23rd October 2006
We arrived in Saigon at 5am and are now staying in a little guest house called 182, in District 1, the main backpacker area. We wandered around the city, getting our bearings and a taste of local life. We stumbled upon a park full of ‘animal hedges’ which was quite pretty. The locals use it like Hyde Park and can be seen walking/jogging around the perimeter. Young lovers everywhere, sitting on benches, holding hands – probably trying to get away from the eyes of their elders.
The city is bustling, full of people on the go. While it is quite frenetic, it is still very pleasant. It is bright, fast paced, but not dirty or too polluted. There are neon lights everywhere and restaurants, bars and little family run shops dotting every street; street sellers on every curb. Motor bikes and bicycles are the main form of transport and the road junctions are thick with them. Driving here is crazy! Literally 50-100 bikes are at each intersection and all go at once in every direction, looking like they’re going for a head on collision. Cars are rarer here.
In the evening, we noticed a fun fair with a circus and we bought tickets for the evening show. Although it was really for kids, we had a great time watching all the acrobatics and crazy stunts. The animal acts were fairly unpleasant at times though. The monkeys were so sad looking; dragged around by ropes around their necks.
I had to leave the room until it was finished as it was quite distressing. The majority of non-animal scenes were highly entertaining, especially the ladies who continually dropped their hula hoops, despite the ring leader’s scary glare! They were going to be in for it later.
MONDAY
Today visited Ben Dihn, where the Cu Chi tunnels are located, 50km from Ho Chi Minh. Cu Chi used to be a battleground for many years during the Vietnam war and houses an underground village with an intricate network of tunnels (about 200km of them).
We had a brilliant local tour guide who had actually been in the war (on the American’s side). He spent the 1 hour bus ride regaling us with stories us of the war and his personal experiences. He was very passionate and very informative. His story is listed in a published book called ‘The 3 moons of Vietnam‘. He also advised us of 3 other good books on the subject.
It is so interesting, to hear first hand the stories from that time. We were told all about the trouble Vietnam has gone through, being constantly at war for 125 years with a variety countries. From 1855 to 1980 they have had to continuously defend their country against France, Japan, the Khymer Rouge and America. He also told us about the main sources of income for the country and all about communism and Ho Chi Minh.
We arrived at Cu Chi and sat through a video on the history of the war which described the defenses the Vietnemese used. We then went out into the jungle and saw actual craters left by bombs, the tunnels in the ground and real land mines. There were genuine traps and defence techniques the Vietnamese used also to catch the opposition.
The Vietnamese didn’t have much money for weapons and so used other methods to injure and maim the opposition. Many of the methods were actually quite inhumane and more torturous that what I imagine the English or more ‘civilised’ countries would use, but needs must.
The tunnels were split in to 4 levels and were tiny! It’s lucky the people here are so small, they call Americans and other westerners ‘fat arses’, because they wouldn’t be able to fit their behinds in the tunnels. They go down to 10m deep and despite gassing, intentional flooding and bombing by the Americans, they still remain.
I found them fine to wiggle through but then I have no issues small spaces. The other girls were feeling a bit claustrophobic and so didn’t fancy a venture down the tunnels. I went down and did the whole 100m which was also split on to different levels so you had to climb up little levels.
After the tunnels we were dropped off at the war museum, which was pretty depressing. It was thoroughly tragic. Pictures capturing events of the time adorned the walls. Some were horrific, depicting the effects the gasses had on Vietnamese people. I have taken some photos of just a snippet of photos displayed.
It captured the pain and atrocity of the war very succinctly. Also positioned around the museum were genuine aeroplanes, weapons from the time.
We met Pete and Victor in the war museum and arranged to meet them tonight, so we are just getting ready now for a night on the town. Tomorrow we are going to a water park with Pete and Victor and then on Wednesday we are heading to Cambodia with them. So it will be Goodbye Vietnam!
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