the ugly truth

The famous Vietnam war was essentially a struggle between North Vietnam (the Viet Cong - a shortened version of the derigatory Viet Nam Cong San: Vietnamese communists) and the South. The Americans were fearful of communism around this time and so joined in the battle bringing their massive artillery and manpower to the South. By the end of the war, every single road and rail bridge in the country had been hit by bombs, bullets, and even the toxic Agent Orange. Four thousand of North Vietnam's 5788 villages were also destroyed. Officially, approximately 1.2 million Vietnamese soldiers and 58,183 American soldiers were killed during the war that ended on 27 January 1973, not to mention the 4 million civilians (about 10% of Vietnam's population), 3,000 Australian and other nationality's soldiers wounded or killed. Currently there are still at least 300,000 Vietnamese and Americans listed as MIA. Walking the streets of this country today, though, you would have no idea that only 30 years ago it was completely war-torn. Our last day in Ho Chi Minh City was spent delving into this history.
The massive Reunification Palace was our first stop. The original building was constructed in 1868 as a residence for the French governor-general of the time, and then passed over to the South Vietnamese president when the French occupation of Vietnam ended. In 1962, the building was bombed by the Presidents own air force in an unsuccessful attempt to kill him, simply because they hated him so much. A new (the current) residence was built on the same site and named Independence Palace until the war ended and the country became a whole.
Only one word can describe the building and grounds: Extravagant. The rooms are huge and plentiful, the gardens are pristine and the bunker network is quite extensive. It just goes to show what a lot of power and money can get you...
Following this, we made our way to the War Remnants Museum. Now this is a war museum if I ever saw one! It's not very often that you get to see photos of dead civilians, executions, deformed babies and pure cruelty all under one roof. And this place has it all. It's quite shocking to see some of the atrocities the Vietnamese people endured.
On the way back to the hotel, we had lunch at a restuarant in which the menu had no English and so we simply had to point and hope for the best. The meals turned out to be ok :) That evening was the night of our departure on an overnight train to the seaside town of Nha Trang on the east coast. Our group met at 6pm ready to head to the train station, however our team leader had not organised any transportation for us and so we had to wait for about half and hour for him to flag down enough taxis to take us there. This is just the start of our list of problems with our so-called "guide" but I will not dwell too much on that aspect of our trip.

Photos:
1. In the War Remnants Museum - i want this flag!
2. A Vietnamese man falling to his death after being pushed out of an American helicopter
3. An American soldier holding the corpse of a Vietnamese man
4. They said it...
5. The Reunification Palace
6. The front lawn
7. Waiting for taxis...