AllieMark:
Saigon from the air - this is a BIG city of about 11M residents - more people live here than in all of Laos, and nearly as many as in Cambodia
AllieMark:
Saigon traffic - it's a bit unwieldy, but at least they stop for red lights (unlike Hanoi, where our guide acknowledged drivers stop only for police, not lights)
AllieMark:
Looking outside the restaurant at our first real rain of the trip - it poured for nearly an hour
AllieMark:
View of the Opera House from our hotel room - a music festival was taking place, and at 6AM the blaring music began
AllieMark:
The former Presidential Palace of South Vietnam - when the gates here were crashed in April '75, the south surrendered and the war effectively ended
AllieMark:
Replica of the tank that crashed the gates - we saw the actual tank in the Army Museum in Hanoi
AllieMark:
School kids standing around an American-provided fighter that flew under the South Vietnamese flag (on the tail, now X-ed out)
AllieMark:
The facade of the Presidential Palace - built in the 60's, it definitely takes its architectural cues from that era - these pillars are meant to look like bamboo
AllieMark:
Don and Ann viewing the fountain in front of the Palace, and beyond it the gate that was crashed ending the war
AllieMark:
Our guide Viet describes an impressive wood-paneled painting while Don and Allie look on
AllieMark:
Don, Ann, and our guide Viet at the train-station looking post office in central Saigon
AllieMark:
Don, Allie and Ann in front of the Notre Dame Cathedral, across the street from the post office in central Saigon
AllieMark:
When you are the only Security Join Venture, you also get to be the first and the leading one...
AllieMark:
Our hotel (Hotel Continental) on the left, and the Opera House on the right - this was the setting for Graham Green's The Quiet American
