HCMC
Trip Start
May 08, 2008
1
8
25
Trip End
Ongoing
Ho Chi Minh City,
Vietnam
Sunday, June 1, 2008
We were met by a girl advertising her hotel, My My Arthouse Hotel, just off the main street in the tourist area, so meeting her again as we walked down the street we went there and all was well, even though we had 5 floors to climb. It was grand though and the people there were lovely. That was Sunday and on Monday we strolled the city looking at some of the sights includingthe War Remnants Museum which has a lot of horrific information about the war with the Americans
The shrimp are still twitching
. More of the horrors of the recent history of this part of the world, linked in a way to the Cambodian horrors we'd just left behind. So in the evening we took advantage of being in a reasonably developed part of the world and went to the cinema (Narnia, not bad) before having dinner at a good restaurant nearby.Next day we both felt tired so after wandering around for a while we decided to go back to the previous night's restaurant for lunch. Being a day of no sights I left the camera in our bag instead of its normal residence in my pocket....after looking at the menu for a few minutes in the restaurant I realised the bag was gone. Unbelievable, took my eye off it for a minute and it was gone. Later I realised that we had photos on it all the way back to Nepal - with a 2gb memory card it just takes so long to fill it up. We went to the police station to report it but really that's only for insurance purposes and we're not optimistic about getting it back, even though the restaurant staff thought that the thief might contact us to ransom it back. With no contact details in the bag the only way that could happen is if he comes to the restaurant....unlikely? Yes. Its not the camera or anything else that's in it, its the photos, they can keep the camera if they give us back the memory card, I'll even give them the recharger! Such a bummer, at least we have a decent few photos up on this blog as far as Kolkata
Frist meal with new camera
.Anyway after the trauma of all that we did nothing else that day, except book a trip to see the famous Cu Chi tunnels from where the Viet Cong waged their war against the Americans. Theres a network of over 200km here with three levels ranging from 2 to 10 m deep. They've restored a small part of it for tourism purposes and even thought this is slightly enlarged its still incredibly small. I know the Vietnamese arent the tallest race in the world but even so this is mad. The section for tourists is 120m long with exits every 30m in case claustrophobia kicked in. We had no trouble with that but by the time we reached the last exit I was somehow at the front feeling my way forward in the dark. It was absolutely fine but I wouldnt fancy trying the real size tunnels. Our tour was more miss than hit as the guide was a tool, talking too much and not making much sense. We gradually learned that he had actually fought in the war on the side of the Americans but he didn't tell us that properly and really detracted from the whole experience. But I suppose thats the chance you take with organised tours.
We also took the 2 day Mekong Delta tour, which is in a different entry here, but eventually after buying a new camera we left for Mui Ne.
