Xin chào Vietnam!

Typical Saigon scooter traffic by night

Hello everyone! This is not a real blog post, more a collection of pictures from my first few days in Ho Chi Minh City (aka Saigon).

First: why the two names?

Ho Chi Minh City is the largest city in Vietnam, and was the former capital of South Vietnam until the end of the war in 1975. When Saigon fell and Vietnam reunified under the former Northern government, it was renamed in honor of the revolutionary leader, prime minister, and president of North Vietnam Ho Chi Minh, who died in 1969.

Although these two names originate from opposite sides of a bloody and traumatic war, they peacefully coexist in modern Ho Chi Minh City. People I met freely use both, often preferring Saigon in conversation because it's easier to say. Even the airport code is "SGN", while signs welcome you to Ho Chi Minh City upon your arrival.

Ho Chi Minh City is a vibrant place, each block crammed with things to look at. A rapidly changing city, the old is interwoven with the new. There are glittering skyscrapers towering over old french colonial buildings, women selling hot pho from stainless steel food carts two doors down from chic lamplit restaurants, and air-conditioned glass-walled Zaras just a few blocks from bustling clothing markets.

So far everything I've eaten here has been amazing, to say nothing of the sweet, thick Vietnamese iced coffee available on every corner. Many small restaurants open onto the street, and at mealtimes the sidewalks are filled with diners gathered at low tables to eat, smoke, and just hang out - especially when the sun goes down.

I'll have more to say later! I'm heading South to the Mekong Delta today, where I hope to get a better sense of shrimp aquaculture practices in the region.

One of the central squares near the river, ringed with skyscrapers

Two women rest beside a park. HCM is a very green city, a blessing in the heat

Stylish mom and baby

An old French church under repairs

Bánh xèo, a yummy pancake filled with bean sprouts and shrimp

^These are a few shots from the Southern Vietnamese Women's Museum. Only one exhibit was open when I went, but it was so large and full of information that I didn't really notice.

The exhibit detailed the political activities of South Vietnamese women in the Vietnam war period. There were spies, diplomats, guerrilla fighters, protestors, soldiers, dissenters, journalists, and martyrs, represented by photographs, text, and sometimes artifacts.

The sheer amount of text in the exhibit meant that I ended up walking through and reading only a random subset of the stories. Upon reflection, I think that was part of the particular power of it. Seeing how much I missed even within the museum made me keenly aware of how many stories like these made up the war, the countless others that didn't even make it onto a laminated plaque.