On Tuesday, February 25, we spent the day touring Saigon. We went to the Reunification Palace, a Chinese Buddhist temple (Thien Hau), and a huge local market.
The Reunification Palace is really the place that the President lived before Communism took over. They sealed all the rooms as they were when the President lived there. Now it is just a museum for tourist walk around, look into the rooms and imagine the life of the president in the 60s. Kinda like Monticello, only the palace looks more like the Kennedy Center and all the furniture is covered in gold colored cloth. The first lady was a looker and she was loved by her people like we loved Jackie O. I think the tour guide said after the war, she and the president relocated to California and then divorced.
The Buddhist temple was very smoky. They burn incense to send their prayers and good wishes to the spirits, who were your ancestors (I am oversimplifying of course.) If you wish to be blessed by the spirits, you could buy incense from the temple and light it. Some incense would burn for 7 days. They would write the prayer on the incense hanger and as it burned, your prayer would be heard by the spirits. They also had live birds you could buy and set free who would take your prayers to the spirits. I bought one and as I released it, I prayed that this bird would never be caught again.
The local market was so overwhelming that I just followed the tour guide around. Imagine a huge indoor farmers market the size of a city block that has hundreds of 10 by 10 stalls, very narrow walkways and an odd smell. It was so big that there were 14 entrances. All the outer edge booths were run by the government. The prices are set and the staff wear uniforms and name tags. The inner booths are run by independent owners who (according to our guide) make up a price based on how rich you look. However, I saw some booths with price tags and no one seemed to charge over the government store prices. There may be some propaganda there against free market but the people seem happy running their own shops.
We are jet lagged and are going to skip dinner to sleep.
Sounds interesting!!
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