Thursday, December 8, 2011

Saigon - now Ho Chi Minh City - and its traffic


I know many of my readers served in the US armed forces during the Vietnam War, or had parents who served there. This video of Ho Chi Minh City - as Saigon was renamed after the war - shows the current challenges of navigating its streets. It's still choked with motorcycles and bicycles, it seems, just as reported by those who were there in the war years.







I'd be interested to hear (in Comments) from readers who were there before the fall of South Vietnam. How does the city look in comparison to your memories of the place?

Peter
at

7 comments:

  1. AnonymousDecember 9, 2011 at 12:46 AM

    I remember hearing an interview on the Hugh Hewitt show that involved a man who trained the South Vietnamese Marines. He said the if you went to Vietnam today and didn't know the history, you would assume that the South had won, merely based on how vibrant the economy was. He claimed the it was a capitalist country in all but name.... and maybe the political system (of course).

    -Kresh

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  2. StephenDecember 9, 2011 at 9:34 AM

    It's grown. I can still smell the damn place.

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  3. trailbeeDecember 9, 2011 at 11:26 AM

    This vid makes our interchanges look like a walk in the park. WOW!

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  4. AnonymousDecember 9, 2011 at 11:45 AM

    I was in Saigon 1965-1967 and the traffic seems a bit lighter than back then. The cars and motorocycles are much newer and nicer of course. I remember coming up to a stop light on my motorcycle and the bicycles and cyclos were packed so tightly around me that I had to work to clear a little room to put my foot down. The two-wheeled traffic spread out across the road and onto the sidewalk.

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  5. Old NFODecember 9, 2011 at 1:56 PM

    Don't see too many cyclos, no chicken wire over windows, no sandbag emplacements... actually looks LESS crowded.

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  6. AnonymousDecember 9, 2011 at 11:46 PM

    I was there '67-'68,and I sometimes look back on that time as a fevered dream. I only seem to remember it in black and white. I was taken by surprise with the vibrant colors and modernity of the skyline. As the 1st Anonymous (Kresh) said "..if you went to Vietnam today and didn't know the history, you would assume that the South had won..".
    Good on them.

    -DJSaltine-

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  7. TomR armed in TexasDecember 11, 2011 at 12:07 AM

    Looks cleaner, brighter and more modern, less colonial. I don't see any military vehicles which used to make up a lot of the traffic. Did not notice any motorbikes with a family of eight strapped on.

    Yes, the Vietnamese were capitalists.

    TomR
    RVN 66-68

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