“Hanoi has the beautiful, other-worldly Lake Hoan Kiem, but Ho Chi Minh City, nee Saigon, has the disturbing, confronting War Remnants Museum. Hanoi has graceful, stately French colonial public buildings, but in Ho Chi Minh City, old Saigon’s historic hotels overlook the Belle Epoque Opera House.

“To compare the capital of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam with the first city of the vanished nation of South Vietnam is as absurd as contrasting, for example, Sydney and Melbourne. And who doesn’t love that?”

The article compares hotels, food, day trips, opera houses, water, museums, the Australian / American / Vietnam War, Ho Chi Minh, shopping and bars before finally and diplomatically declaring that he would like to spend more time in both cities.

Of special interest to fans of the Vietnam Swans, is when Mark adds a third city to his tale of two, and heads to Vung Tau where he meets Glenn Nolan, owner of Tommy’s Sports Bar and sponsor of the Swannies. Glenn takes him on a battlefields tour.

The article provides a good snap shot of both Hanoi and Saigon, however, there is one glaring omission: where is an in depth study, or even a mere mention of the Swannies?? As Steve Waugh may well have said, “Mark, how does it feel to have just dropped the World Cup?”*

Go you Swannies!!

* Footnote

According to an article by the Guardian, “the trouble with Steve Waugh’s infamous put-down to Herschelle Gibbs is that he never actually said it.” Click here for the full story.