SAIGON PSYCHEDELIA

The old Hotel de Ville now houses the City Council.

Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) is pretty and colourful by night. There are lots of eating places and coffee shops open till late. Skyscrapers are beginning to creep up in this bustling and developing city, and commercialism is beginning to take root in the nominally communist state. Here are some of my best night photos using the Casio Exilim's nifty HDR Art programme. 

The Ho Chi Minh statue in front of the Hotel de Ville and
Rex Hotel. His carefully cultivated image portrays him as
the avuncular Uncle Ho, Friend of children and the oppressed. 

Monuments to capitalism: Huong Xa Tax shopping centre,
Sun Wah Building and the Bitexco Financial Tower,
which is Vietnam's tallest building.

The Caravelle and Sheraton Hotels and Vincom Centre.

Lam Son Square is dominated by the Saigon Opera House
and more skyscrapers on Dong Khoi Street.

The impressive neoclassical facade
of Saigon Opera House.

Continental Hotel, Saigon's answer to the Raffles.
and my home for three days.

A coffee corner on the Dong Khoi.

No right turns in leftist Vietnam?