Cyclos and war

We ate lunch at pho 2000, where Pres. Clinton ate when he visited Vietnam. They have pictures of him all around and have placed a table cloth on the table, marking the spot where he ate! We ate at that table.

In the afternoon, we took a cyclo tour....such fun! Cyclos are bicycles with a seat on the front for the passenger. I have never seen such bigger smiles, we were all having such fun!

Our first stop was the war remnants museum. You start out in the 'truths' room, which is a series of photos from photojournalists. The next building showed the pictures pa the children affected by agent orange. Unbelievably horrific.

While clearly, the museum has a point of view of the north Vietnamese, these pictures were taken....and while it might not be the entire truth of all the horrible things that happened....at the same time, what you see in the pictures happened.

The final major building was the peace building which shows pictures from the protests around the world during that time. However it seemed to me that the American protests weren't really represented in this building and I found that frustrating.

Our next stop was Reunification palace. This was one of the buildings during the fall of saigon that the helicopters were taking people off the building. It's not used for official purposes really anymore. They've kept all the decor of the sixties there.....it really reminded me of the Kennedy center in feel!

Our final stop was the post office. The arches of the building were done by the same architect that did the eiffel tower. Across the way, there was notre dame cathedral. The statue of the virgin mary is in front. They said that the cracks that appeared on her face looked liked she was crying. However the statue was repaired.

One of the funniest moments was when a school girl asked Manuel if he wanted to buy a rose. He said no. She then asked him if he had a girlfriend. He said no. So she pulled out a pack of gum and said you should buy this and then maybe you will! Genius!

Last evening we ate at an outdoor restaurant at the market. I had some fabulous BBQ meat rolls that you wrap in rice paper. Very local and exactly the sort of thing I was looking for! We finished the evening at an ice cream parlor that looked like more of a bar.....very chic!

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile