Legacies of War: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

After almost four weeks traveling through Vietnam, we had come full circle, arriving back in a massive city with thousands of motorbikes whizzing by, beautiful French colonial buildings, and countless delicious banh mis. Welcome to wild, and awesome, Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi’s crazy cousin, times ten.

Just take a look at this video.

We had heard a lot of people talk down about Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC for short; “Saigon” is also still widely used)—it’s too large, too crazy, without a lot to do there from a tourist perspective. Because of this, we had initially planned just to pass through, ring in the new year in a major city, and then move on. But HCMC captivated us, and we ended up staying for five days. Ho Chi Minh City has it all, from soaring modern skyscrapers to beautiful historical buildings, from grand boulevards to narrow alleys, from upscale restaurants to local street food. One of those upscale restaurants, 4P’s, happened to serve some of the best pizza we’ve ever had; not some of the best pizza in Southeast Asia, but in the world! In this massive urban jungle of 8 million people, there was a lot to explore, which can sometimes be daunting. Behind the chaos and the endless construction, we found that there was an intimate charm waiting to be discovered. And, of course, there is a lot of history to learn about America’s involvement here, too.

For part of our time, we stayed in the Bui Vien Walking Street area of town, which served as a R&R haven for U.S. soldiers and today for travelers, with its many bars, restaurants, and massage parlors. But tucked behind Bui Vien was a dizzying network of small back alleys, containing a whole neighborhood of life. Many families operated small guesthouses out of their homes; the one we stayed in had an amazing encyclopedia of decadent breakfasts. Laundry hung outside, webs of wires dangled overhead, and small shops operated on even the most remote of corners. Somehow, motorbikes even made it back here, making it hard to walk down the narrow alleys without getting run over.

In fact, it’s hard to walk around anywhere in the entire city because of the wave of motorbikes and thick traffic. It took us at least 3x the time Google Maps suggested to walk from one place to another because it was so hard to cross the streets; one nearby roundabout that we had to cross many times involved five consecutive life-defying sprints across wide lanes of vehicles going in every which way, and it never got easier. But somehow, we managed to explore much of District 1, 3, and 5 on foot, in incredibly toasty weather that is apparently winter. We cruised around Ho Chi Minh plaza and said hi to a waving Uncle Ho; viewed many beautiful French colonial buildings such as City Hall, the Old Post Office, Notre Dame Cathedral, and the Opera House; walked along the riverfront with its benches of canoodling local couples; enjoyed sunset drinks on the 52nd floor helicopter pad bar at the Bitexco Tower with friends; and explored Chinatown’s temples, markets, and food stalls in Cholon, the original and oldest part of the city. Like Hanoi, within the chaos, there was order and solitude to be found in the long rows of clustered bags and shoes at the massive Ben Thanh market; in the silent book cafes, where we enjoyed more excellent Vietnamese coffee; and in the modern movie theaters, where we enjoyed air conditioning and the last episode of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. There was tradition and modernity as we joyfully alternated between famous banh mi with the thickest meats we had seen and trendy organic ice cream flavors, like black sesame (delicious as always) and fish oil (which was as disgusting as it sounds). There was even a very strong craft beer scene, featuring passion fruit sours and saisons.

Finally, we also visited three key sites that left lasting impressions, teaching us more about the legacy of the Vietnam War in this old capital of South Vietnam: the Cu Chi Tunnels, War Remnants Museum, and Reunification Palace.

The Cu Chi Tunnels are a large network of small passageways connecting the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Cambodia to Cu Chi, a rural area on the outskirts of Saigon. The tunnels were not really used to transport military equipment, since they were so tiny. Rather, they allowed the Vietcong (“VC”) to move around the South undetected, enabling them to launch quick strikes and then disappear in a heartbeat. During the war, there were thousands of miles of tunnels throughout the South, dug by hand! A few of the 75 miles of preserved tunnels at Cu Chi have been “widened” today so that tourists like us could fit into them. We had the opportunity to go down and crawl through a few tunnels, and it’s hard to believe they were widened as they are still extremely small and very claustrophobic!

Conditions faced by the Vietcong below the surface were extremely grim. They would stay underground for days at a time, hiding while the bombs or agent orange rained overhead. Tiny holes to the surface allowed for only a minimal amount of air flow. It was hot, damp, and disease was rampant. Most of the VC were malnourished, since they only ate a meager, rationed amount of rice each day. They were so skinny, in fact, that most American soldiers were physically too big to fit into the tunnels even if they found their locations (the U.S. had to recruit smaller soldiers, many of whom were Australian, to go in as spies on our behalf, earning the name “tunnel rats”). Despite our American perspective to distrust and dislike the Vietcong, whom we gruelingly fought for so long, it was hard not to leave impressed with their resolve and tactics in the face of such circumstances.

Because of the Tunnels, the U.S. and the VC rarely saw each other face to face on the battlefield. The Americans and allies went out on missions during the day, searching for an enemy that was either hidden underground or blended in seamlessly in the villages. The VC, on the other hand, owned the night—as the U.S. forces hunkered down, the VC headed out through the network of tunnels to launch attacks. They set up rather rudimentary but effective “Home Alone-style” booby traps to mine the jungle, such as sharpened bamboo posts in a pit hidden under palm fronds, or metal spikes swinging down from a tree. They even fabricated flip flops with backward soles using old tires, so they could set a trap, then walk away normally, leading an enemy who followed the tracks right into an ambush. The harsh elements of the dense, hot, humid, and unfamiliar jungle were physically hard enough for American soldiers; knowing that each step could be booby trapped, or that the VC could be lurking nearby without detection, ready to spring an attack, made for an additional, psychologically powerful obstacle. Using the jungle to their advantage was how the VC was able to outlast an otherwise far superior opponent.

