans out of Saigon, it is evacuating from the roof of this place. The palace has been kept in the same state as when it was overrun by the North Vietnamese. I found out that the head of the South Vietnamese government liked to collect animals. The photo at the top is an attempt on my part to capture a row of animal heads. Also, please note the stuffed leopard on the left.

After the somewhat dry Reunification Palace, we then went to the War Remnants Museum. To give you an idea of the ideological position of this museum: it used to be called the Museum of American War Crimes up until a few years ago. This museum had an extensive collection of planes, tanks and bombs from both sides of the US-Vietnam war.
It had an exhibition on photo journalists from around the world who died covering the conflict, including the last photos which they took. This was quite moving. There was also a section on the effects of Agent Orange and other defoliants, including a couple of deformed babies in formaldehyde, which was nearly unviewable.

Next we left for Phu Quoc, an island off the south east coast of Vietnam which is due south of Cambodia. Note that the Q is pronounced W, not K. I will let Marie tell the story of my accident there, all I will say is that my scooter riding ability is much less than I thought it was. Also, the Vietnamese like to wrap their trees in barbed wire.

Examples of why New Zealand is too interconected below the fold:

After spending an idyllic week sitting in hammocks, we came up through the Mekong delta into Cambodia with an overnight stop in a little border town called Chau Doc. We were about to go out foraging for dinner when we bumped into our old flatmate Paul, who we had lived with at 127 Hanson Street, in the hotel foyer. We hadn't been in contact with him for about six months, we didn't know he was travelling in Asia, he didn't know we were travelling in Asia.

New Zealand is a village.

This is the worst example we have come across. Other examples of NZ interconnectedness we have encountered on our travels as follows:
1) In Luang Prabang we met an expat New Zealander in the guesthouse lobby. After talking to him for a while, we found out that his last name is Rayner, which is Marie's mum's maiden name, and that he & Marie's parents both went to the large (2000+) Rayner family reunion a couple of years back. Plus, we worked out that his sister's ex-husband taught me piano.
2) I was on the beach in Nha Trang, and I wanted to buy half a pineapple. The old lady only sold whole pineapples, and there was a guy standing next to me who also only wanted a half. We agreed to split one. Chris turned out to be from Wellington originally, and he was returning to Australia from the UK with his Aussie girlfriend. We saw them again in Saigon, and again in Phu Quoc. We got chatting, and couldn't initially establish a connection. Then we realised that his oldest brother was friends with Dan Kalderimis, who we are going to be flatting with in London. Also, we had met Chris's oldest brother at Dan's wedding a couple of years back, and Dan's father was Chris's doctor.