A Day In The Life

Saigon, Vietnam, Day 5

On my last day in Ho Chi Minh City, I went out to the War Remnants Museum. The museum was pretty incredible with planes and tons of pictures and information about the Vietnam War. There were propaganda posters all over the first floor and upstairs was the Agent Orange room and War History sections. One poster said, “My son died in vain, don’t fight, go to prison”. Reading all the posters and looking at the pictures of all the dead and bloodied bodies in Vietnam was really awful, but the Agent Orange room was the most unbelievable. It showed tons of children with defects resulting from the chemicals. I couldn’t believe some of these children with missing body parts were my age. The war and Agent Orange tragedy is still ongoing in Vietnam with more and more children being born to parents and grandparents that were exposed to the chemical. It was truly eye-opening.

When we left the museum I looked around the city a bit more and then decided to head to the ship. On the way back to the ship I was talking to the cab driver and asking him if he had grown up in Ho Chi Minh City. He quickly corrected me by calling the city Saigon. I thought that was interesting and I really wished I had known to refer to the city as Saigon earlier on in my travels throughout Vietnam. That was my last day in Vietnam, and then it was off to Hong Kong!