Ho Chi Minh city (Siagon)

James and I are currently on our way to Phnom Penh on Cambodia as we finish up our time in Vietnam. We spent about two days in Ho Chi Minh city and it was a great way to Vietnam on. A huge very modern city that has stretches that look like any city in the US (and stretches that look very foreign).

The first day we went to the war museum here. It's a really great and disturbing museum they plays like a US war crimes museum. It has photos from both sides military photographers. It also goes into detail about where we bombed, civilians killed, where agent Orange (and agent blue, white, green etc) were used and the long term effects that those chemical weapons had on both the environment and the Vietnamese people. There is a section about how north Vietnamese prisoners were treated.... Not great.
But comically enough, the South Vietnamese were almost never mentioned and the few times they were it was "South Vietnamese puppets".

We also explored the city and went to the bar on top Bitexco Finical tower, which looks lifted from a sci Fi movie.

The next day we went to the Cu Chi tunnels. A tunnel system that spanned the country and allowed the viet Kong to move unnoticed. Tour was not great but tunnels were interesting. They also had some odd subtext, where immediately after being shown all the traps used to kill soldiers, and being shown all the bunkers they would shoot out from... We were brought to a firing range and pressured to pay to shoot some AK 47s.

Vietnam has been great and super easy to get around in. The national language is essentially Englis and everyone spoke it.