January 27,2025

We woke to fog…

…Milind brought us breakfast and we were off the ship at just about 10:00am

One of the best features of private tours…setting our own time frame and pace…

.
.
.

So here we have a child switching scooters at a traffic light

.

According to Hai, there’s hardly any traffic because lots of residents have left the city to return home for the New Year.

Our first stop was the Presidential Palace…now known as Reunification Hall.

The Presidential Palace was made famous when two North Vietnamese tanks broke through on April 30, 1975…heralding the end of the war.

The Palace has remained largely unchanged since 1975.

.

We visited various rooms including reception, conference and dining rooms.

.

Timmy struck up a conversation with this man, he’s a US citizen living in San Diego…he came back to his birthplace in Saigon for the Lunar New Year.

.
.

This is an outdoor space in the center of the building.

.
.
.
.

Folks were evacuated from the Palace in the last days of the war.

.

The game room

Looking out from a second floor balcony. The wide Avenue was intended to mimic the Champs Elysees.

.
.

Frangipani tree

Visiting the palace was emotional for me…listening to Hai’s description of Vietnamese history and events leading up to the war. …The war’s end …resulting in essentially wiping out his country (South Vietnam)…reminded me of all the senseless deaths and took me back to that time in the late sixties and early seventies. Two quotes: “We weren’t on the wrong side; we were the wrong side.” D. Ellsberg. And: “War does not determine who is right- only who is left.” Bertrand Russell.

After a stroll through the park, we toured a lacquer factory.

We spent a very interesting half an hour learning how Vietnamese lacquerware is made.

.

That’s mother of pearl

.
.
.
.
.
.

Duck egg shells are also used in the process

.
.
.
.
.

Towards the end of the process the pieces are dipped here.

Since reunification the art of making lacquerware was slowly dying out…but recently the government has given financial support and encouragement to local businesses to continue the tradition.

.

After our lacquerware tour we landed at a truly wonderful restaurant.

I’m going to share a few photos here…but this lunch was so special….it requires a blog post of its own.

First of all, the restaurant is visually beautiful and the cooking aromas can’t be described.

.

These are various food prep and cooking stations…we’ve never seen anything quite like it.

.

This pancake is flat out the best thing I tasted in Vietnam. Beyond yummy.

So I’ll leave you here in hopes that you will check back…in a day or two for the next episode of Tim and Kathie in Saigon. It’s been a real challenge updating the blog, because Starlink is not available in so many places throughout SE Asia. Anyway…Thanks for following along. ♥️