It was clear from visiting the tunnels that the U.S. could never have won the war. American technological superiority was useless in the jungle—machine guns jammed when wet from river crossings, thick mud rendered tanks unusable, radar could not track the movements in the wilderness. Having a significantly greater number of troops who were better trained didn’t matter either, since there was no clear battlefield in which to engage the enemy. That the opposition was weak—they slept underground, they were starving, they had almost no supplies—was their strength, as they had no territory or equipment to lose. The U.S. could never have won the war, because there was no war to win.

The other interesting part of our experience was that we had a South Vietnamese couple (who currently live in the Bay Area) on our trip to the Tunnels. Naturally, they had a unique perspective on the North’s Communist regime post-war. They and their families were able to flee to the U.S., but many Southerners who remained in Vietnam were forcefully put into re-education camps regardless of whether they had any real affiliation to the South Vietnamese government or not. This couple was open to seeing the Tunnels and learning the history despite this, but their friends—another South Vietnamese couple who was traveling with them—refuse to visit the Tunnels to this day because they do not want to “support” it and felt that it would betray their home and families. Additionally, our guide at the Tunnels had a grandfather who actually worked for the South, and because of this lineage, his family is under watch by the government today. He was also very open with us in discussing the rampant system of bribery and corruption in the government, and offered one of the best quotes of our time in Vietnam: “Bribery is a way of life and business here. America has it too, but they’ve just made it legal—it’s called ‘lobbying’.” (Damn.)

The military might of the U.S. failed in Vietnam, but it was our Fourth Estate that proved that the pen, and the camera, are mightier than the sword. This was evident in the powerful War Remnants Museum. Entering the grounds of the War Remnants Museum feels like you are entering a U.S. military history museum. There are a lot of U.S. military equipment on display there—tanks, planes, helicopters, all donned with the stars and stripes—that were presumably captured or shot down during the war. Inside, the exhibits are simple, with the most impactful ones featuring photographs taken by a group of international journalists who documented the war on the frontlines. These vivid photographs unapologetically showed the horrors of the war and the impact on both innocent civilians and soldiers. Photos included the infamous images of war conditions and suffering published in Life Magazine in 1963, which burned into the American narrative and consciousness of the time. Other publications across the country then followed suit, helping publicize events such as the My Lai mass slaying, the naked “Napalm Girl,” and those deformed by Agent Orange—chemicals that continue to genetically impact downstream generations today. There were also pictures and stories of the photojournalists themselves, many who died on assignment alongside soldiers. It was an extremely moving and sad exhibit, but also oddly uplifting to know that our free press was a powerful mechanism to stir meaningful protests in the U.S. that had an influence in getting us out of the war.

The third Vietnam War-era site we visited in HCMC was what is now called the Reunification Palace. Originally constructed by the South Vietnamese government in 1967 (after the first presidential residence was destroyed), the building was like the White House for their leaders. The President and Vice President lived and worked there, and many of the War’s military decisions were made in the large command room housed in the extensive bunker in the basement. The Palace is where Nixon, Kissinger, and McNamara met with the South Vietnamese government to escalate the war, as well as where it all ended—when the North Vietnamese crashed through the front gates and raised the North’s flag over the city to signal victory.

The Reunification Palace is a relic of the former South Vietnamese rule, so why did it survive when there is otherwise little history of the “puppet regime” left (or allowed)? For example, the city that was once called Saigon is now Ho Chi Minh City; flying the South Vietnamese flag is banned; heck, even the War Remnants Museum was formally known as the “Exhibition House for the U.S. and Puppet Regime Crimes” so that the people make no mistake about the real government in power today. The answer, then (in our opinion), is that good architecture trumps even political symbolism. The Reunification Palace is simply a modernist gem, and it is gorgeous. The building is extremely well-conceived, designed with the environment in mind to maximize light and air, and also follows great fung shei in all details. We can’t tell what the energy was like back then (and can imagine that it must have been very tense at times!), but in today’s context, we and many others did enjoy strolling through the building, watching the light cast shadowed patterns on the floors and feeling the (relatively) cool breeze flowing through its open halls as we learned about the building’s storied history.

We spent many of our days in HCMC learning about the past, so it was great to also celebrate New Year’s there to look forward to the future. We met up with friends and fellow travelers Ty, Anna, Brian, and Sara from our Laos Gibbon Experience to ring in the new year together, enjoying a great Vietnamese BBQ dinner, tasting craft beer at a hipster brewery, and dancing to not-great music at a rooftop bar (seriously, who plays “We Are Family” as the last song of the year??). As the clock struck midnight and the fireworks lit up the humid skies, we all toasted exactly one month of knowing each other (though it felt much longer!), the close of an eventful and bountiful decade, and the start of more great adventures ahead for all of us.

For us, it has truly been an incomparable decade that has shaped our lives and for which we feel incredibly grateful. We opened it in Thailand, our first time in Southeast Asia, so it felt fitting to close it out back in the region. Together, the two of us collectively launched a couple of small businesses; completed masters’ degrees; got married; switched careers; opened buildings; moved off Kauai; moved to and left Boston; moved to and left New York; moved to and left (for now) San Francisco; briefly called home New Orleans, Dubai, and Liberia; and got to experience and explore much of this awesome world, with more to come. We hope that the 20s are as exciting and fulfilling as the 10s…though not as filled as the streets in Ho Chi Minh City!

Karen & Michael

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, December 31, 2019 – January 4, 2020