Rough Guide to Vietnam - Jan Dodd [60]
At the bottom of Dong Khoi, take a left onto Ton Duc Thang, and it’s only a short skip to Me Linh Square, where a statue of Tran Hung Dao points across the river: it’s a striking image when framed by the towering Renaissance Hotel(see "Dong Khoi and around") and the Me Linh Point Tower. Ton Duc Thang draws its name from a former president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, whose life is celebrated at the nearby Ton Duc Thang Museum (Tues–Sun 7.30–11.30am & 1.30–5pm; free). Don’t expect any fireworks here: besides some grim photographs highlighting the many years he spent de-husking rice on the prison island of Poulo Condore (now known as Con Dao, see "The Con Dao Archipelago"), a few evocative photos of old Saigon and some of the bric-a-brac of the man’s life comprise the museum’s principal highlights.
Ho Chi Minh City and around | The City |
The Ho Chi Minh Museum
Where the Ben Nghe Channel enters the Saigon River, a bridge crosses it to an imposing mansion that was erected in the 1860s. Known as the Nha Rong, or Dragon House, this former headquarters of a French shipping company is now home to the Ho Chi Minh Museum (1 Nguyen Tat Thanh; Tues–Sun 7.30–11.30am & 1.30–5pm; 10,000đ) – an apposite venue, given that it was from the abutting wharf that Ho left for Europe in 1911. Sadly, the collection within fails to capture the spirit of this man whose life was dedicated to liberating his homeland from colonialism. If you decide to visit, you’ll need to wring all the interest you can out of personal effects such as Ho’s walking stick, rattan suitcase, sandals made from tyres and watering can, a map of his itinerant wanderings, and a few blurred photographs of him at official receptions. If all the Ho Chi Minh museums in Vietnam are to be believed, Ho was evidently a compulsive hoarder.
The days when the Ben Nghe Channel was choked with sampans are long gone, and now its pitch-black waters are eerily calm. An effort is under way to clean up this pungent part of the city; already parts of it are being built over and the rotting shacks on its banks have been cleared. However, the fetid stench of the canal still lingers.
Ho Chi Minh City and around | The City |
Around Nguyen Hué
When Saigon’s French administrators laid the 750-metre sweep of Charner Boulevard over a filled-in canal and down to the Saigon River, their brief was to replicate the elegance of a tree-lined Parisian boulevard, and in its day this broad avenue was known as the Champs Elysées of the East. These days, however, Nguyen Hué, as it is now known, has little character except on Sundays and at festival time. Each Sunday evening, the city’s trendsetting youth converge here and on nearby Dong Khoi on their motorbikes, to circle round and round, girlfriends riding pillion, in a strange ritual that recreates the traffic jams that they suffer through on weekdays. At Tet the street also bursts into life, hosting a vast, riotously colourful flower market which draws Vietnamese belles in their thousands to pose in their best ao dai among the roses, sunflowers, chrysanthemums and conical orange trees.
The stately edifice that stands at Nguyen Hué’s northern extent is the former Hotel de Ville, the city’s most photographed icon and an ostentatious reminder of colonial Europe’s stubborn resolve to stamp its imprint on the countries it subjugated, no matter how incongruous. Built in 1908 as the city’s administrative hub, this wedding cake of a building today houses the People’s Committee behind its showy jumble of Corinthian columns, classical figures and shuttered windows. A statue of Uncle Ho cradling a small child in his lap watches over the tiny park fronting the building, where flower beds add a splash of colour.
Though the Rex Hotel(see "Dong Khoi and around"),