This is GOOD MORNING VIETNAM!

After almost a week in Cambodia, we had just 4 days left to get to Vietnam and explore. Just 4 days, because then we had a return flight back to Bangkok and an onward flight to Sydney. And, on arrival in Ho Chi Minh City (aka. Saigon), I only wished we'd left Phnom Penh and Cambodia earlier...

Pics of Ho Chi Minh City - the streets around our little hotel room.

Arriving at night, the city was aglow with lights from almost every building. Flashing lights, making it look like an eastern Las Vegas, and row after row of restaurants and fancy boutiques. We'd arrived somewhere totally unexpected - after the dirt and squalour of some of our recent Asian destinations - this was really upmarket. Yep - a total surprise! (Note: the pictures above do not do my comment justice! I didn't have my camera handy when we were arriving - so this snap is of a quiter, considerably less 'upmarket' street, close to where we were staying. But cute, and tidier than most of the other places we'd recently been, none-the-less.)

Our hotel was down a side street, off the main road - close to everything, yet discreetly hidden (the street was so small you could easily miss seeing it as you walked along the main street), and it was buzzing with life. The moment we stepped foot outside the hotel doorway you had to watch out for scooters and motorbikes as they whizzed passed. And local ladies sat outside cooking and preparing their food, whilst their little ones tottered around them.

Our hotel room was very small - our bags took up most of the free floor space (they're BIG bags, mind you... plus we now have a giant tube full of paintings that Karlos is lugging around) - but it was cool (air-con) and comfortable (after a week of poor-quality mattresses and pillows - it really reminds you what matters in life!)... so it was pretty close to heaven. We also had cable TV and spent a bit of time chilling out and hiding from the busy streets watching movies.


Pic of a yummy Vietnamese dish - fresh spring rolls.

The restaurant right next door was peeeeeerfect. Selling delicious Vietnamese food (think healthy stirfrys and soups, bursting with fresh meat, vegetables and flavour) for around 40,000 dong. This sounds like an exraordinary price to pay for food... but 19,500 dong is just US$1. We were stoked! Especially given that the giant bottles of Saigon beer were just 12,000 dong! Amazing... expecially after the overpriced (and UTTERLY crappy) food of Phnom Penh. We literally felt human again.

Anyway! Next morning we went on a half day tour of the Cu Chi tunnells - about 50km from the city. The Cu Chi tunnels are an intricate, underground tunnel system of around 200km in length - that the Vietnamese used during the Vietnam war. It was mind-blowing. They had dug out these tunnels, by HAND, at night - and fought with the Americans during the day. They are so intricate it is thought that not even the most talented architect could have designed them. There are three levels to the tunnels - the top level consists of several large 'rooms' - such as the kitchen, dining room, hospital, and so on - all linked by tunnels from one to the next, with a 'get out' every 30 metres. And the second and third levels consist simply of a series of tunnels winding up and down, from one end of the tunnels to the river at the far end. There are also 'air tunnels' at regular intervals... and a tunnel to release the smoke from the kitchen was built in to transport the smoke several metres away from it (to disguise the location of the kitchen, in case the americans saw the smoke).


Pic is an extremely small version of the tunnel network, and not to scale.


Pic of the map of the tunnel system, and various american and vietnamese army bases during the war - pretty intricate. The man pointing at the map was a veteran, and our tour guide.

They were pretty damned clever, the Vietnamese - the tunnels were built just large enough to fit themselves ('themselves' being considerably smaller than the Americans), meaning that any Amercian soldier trying to enter the tunnels would most likely get stuck. The reason for not building the tunnels straight, on levels 2 and 3, was so that any gunfire shot down the tunnels would be stopped at the first corner. The tunnels were also built under clay earth - so any bombs dropped on top of them only made the clay harder, and the tunnels stronger. It was mind blowing, it really was. The intricacy of the system was incredible.



Our tour guide (a veteran of the vietnamese war) was a treat - full of information and funny anecdotes. He knew the tunnels well, and showed us around a part of them - we even got to go into the tunnels at one point. A stretch of 120m, with 4 stops to get out along the way if you were too uncomfortable. I had no idea I was claustraphobic... until my heart started pounding at the thought of going down there (perhaps the war stories didn't help) - but I gave it a go... I got out at the first opportunity and only was down there about 25m, but I still gave it a go!




We had lots more tales of war to hear, and then Karlos joined a group of people to shoot an AK-47 (you could feel those guns pound in your chest, even though they were being fired a couple hundred metres away) and then we ate some "wartime food" before heading back. As a part of this tour, before we got to the tunnels, we also stopped at a factory - where victims of the war (people disabled because of agent orange, for example) were making crafts. It was amazing to watch them paint cermaics, and shape wood, and stick egg shells onto pots for painting and varnishing. It was also humbling - showing us where so many of the crafts we barter for at the markets come from. I'll think twice next time I want to save a dollar.



And so the rest of our time in Saigon was spent eating delicious food, drinking with new found friends, a hideous experience with rude stall owners at the markets (made up by Karlos who bought me a watch from a shop when we left), visiting the old house of my brother-in-law (who used to live here long ago), and a hilarious pedicure incident - where I really overpaid to, basically, have my nails repainted and a painful leg massage, whilst 5 other women were crammed into the same therapy room! Hahaha.

But this was Vietnam. This was Saigon ~ Crazy, beautiful.

(Picture above - for Reuben).


And so... one month in South East Asia has been exciting, educational, challenging, a lot of fun, and exhausting... but boy am I glad to be moving the fook on! I miss everyone in England terribly, am reminiscing fondly of the USA, and starting to get excited about homecoming. But first! Let us hit aussie for a month of good times! Aussie Aussie Aussie - here. we. come!

Peace and love to ya,

~ Comet xo