People and places of Saigon - 40 years after the end of the Vietnam War - Rusty Compass travel photo gallery
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People and places of Saigon - 40 years after the end of the Vietnam War

/ Last updated 03 May 2015

Introduction

What does Saigon really look like 40 years after the Vietnam War? This is a gallery of people and places around Saigon last week, as the city remembered the 40th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War in April 1975. There are palaces and museums as well as noodle stalls and cyclos and young dressed-up types on Vespas. I didn’t see any official parades or ceremonies but I did get a little sense of the pulse, look and feel of Saigon today.  I hope this gallery conveys some of that to you too.

  • ©Photo: Mark Bowyer
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  • I started my wandering around Saigon with a visit to the Ho Chi Minh Campaign Museum - one of the few major museums I've never visited during my 25 years coming here. It seemed appropriate as it remembers the final military campaign that presaged the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975 - known as the Ho Chi Minh Campaign.
  • When the collapse of South Vietnam finally occurred, it was at astonishing speed - faster than even the North Vietnamese expected.It prompted a chaotic US evacuation recently documented in the film Last Days in Vietnam. Some made it out. Many more were left behind.
  • It was the Saturday afternoon just days before the 30 April celebration. I had the museum completely to myself. Not a single local or tourist thought the special exhibition to mark the 40th anniversary worth visiting during the 40 minutes I was there. On arrival I was curtly advised that photography of the museum's collection was forbidden. A modest protest produced a backdown - museum staff presumably doubting the wisdom of dressing down the only person in this city of 10 million, interested in checking out its special collection this particular afternoon. The Ho Chi Minh Campaign Museum is located on Le Duan St right by the zoo and the Museum of Vietnamese History.
  • From the museum, I headed further along Le Duan St to the rehearsals for the April 30 parade. Here, soldiers, immortalised here as "bo doi" (walking teams), are seen charging towards the former Presidential Palace, where 30 years of war finally came to an end. The official parade on 30 April is a fairly closed affair - reflecting lingering, local ambivalence about the event 40 years on. The closest most Saigonese get to the official parade is a glimpse during these rehearsals or the traffic chaos caused by widespread street closures.
  • Young friendly "bo doi' soldiers prepare for 30 April celebrations.
  • Preparing for the parade.
  • Where it all ended. Saigon's former Presidential Palace - now the Reunification Palace. The banner reads - "Hearty welcome to the anniversary of the liberation of the South and reunification of the nation." In the background, Ho Chi Minh walks on the clouds.
  • Hello great spring victory!
  • The hammer and sickle keeps some unlikely company.
  • 40 years - The Ho Chi Minh Campaign's complete victory.
  • 2015 is a year of anniversaries in Vietnam - the fortieth anniversary of the end of the war is just one. Ho Chi Minh's 125th birthday is coming up on May 19 and the 70th anniversary of his declaration of independence in Hanoi's Ba Dinh Square will take place on September 2.
  • Another view of the rooftop that found international fame in Hu Van Es's photography of Saigon's infamous evacuation on 29 April 1975.
  • An original French colonial era building in the Presidential Palace grounds. I've long wondered when city officials will put this handsome public asset to some public use.
  • Looking decidedly shabby, the city's colonial era central courthouse must have missed the memo calling for a sprucing up before the 40th anniversary.
  • Early on Sunday morning before April 30, a photographer captures the modern city at daybreak.
  • A remarkably youthful looking 69 year old former North Vietnamese soldier from the port city of Haiphong, gets his morning exercise in. He was part of the Ho Chi Minh Campaign - and like hundreds of thousands of other northerners, moved south to Saigon after the war. 40 years later, a large migration from northern provinces to Saigon continues. There is only a very small community of Saigonese living in Hanoi and even fewer choose to settle there permanently.
  • The sun rises over Saigon's largest apartment development project. 10,000 apartments are going up here at astonishing speed.
  • These next three shots were taken closer to where I stay in Binh Thanh District. This is the landlord, the motorcycle taxi driver and the dressmaker - in Saigon's Binh Thanh district.
  • A couple from Hue in central Vietnam and their noodle stand selling Bun Bo Hue - the spicy specialty from their hometown that is very popular throughout Vietnam, also in Binh Thanh District.
  • Rice stall - Binh Thanh District
  • A young Vietnamese MBA student in the banking sector, studies away in a local cafe with a Vietnamese language copy of Sheryl Sandberg's "Lean In" at her side. No time for a holiday break.
  • Cyclo drivers have been a fixture oustide the Continental Hotel for longer than 40 years.
  • Young Saigonese get their first look at the city's new walking promenade.
  • Saigon's new walking promenade opened on 29 April 2015.
  • On 29th April, the crowds came out for a first look at the new promenade.
  • Young Saigonese at the City Opera House.
  • Saigon Rising.
  • On 30 April, military brass use an iPad to catch a snap at the new walking promenade.
  • The next generation of leaders - Saigon.
  • Downtown Saigon - April 30 2015. Continental Hotel, the Opera House and the Caravelle Hotel.
  • The 30 April fireworks drew huge crowds to Saigon's centre. This is Dong Khoi St - formeral Tu Do St.
  • The new promenade gets its first serious workout - it was a great sight too.
  • Huge crowds came to see the fireworks and take advantage of Saigon's first new public space in decades.
  • Young Saigonese waiting for the fireworks.
  • 30 April fireworks from Bitexco Tower.
  • 30 April fireworks from Bitexco Tower.
  • The old colonial era Treasury Building after the crowds moved on - 30 April 2015.
Quicklink - Introduction - Ho Chi Minh City