John Edward Cooper’s Notes

[i] I think that Tien told us it was changed for the visit of President Bill Clinton, but that first visit by a US president since the end of the Vietnam War was in November 2000.

Wednesday 22 February 2017 — 15:45:08
War Remnants Museum


Wednesday 22 February 2017 — 15:46:08
War Remnants Museum


Wednesday 22 February 2017 — 15:47:08
War Remnants Museum


Wednesday 22 February 2017 — 15:54:10
War Remnants Museum


Wednesday 22 February 2017 — 15:54:36
War Remnants Museum


Wednesday 22 February 2017 — 15:57:56
War Remnants Museum


Wednesday 22 February 2017 — 15:58:16
War Remnants Museum

After leaving the main building, Janet waited for me while I looked round the exhibits in the yard of captured or left-behind US military hardware. These included a Chinook helicopter, which was smaller than I expected. Afterwards, I jokingly said to Tien that I was disappointed they didn’t have a B-52 bomber!


Wednesday 22 February 2017 — 16:16:00
War Remnants Museum


Wednesday 22 February 2017 — 16:17:34
War Remnants Museum


Wednesday 22 February 2017 — 16:18:26
War Remnants Museum


Wednesday 22 February 2017 — 16:19:38
War Remnants Museum

Janet also waited while I went next door to see the “tiger cages” in which the South Vietnamese kept political prisoners. There was also a guillotine exhibited there that had been used by the French and South Vietnamese to execute prisoners.


Wednesday 22 February 2017 — 16:21:10
War Remnants Museum


Wednesday 22 February 2017 — 16:21:18
War Remnants Museum


Wednesday 22 February 2017 — 16:22:14
War Remnants Museum


Wednesday 22 February 2017 — 16:23:54
War Remnants Museum


Wednesday 22 February 2017 — 16:24:10
War Remnants Museum


Wednesday 22 February 2017 — 16:25:02
War Remnants Museum

Just beyond the walled “tiger cages” enclosure, I noticed, there were some souvenir shops, so Janet and I went there and we bought the two postcards that I needed (as I mentioned earlier in the context of buying stamps). They were both the same, with a long-exposure night-time aerial photo of Notre Dame Cathedral. We were deposited back at the hotel by 5.00pm. Rather than use the minibus, we’d decided to walk to Saigon Opera House for the show, and had arranged for Tien to accompany us there, both because he knew exactly where it was, and also to help us to get the tickets from the booking office. Because of the heat of the day, we needed to shower and change clothes, but we only had about half an hour in which to do it. My quick shower was compromised when the dressing on the right elbow breached and I had to replace it. The walk was a little over half a mile, most of it in a straight line north-east, with a right turn for the last 300 yards or so; but there were perhaps five streets to cross on the way, so we were glad Tien was with us. “The traffic was horrendous,” Janet wrote, “and we wouldn’t have wanted to do that alone.” The main thing about the walk that struck me, though, was not the traffic, it was the low tubular-steel barriers that had been constructed across the sidewalks to stop cyclists going along them. Evidently, then, no Ho Chi Minh City-dwellers are wheelchair-users! Like Saigon Central Post Office, the Opera House is an example of “French Colonial” architecture. Getting the tickets wasn’t entirely straightforward, but we eventually did get them, and Tien left us. (This seemed to take longer than it actually did take, for the photo of Saigon Opera House from across the wide street and the photo of the stage were taken within 12 minutes of each other.)


Ticket, front




Tickets, rear


Theatre Pass, front




Theatre passes, rear
Why we needed two sets of documents, tickets and theatre passes, escapes me!

Our seats were up on the second floor. Photography wasn’t allowed during the show, which was titled “Teh Dar”. The stage was circular, and much of the action involved acrobatic and balletic activity on and around long bamboo poles in various configurations. It was obvious that a folklorish or mythical tribal story was being told, but the precise meaning escaped us; e.g. what was the significance of wearing masks on the backs of their heads? Afterwards, Janet wrote: “The show was awesome. One of the best things we’ve ever seen. Wonderful.… We were so glad we’d decided to see the show.”


Teh Dar promotional video. Below, the uncaptioned images are screen-captures from it.


Wednesday 22 February 2017 — 17:47:14
Saigon Opera House


Wednesday 22 February 2017 — 17:47:14 (detail)
Saigon Opera House


Wednesday 22 February 2017 — 17:59:04
Saigon Opera House: our view of the stage




























































































Wednesday 22 February 2017 — 19:11:48
Saigon Opera House: the Teh Dar company

Tien met us outside, ca.7.15pm, and we joined P and Y in the minibus to be taken to a downtown restaurant. We enjoyed this, as always; but… we liked [the lunch-time] venue more than this one. We were back at the hotel a little before 9pm. “It doesn’t cool off much in the evening,” Janet wrote, “and the traffic never seems to stop.” P had told me that he’d managed to print their boarding passes; he’d used the computer in the hotel lobby. So back in our room, I looked up Vietnam Airlines (21:00); but it proved again to be troublesome. First of all it complained that my installation of Adobe Flash Player was out of date, so I downloaded and installed that (21:04–21:12). Then I started again (21:13). I got as far as “Online Check-In” (21:14), “Welcome to Web Check In” (21:15) — so far, so good — but not far along the process, I got the “error” screen once more. So I went down to the lobby and managed, on the computer there for guests’ use, to do the task quite straightforwardly and print boarding passes.[ii] I transferred 131 photos from today from the camera to the WD Elements HDD (21:25–21:29), and using Windows Photo Viewer rotated six that needed it (21:32–21:37). As I was getting ready for bed I noticed that the dressing on the left elbow was about to breach, so I replaced it. Janet and I were in bed just after 10pm.

[ii] Ten minutes (“21:15” to “21:25”) doesn’t seem long enough to get the left down to the lobby, log on to the Vietnam Airlines website, go through the necessary pages, then pick up my prints from the printer at reception and return upstairs to my computer. I’m conflating two or three different sources here, a couple of months after the event.

[Thursday 23 February 2017]