Why the tanks pointing towards this palace are a symbol of national unity

Most former government palaces are guarded by guns pointing outwards, to deter invaders and protect the head of state. In the grounds of the Independence Palace in Ho Chi Minh City, the barrels of two tanks are aimed at the building itself. They are replicas of the original Soviet- and Chinese-built tanks that rolled through the gates on April 30, 1975, signalling the fall of Saigon.

The Independence Palace was once the home and seat of power of the President of the Republic of Vietnam, Nguyen Van Thieu. It has become a symbol of the reunified Vietnamese nation and an engrossing tourist attraction. The original neo-baroque Saigon Governor's Palace was partially destroyed during a coup attempt in 1962. The building was replaced by a distinctively Vietnamese structure that looks a bit like a giant convection heater.

I hired a handheld audioguide to steer me through the 95 rooms of the 20,000-square-metre palace. The guide offers a surprisingly apolitical perspective on the building's history and barely even mentions the war.

The ground-floor staterooms showcase artworks that range from panoramic lacquered wall paintings to busts of Ho Chi Minh. The thrust of the displays is to draw a direct line between the 15th-century warriors who drove out the Chinese and the present Communist government of Vietnam - while not excluding the once-reviled US-backed Republic of Vietnam.

I get a strong sense of history being rewritten, in the script of the audioguide and the labels on the walls.

The ambassador's chamber is the most luxurious and impressive room, where the president once received letters of credential from foreign diplomats. On the upper floor is the president's bedroom, and many visitors seem to take a particular interest in the president's ensuite bathroom, craning over a rope to try to get a photograph of the president's lavatory and bidet.

President Thieu also enjoyed access to a private cinema the size of a small movie theatre. Apparently, he liked to watch martial arts movies. On the helipad outside the cinema rests a US helicopter, as if poised to evacuate the government in a rescue that never came. Below ground level, a labyrinthine bunker protects the command centre, a tactical map room where a secret wall chart records the numbers of foreign troops fighting in South Vietnam in 1968. The US tops the list of engaged allies, with 50,355 service people in the country, followed by Australia and New Zealand with 7379 troops.