Odysseys of George

Well, this is the last of my blogging about this beautiful country called Vietnam and it infamous city Saigon, or presently called Ho Chih Minh city.

I did not manage to complete the tour of Vietnam and as such, have decided to hopefully do another trip there. The next time, it would be to see the War Tunnels which is situated 3 hours from Saigon and among others to fit in a diving stint at Na Thrang.

These are the other fascinating sights in Saigon:

1. Reunification Palace

- also known as the Independence Palace built on the site of the former Norodom Palace. This is the site of the official handover of power during the Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975. It was then known as Independence Palace as at 10:45 am 30 April 1975, a tank of the North Vietnamese Army hit the main gate, ending the Vietnam War.

- In November 1975, after the negotiation convention between the communist North Vietnam and communist South Vietnam was successful, in memory of that event, the Provisional Government of the Republic of South Vietnam renamed the hall Reunification Hall.

2. Church of Notre Dame

- Established by French colonists, the cathedral was constructed between 1863 and 1880. It has two bell towers, reaching a height of 58 meters (190 feet).
-All building materials were imported from France. The outside wall of the cathedral was built with bricks from Marseille. Although the contractor did not use coated concrete, these bricks have retained their bright red color until now.
- In 1895, two bell towers were added to the cathedral, each 57.6 high with 6 bronze bells with the total weight of 28.85 metric tonnes. The crosses were installed on the top of each tower of 3.5 m high, 2 m wide, 600 kg in weight. The total height of the cathedral to the top of the Cross is 60.5 m.

- In the flower garden in front of the cathedral, there was a bronze statue of Pigneau de Behaine (also called Bishop Adran) leading prince Canh, the son of Gia Long by his right hand. The statue was made in France. In 1945, the statue was removed but the foundation remains.In 1959, Bishop Joseph Pham Van Thien, ordered a Peaceful Notre Dame statue made with granite in Rome. When the statue arrived in Saigon, on 16 February 1959 Bishop Pham Van Thien held a ceremony to install the statue on the empty base and presented the title of “Regina Pacis”. It was Bishop Pham Van Thien who wrote the prayers “Notre-Dame bless the peace to Vietnam”. On the next day, Cardinal Aganianian came from Rome to chair the closing ceremony of the Holy Mother Congress and solemnly chaired the ceremony for the statue, thus the cathedral was then-on called Notre-Dame Cathedral.

The crowd overflowed to the road outside the church.

3. The Post Office

Me buying souvenirs from the post office

4. City Hall

- this the modern and hip place of Ho Chih Minh city.

5. Dinner

- a very beautiful restaurant aongside the Saigon River. Enjoy the meal.

and lastly the Five Variety Salad

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 20th, 2008 at 6:27 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.