We headed to the heat in Ho Chi Minh City, also still known as Saigon, by plane. Our other options had been further exploration of the highlands of Vietnam, which looked interesting but would have been time consuming. In an ideal world we would have hired motorbikes to do this, or to explore the southern coast, but it isn’t the best time of year with rain, humidity and heat. Neither of us are confident about riding motorbikes even in the UK, let alone along rough and muddy or busy roads in Vietnam. However if you do enjoy biking and are fearless and experienced Vietnam is the ideal country for you. We could have hired a car and driver and stopped at various locations on the way or done an eight hour bus ride. In the end, due to time ticking away we opted for the plane. Once again I reflected on how this year of travelling has made me want to return and see more. It hasn’t got the travelling bug out of my system so far, like I thought it might.

It is hot and humid in Ho Chi Minh but for some reason the weather there didn’t feel as unbearable as Ang Bang beach/ Hoi An to me. Maybe it’s because it’s a bigger city so there’s more air conditioned activities readily available. It was raining before we arrived. Although the rains can be disruptive, they don’t last too long, cool things down and clear the air.

The names Ho Chi Minh City and Saigon seem to be used interchangeably by Vietnamese as well as foreigners. The official name of the capital is Ho Chi Minh. The French tourist we met looking round the Song ruins near Hoi An told us he had had two Vietnamese ‘girlfriends’. One of them got very offended every time he used the title ‘Saigon’, correcting him and telling him that the proper name for the capital is now Ho Chi Minh. We noticed that a lot of young men have these Vietnamese ‘girlfriends’ that they find through ‘hook up’ apps, which some young people also use in the UK. These young men are not interested in prostitutes and say that they are seeking a companion for their travels. Maybe some of these partnerships do turn into long term relationships, who knows. I can’t help thinking that the dynamic is inherently unequal. The man is of course expected to pay for everything.

Our first day we headed to the ‘War Remnants Museum’. This was one of the best museums I have ever visited. I thought I knew quite a bit about the Vietnam war, but the quality of exhibits and detail are far beyond what I had previously encountered. I also thought the museum was quite balanced in its approach, covering atrocities committed on all sides, with a focus on Vietnam moving forward into peace. Tim noticed the difference in emphasis compared to when he visited this same or a similar museum thirty years ago. Then, visitors had to walk across an American flag to enter the building.

At the entrance to the museum is a display of old aircraft and tanks which are associated in my mind with films I have watched about Vietnam and ‘MASH’. You are taken off guard by stepping into a display at the side of this area on the tiger cages and other horrors of war meted out to prisoners of war by the French, the Americans and the Vietnamese (the museum covers the colonial war against the French as well as that with the Americans that followed it). Inside the museum building I found the exhibitions about Agent Orange, which continues to impact Vietnam via genetic contamination and the gallery filled with photographs by war photographers killed on the job most thought provoking.

While we were in Ho Chi Minh we also visited the Museum of Fine arts which is housed in a beautiful old colonial building. It is a very interesting and well set out collection of modern art which is divided up into sections pre and post 1975 (reunification of Vietnam). A number of female artists were featured and they all included ‘Mother themed’ art. Of course catholicism and Mother cults related to that have influenced Vietnamese culture. There is also an emphasis within popular culture on Quan Am (Avalokitesvara) the Goddess of compassion who can bring relief from suffering. This is very relevant to the suffering that the Vietnamese underwent during years of war and colonialism.

We spent another day touring the main sights, like the statue of Ho Chi Minh, the opera house, Notre Dame Cathedral (based on the one in Paris I believe – it was being renovated and was covered in scaffolding), the post office building and the central market building. We barely touched the surface of the city though – for example we didn’t go to the Chinatown area at all. I noticed that Ho Chi Minh is often not a favourite with you tube bloggers. It is a big polluted Asian city and is not walkable at any time of year due to the pretty constant heat. When we did a riverboat trip, it struck us strongly how many of the old buildings must have been destroyed in the war. Travelling the river in Ho Chi Minh is a contrast from travelling it in Bangkok where there are wats and other old buildings to see on all sides. In Ho Chi Minh it is mainly brand new high rises. Like other cities in Vietnam though, I enjoyed it. There is a lot of energy and creativity evident in the young population and it feels that it’s a city on the move towards the future. We went up the Bitexo tower to the Saigon skydeck from which there are stunning views across the whole city, which emphasised to us how fast it is growing. There we met a young solo female traveller who was off on her own while her compatriots were recovering from their hangovers. She has found Vietnam a great country to travel solo in so far.

Statue of Ho Chi Minh

Post office

Bitexo tower

We debated whether to head for the Mekong delta, Pnomh Penh and the Cambodian islands, but the rain looked pretty constant in this area. We had to miss out Chiang Mai in our last trip to Thailand so we decided to head up there next and do some temple hopping before deciding how to end our second trip to south east Asia this year.

We ended our time in Ho Chi Minh eating a very expensive meal and drinking cocktails in an amazing retro Michelin starred restaurant. Yes it was very expensive for Ho Chi Minh, but its equivalent in London would have been completely unaffordable for us so we thought we’d treat ourselves!