Saigon Day 1.  One nice thing about Cambodia and now Vietnam is that cars drive on the right side of the road.  Our first time for that since we left Los Angeles on December 18!  Most of the local people in the southern part of this country still call the city Saigon while those from the north use the official " Ho Chi Minh City".   There were red and gold banners everywhere with the hammer and sickle or a large star to commemorate 70 years of communism on Feb 3.  Traffic is ridiculous with thousands of motor scooters jamming every part of the streets.  How our driver maneuvered our huge bus around was amazing.
We had a tour guide whose father had been an interpreter for the US Army during the war and after the war was imprisoned for two years in a re-education camp. Our tour guide gave us some interesting insight to what living in Saigon is really like.  We visited a Buddhist temple, a large market, a post office designed by Gustav Eiffel, a nice museum, "Reunification Hall" (former Presidential Palace).  We also saw a "Water Puppet" show and made a visit to a lacquer ware factory.
There are signs of improvement with some new buildings going up but there are still many half finished abandoned projects.  The only manufacturing of any consequence is textiles.  None of the thousands of motor scooters are made in Vietnam, but some are assembled locally.

Reunification Hall

Cute uniformed school kids eager to practice their excellent English skills on the tourists!

Water Puppets Show

Post Office designed by Eiffel

Deliveries are made by scooters.  We even saw one with panes of glass and another with palm trees!

Thousands of motor scooters parked in front of wholesale market. Wonder how they find their own??