Saigon - Rats and the Horrors of War

Alleyways in Saigon

Some people insist that the largest city in south Vietnam is actually called Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) but most people continue to stubbornly refer to the place as Saigon.

To further confuse the issue the railway network timetable refers to Saigon but the airports fly to HCMC. It’s all very confusing but it seems it is the people in the north (those that effectively won the war and therefore secured the change of name in honour of Uncle Ho) who insist on referring to the city by its modern name but those that live here seem to resolutely refuse to adopt the change.

It’s very confusing.  I’ll stick to Saigon.

We arrived at the main railway station (they haven’t changed the sign at the station so according to that we had arrived in Saigon) and were immediately accosted by a taxi driver who turned out not to be a taxi driver at all but this is such a common occurrence by now and we were past caring; the fare was reasonable so we jumped in.  None of the real taxi drivers seemed to want our business and we just wanted to get to our hotel.