The Quinn Family Excellent Adventure: Goodbye Phnom Pehn, Cambodia - Hello Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam (AKA Saigon)

Sorry it's been so long since I last posted. We had a few more days in Phnom Pehn to chill out and made no major plans. Michelle and I explored the city by foot while KT enjoyed some site seeing with friends she met in her dorm. The staff and support at the Billabong hostel was awesome. http://www.thebillabonghotel.com.

We had applied for our Vietnam EVisa's about 6 days earlier. The site claimed completion in 3 days. They came in late and oh crap the arrival date was the departure date. Oopsie. Luckily we checked before printing them and heading to the airport. We were kinda freaking out looking online for a trustworthy eVisa place because our Vietnam flight and hotel was in a few days and already booked. Plus is was approaching the weekend. I was kinda freaking out as there are visa scam sites out there. We thought it would be wise to ask the hostel front desk for their advice. They showed us an advertisement for 3 different Vietnam eVisa purchasing options. Duh, I suppose it's a pretty popular Visa from this city. Our only choice was next day by 6 PM service. We simply gave them our passports and about $40 US each. Had it not been this hostel, the fishy smell would have prompted me to go in person. The next day, voila, 3 eVisa's arrived on Thursday evening. We fly the following Monday. Yes that is close.

Fortunately our taxi to the airport and flight to Vietnam went really smooth. The Vietnam check in lady made us sign a form as we had no departure flight out of the country. It looked kinda scary, kinda like they might not let us in. While waiting at the gate, we booked an exit flight with the laptop. Just in case. After a super fast flight of 1 hour we were landing in Ho Chi Minh City (AKA Saigan) I had researched Viettel to be the best Cell provider here. It's true https://www.vietteltelecom.vn/ Normally these provider have desks on the exits of the airport. These guys had a booth setup after departing the plane. This is before immigration and getting our bags. Wow. $12 US for 2GB per day towards a 60GB cap for 30 days. 3 passports were scanned, and 3 phones were sim swapped done in less than 5 minutes. OMG they were fast. With bags in hand we took a chance with one of the taxi counters before exiting the airport. $10 US to our destination. Sounds good to me. After a bit of awkward process of finding the correct location and sub contracting of the fair, we were in a car with a nice young guy who spoke no English. He used Google Maps towards out hostel and the traffic was kinda crazy. He had to spin around once and later make weird turns to avoid the one ways Google said he could cheat. As the drive got longer and longer, I reached into my pocket more to increase his tip. The guy is making much less than the $10 we paid and is now losing other rides with this longer trafficky fair. We were only 300M from the hostel it was clear he could not go further. I said don't worry, we will walk. The hostel is one of many down a skinny alleyway. To the uninitiated it looks like a pretty scary place that might end your tip and your life. In reality it's a long alleyway populated with dozens of beautiful homes and hostels.

We were soon checked into the Long Hostel https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Hostel/Long-Guesthouse-Long-Hostel-222369797850812/ These folks were fantastic. Our room was great and KT was soon connecting with cool travelers in her dorm. We had to have Pho of course and were recommended the very excellent Pho Quynh http://phoquynh.restaurantsnapshot.com/ We ate there a bunch of times lol. Saigon is a big city so it took a while to be accustomed to the busyness and traffic. Although there are few traffic lights and many scooter, there is again much mindfulness with the drivers. Crossing traffic is easy if you commit to a direction and speed. Don't get all squirly or you will be honked at.

After goofing off for a few days we booked a Food Tour with Saigon Adventure. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g293925-d8599407-Reviews-Saigon_Adventure-Ho_Chi_Minh_City.html What a blast. We learned quite a bit while being whisked around multiple local sites. We walked to the very beautiful Vietnam Fine Arts Museum https://vnfam.vn/en/

A few days later we did the "Half-Day Small-Group Ho Chi Minh City Tour"
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g293925-d7194403-Reviews-Ginkgo_Voyage_Private_Day_Tours-Ho_Chi_Minh_City.html

It was pretty cool as we saw the following:

Notre Dame Cathedral
http://btgcp.gov.vn/Plus.aspx/vi/News/38/0/245/0/2232/Nha_tho_Duc_Ba_thanh_pho_Ho_Chi_Minh
Saigon Post Office
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saigon_Central_Post_Office
Reunification Palace
https://www.dinhdoclap.gov.vn/
War Remnants Museum
http://www.baotangchungtichchientranh.vn/Main.aspx?L=VN
Jade Emperor Pagoda
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jade_Emperor_Pagoda

During the War Remnants Museum, we found an important plaque.

I found it's source from this:
Prevent the Crime of Silence
Reports from the sessions of the International War Crimes Tribunal
founded by Bertrand Russell
https://big-lies.org/vietnam-war-crimes/russell-vietnam-war-crimes-tribunal-1967.html

"From the foregoing it follows that the United States bears the responsibility for the use of force in Vietnam and that it has in consequence committed a crime of aggression against that country, a crime against peace. It has therefore violated the provisions of International Law outlawing the use of force in international relations, in particular the Pact of Paris of 1928, the so-called Briand-Kellogg Pact, of which it was, however, the author, and the United Nations Charter {180} (Article 2, para. 4). This violation of the general principles has been accompanied by violation of the special agreements relating to the territory in question, Vietnam - that is to say, the Geneva Agreements of July 1954. In acting thus, the United States has undeniably committed a crime against peace within the meaning of Article 6 of the Statute of Nuremberg, a provision sanctioned by international jurisprudence (Judgements of Nuremberg and Tokyo) and acknowledged as international law by the unanimous resolution of the United Nations of 11 December 1946. The United States has furthermore committed a crime against the fundamental rights of the people of Vietnam."

It's very interesting that withing days of these experiences, we met Brian Roesch who was staying at Long Hostel as well. A retired lawyer with some military experience, he has been pouring his love into this soon to be released book: "Corporate Tsunami In Countryside Paradise" https://briandroesch.com/

We listened to him more than we talked, brilliant guy with much to share about corporate influence on the war. Brian indicated Noam Chomsky reviewed his book and gave it's his blessing. Can't wait until it's released.

Before the Jade Emperor Pagoda, we stopped at a tourist trap so we had a nice bathroom lol. This trap was kinda nice actually. Wonderful art made with mother of pearl, egg shells and lacquer. The Jade Emperor Pagoda was kinda busy with the Lunar New Year ramping up. In fact, Saigon is transforming everywhere in preparation for a really big celebration. It's cleaner than usual and the parkland is full of flowers and orange trees for sale. It's going to be crazy here soon. As we are heading to Hoian next, it's going to be a little quieter, maybe :-)

A huge restaurant on the water