Saigon is a vibrant city compared to Hanoi. Hanoi has 4 million inhabitants while Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) has 9 million with 3 million motor scooters and motor bike. In addition, Saigon has hundreds of luxury automobiles, many high rises and a greater sense of wealth. We arrived at our hotel around 11 AM, unpacked and had a nice lunch at an American Catina...I stayed with my VN food. Our next activity was a cyclobike tour provided by Intrepid Travel which took us around the city center and the main attractions. Within an hour, we had a good sense of where we were, what to see and how to get back to the hotel. A cyclobike has a carriage located at the front of the bike with the bike's power provided by a hired pedaler. The rule of thumb is that the larger the passenger, the smaller the pedaler....my pedaler weighted about 120 lbs....see pictures of our group. It was quite exciting rolling in and out of traffic with every sort of vehicle whizzing by you as you moved along at a sped of about 5 mph.
My first stop after the cyclobike tour was the palace from the Presidential Palace otherwise known as the Independence Palace. The one picture shows the front gate of the Palace....the 2nd picture shows a pair of North Vietnamese tanks crashing though the gate as the South Vietnamese shown in the attached pictures. In the basement was a war room command center ….pictures show a tactical map, force allotments and radio equipment used during the VN conflict. The final part of viewing the building was a video summarizing the VN war....to the victor goes the right to present history.
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