Reunification Palace

Vietnam is famous because a war took place there in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Officially it was a war between two countries: North Vietnam and South Vietnam but to a certain extent it was a war between Communism and Russia (who secretly equipped and supported the North) and the Capitalist USA who were directly involved fighting with the South until 1973 and then providing support on the ground until the war ended in 1975.

This was one of the first wars where television and newspaper coverage was available in real time so the world watched everything happen...and war is not pretty. Terrible things happened. The war ended in 1975. Many people think it ended at the American embassy in Saigon because there were famous television pictures of the last Americans and South Vietnamese closely linked to the Americans frantically fighting to get on the last helicopters out while the North Vietnamese army were at the gates of the American embassy. In fact around the same time Russian made tanks were crashing through the gates of the Presidential Palace where the South Vietnamese president unconditionally surrendered ending the war.

The Presidential Palace is now the Reunification Palace. The gates have been restored but otherwise the Palace has been preserved as a symbol of the united nation. It preserves sixties design and as a consequence is a time capsule of fashion long since past and its passing not lamented! It was awful.

Erica and Murray liked the cinema room with its two enormous reel to reel projectors.

Murray also liked the rusting tanks in the grounds which were the same model as the tanks which crashed through the gates in 1975.

Although the Communist Party is still in Government, they adopted a free market approach in the early nineties. Shona and I visited Saigon in October 1991 and the contrast between then and now is facinating. Now the city abounds with modern glass and steel office buildings, there are many top international hotels and some great restaurants - we sampled three excellent dinners in differing establishments - and scooters have replaced bicycles as the mode of transport. While it is impossible to know what would have happened if the war had ended differently, it is hard not to conclude that reunification has brought a happy and posperous future to this former war zone. And no more sixties design either. All good.

Keith
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