We awoke to partly cloudy skies and docked at the port leading to Saigon or officially known as Ho Chi Minh City. Most everyone that we met called it by the old name of Saigon.
It is the largest city in Vietnam and located all the way
down at the southern part of the country and is intertwined with a lot of
rivers and canals. This is also where
the infamous Mekong Delta is. There are
nine million people in the city.
It took us about 1 ½ hours by Celebrity bus to reach the
city and we were dropped off in the heart of the city. Our impression of the city is that it is not
very clean; however, the people were very nice.
We took a taxi to the Presidential Palace. It took about 20 minutes and only cost
$1.30! Taxis are really cheap in
Vietnam. Most of the people simply
walked around and saw the Palace; however, we had found out that for $8 each,
we could have a private guide which we did for an hour tour.
After that tour, we went to the Vietnam War Museum and it
was a very emotional experience. They correctly
depicted America’s action in this war and had dreadful pictures and information
about Agent Orange, the most deadly chemical ever dropped on a
civilization. It brought home to us
once again how wrong the Vietnam War was and how badly America performed. In all the cities, the people did not blame
us for the tragedy of the war, they blame our government at that time.
We had a great lunch at a local restaurant and then went to
the big Catholic Church; however, it was closed so our next stop was the huge
market that they have in the city. We
could have spent a couple of hours just walking through it – but we didn’t have
that much time. We bought some “stuff”
and also a Mango drink.
We also had some great street food including a donut like pastry
that was displayed on the head of the vendor – a great taste.
Following the market visit, we walked about 8 blocks to
where the bus picked us up to take us back to the ship. We felt like we were in a movie called “6
hours in Saigon”
We arrived at 6:00pm, took showers and went to the show which
was a great performance by the Celebrity singers and dancers and we really
enjoyed it.
Then we went to dinner and then to the casino where Barb won
nicely and Ed also won. If this was the
last night of the cruise we would gladly take home these winnings – so wish us
luck.
Tomorrow we get to relax again with a sea day and we are looking
forward to it.
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| The communications room |
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| Lunch |
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| Buying a snack |
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| Cooking lunch on the street |
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Barb buying Kahula - very cheap!!
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The Presidents bedroom
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