Catch-up: Vietnam in August

Reunification Palace Hallway
Originally uploaded by New Territories.

Now that I'm finally getting my Flickr act together, here is the massive gallery of pictures I took at the Reunification Palace in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) back in August... An amazing time-capsule, and my dream 60s movie-set. In case you didn't know, this pristinely modernist structure was once the presidential palace of Ngo Dihn Diem (the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese leader) until tanks broke through the front gates 1975 as Saigon fell to the North. The president escaped via rooftop helicopter (I'm posing near the helipad in one balcony picture), and practically nothing in the building has been touched since. Someone had told me that the beds were still unmade in the residential quarters, which is untrue-- the beds are stripped, but everything else feels like everybody left just about five minutes ago.
The full set is here