UncleEbeneezer
Our third day in HCMC/Saigon was one of the most jam-packed and exhausting days of my life. In addition to the airfare and lodging in Saigon and Da Nang our trip prize included a daylong guided tour of downtown HCMC including Notre Dame, the Post Office, the Reunification Palace, the War Museum, a temple and then a cooking lesson in the evening. This post covers the first two.
Our taxi/shuttle van arrived early and we hopped in, meeting our tour guide. He told us all the cool places he was going to take us and asked our impressions of Vietnam so far and if there was anything in particular we wanted to see or try. We told him we would like to try some Com Tam (broken rice, with pork chop, egg) and he insisted we probably needed to try Vietnam’s famous/infamous civet coffee but those would have to wait until later. We arrived downtown and our first stop was at Notre Dame cathedral. Per Wikipedia: “Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of The Immaculate Conception (Vietnamese: Vương cung thánh đường Chính tòa Đức Mẹ Vô nhiễm Nguyên tội; is a cathedral located in the downtown of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Established by French colonists who initially named it the Church of Saigon (French: l’Eglise de Saïgon), the cathedral was constructed between 1863 and 1880. The name Notre-Dame Cathedral has been used since 1959. It has two bell towers, reaching a height of 58 meters (190 feet).” It is a really stunning building both inside and out.