Garuda Airlines services the Vietnam flights from Jakarta. Our departure was only 30 minutes late. With a short stop-over in Singapore, we were on our way to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). Jakarta-Singapore (1.5 hours); Singapore-HCMC was about 3 hours. Going through Vietnam customs was a breeze.

$10 got me an airport cab to my hotel downtown (4 miles; 20 minutes). Wow! What a beautiful city!

Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) and Saigon are the same city. The rough history lesson goes like this:
1) Cambodian hamlet for 1,000 years or so under the name “Prey Nokor” (meaning “forest city”). In 1620s, the local ruler allowed Vietnamese refugees to enter. Their numbers swelled and by 1698, Vietnamese (from the kingdom of Hue) took over.
2) The name then changed to Sai Gon (meaning “cotton stick”) 1698-1975
3) French colonialism arrived in 1859 & “Saigon” became the capital city of Cochinchina until the French were defeated in 1954.
4) The city was officially renamed “Ho Chi Minh City” on 1 May, 1975 (one day after Vietnam War ended).

Anyways- it’s gorgeous. Wide streets, corner cafés everywhere, tree-lined boulevards and parks, ladies in flowy, traditional dresses on bicycles & walking about. French architecture & city planning is evident everywhere you look, with a funny mix of Communist flags and banners of Marx, Lenin, and Uncle Ho. Ha ha. It’s like I walked into the propaganda lot at Universal Studios. But it’s still a beautiful city.

I didn’t realize that HCMC is the largest city in Vietnam before getting here. It’s far South along the sliver of land called Vietnam, near the Mekong River delta, which separates Vietnam from Cambodia. Like Baton Rouge, it’s a port city several miles up-river from the coast (60km).

My mind is geared for comparison, so first thoughts during my taxi ride into the city were shaping up like a laundry list.

Similarities:
Scooters everywhere
Flip-flops as footware of choice for most Vietnamese
Bicycle taxis on street corners with old men drivers lounging & waiting for passengers
Small stores line the streets
Sidewalk vendors & cooks selling all sorts of snacks from shoulder-carried bamboo baskets

Differences:
Wider roads & sidewalks
Drive on the right side of the street here (steering wheel on left side of car)
Bicycle taxis for 1 instead of 2 (narrower here)
Hundreds of power lines draped together (is that safe?)
No open-air sewer system
Traditional dresses (common even in the city vs. countryside only)

Almost no-one wore helmets on their scooters here though. Indonesians wear $3 helmets to protect against police tickets more than security. (=
A very high percent wore specialized face masks (I assume to protect from air pollution). Many Indonesians wear bandanas around their face on scooters.
Ladies wore arm-length gloves (ever mindful of covering their skin from the sun & keeping as white as possible, just like Indonesia).

French architecture, city planning and influence remains prevalent. I see it in the traffic round-points (instead of stop-lights) at major intersections, public parks with fountains, and tree-lined boulevards. Corner cafés are all over, and I saw lots of Vietnamese eating BREAD!!! Sandwiches tucked into baguettes for breakfast or lunch instead of the automatic bowl of rice! (= ha ha! Ahhh, I’ve missed bread! Real bread. Then you see buildings like the Opera house, and cobble-stone streets, and it’s possible to forget for a moment that you’re not actually in France.