Day 3 - Saigon Death March Part II

Dawn and I dragged our hot and sore feet across the road from Luna to a large airconditioned department store. After spending the last 24 hours in the poorer older part of town it was a bit of a culture shock to be somewhere where they sold designer home wares and children's toys. We popped into a convenience store (who made us put our gear into lockers before entry) and picked up some staples for the train trip tonight like Pringles and cod fish snacks.

We brave faces and girded loins we headed in the direction of the Java Coffee lounge to sample some good coffee but alas we could not take a step further than the French patisserie across the road from the Municipal Theatre. Delirium from the heat was setting in and I caused a small scene when I threatened Dawn with a butter knife if she did not eat the rest of my cake. Bravely she refused and I was forced to eat it myself.



Dawn tried the Vietnamese coffee (she reports it was incredibly strong) and the Honey, coconut tart. I had a decaf and the Opera cake, a layered chocolate and sponge creation. Keeping in mind this was a really swanky upmarket place we spent 32,000VND each on afternoon tea and airconditioning.

We struggled on, feet screaming, sweat dripping, eyes sunken. We had two goals to complete before dinner. The first was to go to the Reunification Palace and the second was to have a beer at the rooftop bar on the top of the Rex hotel.


We made it to the Palace in entirely the wrong frame of mind. All we wanted to do was sit down and rest our swollen feet and all we got was room after room of old presidential furniture (I swear there was a 1950's Parker sideboard in one room).

It wasn't until the end of the rooms, corridors and equipment with "do not touch" signs that we came to a room with a photographic history of the palace with brief translated phrases under each one. There was a picture of the bombed out palace with the original French colonial facade, there was a picture of the tanks as they were smashing down the wrought iron gates and churning up the manicured front lawn, there was the helicopter on the roof plucking people to safety and there was the Buddhist monk self immolating in protest against the war.




I had deliberately avoided going to the War Remnants Museum. Previous visits to the relatively tame Australian War Memorial had left me disturbed and depressed for days so it was with some trepidation that I looked on the picture of a village of dead Vietnamese peasants laying in a road. What stood out most were the dead naked babies tossed on top of the piles of adults. The simple words below explained this was the result of the Americans offensive on the village. We had to sit for some time on the front lawn of the palace (not far from the gates where the tanks had come through) to digest what we had seen and gather the last of our strength before hitting the Rex.

Our tottering steps were on razor blades and the pain was almost as bad as seeing that on top of charging 33,000VND a beer, they had 10% VAT (GST) and 5% service charge. Still we grabbed a brew and a plate of mixed fruits (Dragon Fruit, pomplemousse (sp), papaya, watermelon and a mystery fruit that may or may not have been milk apple but was tongue curlingly sweet) for 44,000VDN. I paid for it all with a 500,000VND just so I got my money's worth from the change.