Weekend activities...

After more than one year, it was about time to visit the War Remnants museum in Ho Chi Minh City. The American War (as it is called in Vietnam) is of course one essential part of the history of the country. Fortunately there are no obvious traces visible anymore, but somehow it is still in people's minds, and of course, Americans are still not the best friends of the Vietnamese. However, if there's potential money to make, everyone is a friend here... American cooperations are visible everywhere and of course the respective products available. Pepsi was one of the first US companies to come to Vietnam after the war, and I have the impression they have the biggest market share in terms of soft drinks.
The museum itself exhibits some helicopters, jets, tanks, firearms, bombs and bombshells. But much more pictures and somehow propaganda against the Americans. Of course understandable in a way. And it explicitely shows the effects of Agent Orange, a herbicide used during the war, in order to destroy the jungle and to see the Vietcong. The ecosystem still hasn't recoverd yet, where it was sprayed, it will take many decades until the forests will in the old shape again.

See here some pictures of the museum:

Entrance - Outside

US-machine gun in a Bell UH-1 helicopter

Always many tourists

US tanks

Vietnamese parking pragmatism

River boat with machine gun

F5 Fighter jet

F5 Fighter Jet

View from the 1st floor on the tanks

Exhibition inside

Bombshell and shrapnels

Probably the most famous picture about the war

Solidarity propaganda from the GDR

It was quite interesting, since I read a lot about the war before coming to Vietnam.

In the afternoon after the visit to the museum, I had the chance to visit a cotton mill, where yarn for the textile industrie is being produced. Probably one of the most modern mills in Vietnam.

 Cotton is being sucked up and the fibers are all aligned in a blowing machine:

Out of this, a cotten carpet is coming out, where the fibers are all aligned in one direction.

Out of this carpet, the first "strings" / ropes are being pulled out

Those ropes then are being piled up and brought together with more ropes. Out of the ropes a new rope is being made through further processes until a fine yarn is being pulled out and put on a roll.

Really interesting trip. I think I will not soon get a chance to see something like that again.