02 Jan 2012: NEW LIGHTNESS BACK TO OLD DARKNESS #1 of 2

Our morning hike was cut short after a couple of hours due to extreme heat and mugginess by 11 a.m. Lots of prep for Year of the Dragon, which starts later this month. Also century-old French era wedding-cake buildings now housing Communist HQ and museums, complete with formal gardens. Same era Catholic cathedral, early 1900's. The daily weddings (note decadent stretch American Chrysler limo) and peace globe were the last bits of light before we were plunged into the darkness of the American War years. 

The Reunification Palace might look familiar from 1975 --- it's those famous scenes of terrified Americans and their corrupt sympathizers trying to escape by helicopter from the roof. It had been the HQ of the South Viet President, a man so despised even his own troops tried often and eventually succeeded in killing him. In fact, the whole building has been left untouched since Saigon fell to the Viet patriots on April 30, 1975. Meeting rooms where American ambassadors boasted and lied at the same time. The shooting range. The kitchen, teletype rooms, bomb-proof tunnels, etc. Very eerie feeling walking through the deserted halls that whisper this is where the US lost it, and the puppet South Viets signed unconditional surrender. Outside is the actual tank that crashed through the iron gates, another scene sent around the world by the first war covered on nightly TV. You shake your head at the stupidity and arrogance, but there's more that's much worse, next blog.