Previously known as the Independence Palace, which fell to the Northern Viet Minh Troops in April 30, 1975, lies at the heart of Saigon. I went and saw this beautiful five storey time warp of a building and couldn't help thinking about how the South Vietnamese with the help of the mighty America could fall to the simple North Vietnamese Communists? Such power and grandeur but falling to the north in such a spectacular fashion. You can feel the war raging on as you walk through the wonderful Palace, you can see and imagine; the Captains, the Generals, the President of the era having their meetings and discussions and then the feeling of defeat and worry as they knew the end was coming as the North Vietnamese's tanks crashed through the gates of the Palace. Oh, how I would have loved to have been there and observed the chaos that would be encapsulated the end yet beginning of a new (for better or worth) era in Vietnam's turbulent history.
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