When I was writing the post on Hanoi, I realized that I would have to save some of my hyperbole about Vietnamese cities for the post on Saigon. The two big cities in Vietnam have some similarities. They are both marked by the Vietnam War and they both feature clouds of motorbikes zipping through their streets. Beyond these general similarities, however, the two cities feel very different. Where Hanoi feels like a European city with cafes on every corner and relatively short buildings, Saigon has wider streets with even more motorbikes and taller buildings with more neon. I prefer the smaller scale of Hanoi but Saigon has a little more hustle and bustle which can be fun.

Our time in Saigon was mostly spent visiting museums and sites related to the American War (as they call it). The first place we visited was the American War Crimes Museum. Oops, sorry, that’s the old name. I mean the War Remnants Museum. The remnants mentioned are mostly American vehicles parked in the front, including a Huey helicopter, a few tanks, and a couple airplanes. The bottom floor is an exhibit dedicated to world peace, something that was probably not on the minds of the North Vietnamese until after they had successfully conquered the non-Communists in the South.

There are several exhibits in the museum other than the extensive collection of posters promoting peace (after the revolution is over, of course). The one that was most interesting to me was on journalism during the war. It focused on the role that photographers played in bringing images of the war to the outside world. Though we didn’t watch The Killing Fields until we were in Cambodia, I think that’s the image that most of us have of war journalists: charging into the muddy and bloody battlefield, seeking the truth at the risk of life and limb. This exhibit didn’t do much to dispel that fairly romantic depiction, though it did include sobering bios of some of the photographers that were killed in the field. You have to be a little insane to put yourself into a position like that. The images that came out of that insanity are fairly spectacular, though. There was also a couple of bios of some of the female journalists that ended up dead, continuing Vietnam’s laudable habit of featuring females in their historical narratives.

The final exhibit in the War Remnant’s Museum is on the consequence of the American usage of Agent Orange, a highly toxic defoliant chemical that has left its impact on both Vietnamese and Americans who were exposed to it during the war. Fun fact, in case you didn’t know already, it was brought to us by our infamous friends at Monsanto. The exhibit included a lot of pictures and biographies of the various victims of Agent Orange’s dioxin contamination. They range from mild retardation to some horrific birth defects that only allow the afflicted child to live for a few days after birth. The images and the stories were depressing but not nearly as depressing as the response from the American government. There has been a complete absence of support for the clean-up of the residual chemicals in the soil and for the care of those whose lives were significantly impacted. The only support came in the last two years (NY times article). In 2012, the US finally created a four-year, $43 million program to clean the dioxin from the soil. For those who know about government programs, that really isn’t that much money. I know that sounds ridiculous, to say that $43 millions isn’t that much, but on the federal scale that’s a fairly small budget for a four-year project that is so sorely needed.

We also toured the Cu Chi tunnels just outside the city, which brought a lot less emotional strife than the exhibits in the War Remnants Museum. Learning more about how the war actually happened also helped bring home the fact that it wasn’t just the US versus the North Vietnamese. There was an entire army in the south that was fighting too, albeit a little haphazardly. It wasn’t a civil war but an invasion.

So here’s the recipe for my emotional relationship with the Vietnamese war:

1 cup Exhibit with the photos from My Lai in the journalism exhibit
2 cups Guilty resentment from the Hanoi Hilton depiction of American POWs
1 teaspoon of Cu Chi tunnels

Stir in a smattering of a slight case of travel delirium and let it bake while walking around on the streets of Hanoi and Saigon.

End result? I think I’ve made peace with it, at least within myself. This doesn’t mean that I’ve absolved the US of responsibility for the bad things that we did in Vietnam, or the fact that we avoided the problem of Agent Orange for forty years. I think it’s more about accepting history for what it is and moving forward with the knowledge that it provides.

On a less emotional note, we did have some good, angst-free times in Saigon. We met up with Wayne, the good friend of Marisa’s cousin Alan who recently moved to Saigon. He was nice enough to show us around a bit and share his favorite watering hole. Overall we enjoyed our time in Saigon but it didn’t really resonate with us as strongly as Hanoi did. It was too big and too busy to have the same comfortable feeling. Hanoi felt more like Brooklyn while Saigon felt more like Manhattan, if that makes sense. It was still nice to spend time in a city after those many weeks in Laos. It would also be our last big city for a little while.