Life is Good: Welcome to Vietnam, may I take your money?

We just finished our first day in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC - formerly Saigon). It's a nice enough city, fairly typical of other large cities in developing countries. A few interesting facts about HCMC:

It's hot! Let me repeat that. HCMC is HOT! We went through our water very quickly. We each drank a coconut and probably a few liters of water each throughout the day. We sweat most of that out. By 2:00, we were exhausted and overheated, so we came back to the hotel for a shower and nap.
Moving from one place to another can be hazardous to your health. Take, for example, walking around the city. Sidewalks are for pedestrians. They are also for street-restaurants with plastic chairs and tables. Also for various street vendors. They are also a great place to park your motorcycle. Turns out, they are also a great place to drive your motorcycle, especially when you want to go the wrong way on a one-way street. Trying to cross the street is even worse. There are crosswalks and stoplights, but we haven't figured out what they're for yet. The only way to cross the street is to just go for it, and hope the motorcycles avoid you. If you're lucky, they'll honk before they cut you off.
People want your money. That's true everywhere in the world, but here, they are not afraid to ask for it. I suspect it's a factor of being in tourist areas and being obviously a tourist. We received several offers to polish our tennis shoes. We were offered lots of cheap trinkets and maps. We could have ridden in any number of cycle-rickshaws or on the back of motorcycles. We did not choose any of these.
The people want to keep the city clean. Despite what you might expect from a large city like this, the streets were actually relatively clean. There were workers cleaning up in lots of places. There were gardeners in all the parks. Some of these were sweeping the lawn with long brushes of some sort. Never figured out why they were sweeping the lawn.
The food is delicious, but often intimidating. It can be hard to find a place to eat, because many of the restaurants are a bit intimidating. Either they don't do menus or the building doesn't look like a place you want to eat. The smells make you hungry, and eventually you cave. We had a really good bowl of pho today. The fruits are exotic and delicious as well.

Pho. yum!

Today, we went to independence palace. It was built in the 60s as the presidential residence for the recently formed Republic of Vietnam (south Vietnam). After the war, it was basically turned into a museum, and is occasionally used for state functions still. Much of it is still decorated in the original 60's modern style. There's a bomb shelter in the basement with a lot of the old equipment that was there during the war.