Vietnam - The Rough Guide to Southeast Asia on a Budget - page 895

some religious sights too, most notably
the Jade Emperor Pagoda .

kitsch. Most interesting is the third floor,
with its presidential library, projection
room and entertainment lounge, as well
as rooftop nightclub and helipad. he
basement served as the former command
centre and displays archaic radio
equipment and vast, strategic wall maps;
here you can watch a video about the
palace's history.

The Ho Chi Minh City Museum
Of all the stones of empire thrown up in
Vietnam by the French during their rule,
few are more eye-catching than the
former Gia Long Palace , 65 Ly Tu Trong,
built in 1886. Ngo Dinh Diem - the
president of the Republic of South
Vietnam - decamped here in 1962, and
it was in the tunnels under the building
that he spent his last hours of o ce,
before fleeing to the church in Cho Lon,
and meeting his death nearby. Nowadays,
it houses the Ho Chi Minh City Museum
(daily 8am-5pm; 20,000VND;
W hcmc-museum.edu.vn), which traces
the history of the city. he ground floor
focuses on archeology and the
environment, and there's also a gallery
dedicated to HCMC's ethnic
communities. Displays devoted to
anti-French and anti-American resistance
in the twentieth century take up all of the
upstairs section.

The War Remnants Museum
he War Remnants Museum at 28 Vo Van
Tan (daily 7.30am-noon & 1.30-5pm;
20,000VND) is the city's most significant
museum and one that relentlessly drives
home the message that war is brutal and
ultimately it's the civilians who suffer
terribly. In Vietnam's case, out of its
three million dead, two thirds were
non-combatants. A series of halls present
a hard-hitting portfolio of photographs of
mutilation, napalm burns, torture and
massacres. One gallery details the effects
of the 75 million litres of defoliant sprays
dumped across the country; another
displays photographs of victims of Agent
Orange; another still looks at
international opposition to the war as
well as the American peace movement.
here's also a moving exhibition of
children's artwork and an excellent
display of war photographs taken by the
countless photojournalists who lost their
lives working during the French and
American wars. On display in the
courtyard outside are a 28-tonne
howitzer, a ghoulish collection of bomb
parts and a renovated Douglas Skyraider
plane. he museum rounds off with a
grisly mock-up of the “tiger cages”, the
prison cells of Con Son Island in which
Viet Cong prisoners were held.

11

The Reunification Palace
A red flag billows proudly above the
Reunification Palace (135 Nam Ky Khoi
Nghia; daily 7.30am-noon & 1.30-5pm;
30,000VND), which occupies the site of
the Norodom Palace, a colonial mansion
erected in 1871 to house the governor-
general of Indochina. With the French
departure in 1954, Ngo Dinh Diem
commandeered this extravagant
monument as his presidential palace, but
after the February 1962 assassination
attempt by his own air force, it was
pulled down. he palace, known as
Independence Palace, was reconstructed
in 1966, and remained the home and
o ce of the president. On April 30,
1975, a North Vietnamese tank stormed
the palace's gates, an act which became
the defining moment in the fall of
Saigon; it was renamed Reunification
Hall. A replica of the tank stands just
inside the entrance and serves as an
imposing reminder of the victory.
Spookily unchanged from its working
days, much of the building's interior is a
veritable time capsule of 1960s and 1970s

The History Museum
An attractive, pagoda-style roof crowns
the city's History Museum (Tues-Sun
8-11am & 1.30-5pm; 20,000VND),
whose main entrance is tucked just inside
the gateway to the Botanical Gardens.
To visit the museum only, use the side
entrance at 2 Nguyen Binh Khiem.
he museum houses a series of galleries
illuminating Vietnam's past from the rise
of the Bronze Age Dong Son civilization,