First full day in Ho Chi Minh City

Ho Chi Minh City, Day 46

So it's a new day, and we've had a pretty good sleep. The bed was comfy (but it does squeak a bit when you move!) and there was not much noise or disruption from our neighbours or from outside the apartment. We get showered, ready and have a light breakfast before we set off to discover some of Ho Chi Minh City.

It's about 9.30 by the time we leave the apartment, and although it's a Saturday, the streets are already quite busy with traffic and scooters. On the way to our first stop, I'm aware of some of the interesting styles of buildings and the architecture. There is also a lot of strewn rubbish, unfinished roads, uneven sidewalks and pavements. As well as the general rubbish, there is a lot of construction work and debris about too. This is quite different to what we have seen in Thailand, where there seems to be far more people employed in cleaning and sweeping areas. It's a shame as it does spoil some lovely areas.

War Remnants Museum

So the first place that we wanted to visit today was the War Remnants Museum, as it wasn't too far away from where we are located. Anyone who knows R knows that he's a bit of a history buff, and I knew that this museum would be of interest to him.

Before getting into the actual museum part, there are several planes and tanks, and R was able to tell me lots of facts and information about most of the displayed items (not that I can remember any of them to include here - oops!), including the model ones he had as a youngster.

The Vietnam War (historical background from Wikipedia, if you are not familiar with this).

Inside the museum, there are 3 floors with lots of photos, exhibits and stories about the damage and horrors of the Vietnam War and the impact on all those involved in the conflict.

It was a very sad and moving experience to see and read about the atrocities, death and damage that were caused during this war. You think that we have moved on and nothing like this should ever happen again, but I'm not so sure that is the case when wars are on-going currently. It was humbling and sad, but I think it was important and worth visiting to remind oneself of this.

After this, we were making our way to a shopping mall (as these seem to be our respite areas from the heat), but we knew that we would pass the Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica of Saigon, which is a cathedral located in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica

Sadly the cathedral is currently under renovation works at the moment, so it was not open for visitors but we managed to get some idea of it from the outside.

The cathedral was established by French colonists who initially named it the Church of Saigon the cathedral was constructed between 1863 and 1880. The name Notre-Dame Cathedral has been used since 1959. It has two bell towers, reaching a height of 58 meters.

Following the French conquest of Cochinchina and Saigon, the Roman Catholic Church established a community and religious services for French colonialists. All the building materials were imported from France. The outside wall of the cathedral was built with bricks from Toulouse. Construction of the church began in 1877, and it took three years to complete.

In 1895, two bell towers were added to the cathedral, each 57.6 m high, with six bronze bells with a total weight of 28.85 metric tonnes. The crosses were installed on the top of each tower of 3.5 m high, 2 m wide, 600 kg in weight. The total height of the cathedral to the top of the Cross is 60.5 m.

In 1959, Bishop Joseph Pham Van Thien, whose jurisdiction included Saigon parish, attended the Marian Congress held in the Vatican and ordered a statue of Our Lady of Peace made of granite in Rome. When the statue arrived in Saigon on 16 February 1959, Bishop Pham Van Thien held a ceremony to install the statue on the empty base and presented the title of "Regina Pacis". It was the same bishop who wrote the prayers "Notre-Dame bless the peace to Vietnam". The next day, Cardinal Agagianian came from Rome to chair the closing ceremony of the Marian Congress and solemnly chaired the ceremony for the statue. From that point, the church was called Notre-Dame Cathedral.

In 1960, Pope John XXIII erected Roman Catholic dioceses in Vietnam and assigned archbishops to Hanoi, Huế and Saigon. The cathedral was titled Saigon Chief Cathedral. In 1962, Pope John XXIII anointed the Saigon Chief Cathedral and conferred it the status of a basilica. From this time, this cathedral was called Saigon Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica.

During October 2005, the statue was reported to have shed tears, attracting thousands of people and forcing authorities to stop traffic around the cathedral. However, the top clergy of the Catholic Church in Vietnam could not confirm that the Virgin Mary statue in front of a cathedral had shed tears, but that failed to disperse the crowd flocking to the statue days after the incident. The reported "tear" flowed down the right cheek of the face of the statue.

Central Post Office

The central post office building is very close to the cathedral. The building was constructed when Vietnam was part of French Indochina in the late 19th century. It has Gothic, Renaissance and French influences and was constructed between 1886 and 1891. It is now a tourist attraction.

It was designed by Alfred Foulhoux, but is often erroneously credited as being the work of Gustave Eiffel or a collaboration between Foulhoux and Hanoi-based Auguste Henri Vildieu.

On the outside wall of the post office there are several plaques commemorating important scientists and engineers, who contributed to the development of the communication technologies of the time. These include Morse, Ampere, Volta, Ohm, and Faraday.

Inside the Saigon Central Post office of special note are two painted maps that were created just after the post office was built, the first one located on the left side of the building is a map of Southern Vietnam and Cambodia titled Lignes telegraphiques du Sud Vietnam et Cambodge 1892 ("Telegraphic lines of Southern Vietnam and Cambodia 1892").

The second map of greater Saigon is titled Saigon et ses environs 1892 ("Saigon and its surroundings 1892").

Vincom Centre

For lunch, we decide to head to the Vincom Centre, which is a shopping mall and where we think we can get something to eat, respite from the heat and access to nice air conditioning and have a toilet break.

First off, this shopping mall is not really a shopping mall by Thailand standards. It does have quite a number of shops and restaurants but it's very busy and feels a bit too cramped for our likes. However, we are quite hungry so we find a bakery restaurant place and get some items and drinks and that does us for lunch.

Book Street

After walking about the "shopping mall" for a bit and picking up some grocery items, we started to make our way back to the apartment. We are pretty much following the route we originally took with a few deviations to try and find slightly more friendly pedestrian crossing areas (as opposed to taking our lives in our hands trying to cross the roads). Close by to the cathedral and the central post office, we discover "Book Street", which is a lovely little street full of book shops, cafes and souvenir shops. It has a lovely ambience and we decide to have a little coffee and Pepsi break in one of the lovely little cafes.

Diamond Plaza

Not long after leaving the Book Street, we see another store type place and decide to investigate it. Well this was a good find indeed. Diamond Plaza is a luxury department store with lots of brands, but it also has office space, serviced apartments and a number of restaurants. The best thing of all.... the best air conditioning we have found so far!

So after sussing out this store, which has a great rooftop area, we then decided to just have something for dinner in here. When I say we, I mean R because I was pretty full up from my large iced coffee, chocolate and cream (loads of thick cream!) drink that I'd just had in the book cafe!

So he got a signature beef noodle soup dish, and it was really delicious! And yes, of course, I did have a little taste....

We passed a few other interesting places that we plan on checking out but that was us pretty much done for the day, we'd been out most of the day, done over 20K in steps and covered 8 miles!

Back in the apartment and R has come up with a solution for the unsecured Wi-Fi issue - he uses a travel router that he had bought and brought with us to be able to act as a 'repeater', so that it can take the unsecured signal and make it a secure signal. Don't ask me how this all works, but he set up a new network and password for us, and we were able to log into our new secured Wi-Fi, which uses the apartment's original wi-fi signal. That is his top tip for me to pass on to you in this blog - buy a travel router (though not much use for cruises as they have cottoned onto this and banned them from being used there!).

Our travel router came in very handy and works perfectly to secure our Wi-Fi connection.

So, all in all, it was a much better day today. We saw some interesting places and sights, had some delicious food and drinks, and more importantly, we resolved the worrying Wi-Fi issue, so things are looking good....but can our luck continue?......

Rough route plan for today

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

4 January 2025