In Saigon (Ho Chi Mihn City)

We had been thinking about trying to sneak out to some quiet beach resort for a couple of days whilst in South East Asia, and had decided that Vietnam would be the ideal place to do that.

Debbie in Tunnel

We also thought that seeing the overland trip back to Bangkok for our flight on the 30th would be 30-40 hours traveling, flying back to BKK would allow more time in Vietnam. So we started to organise flights and a trip to Mui Ne beach, 4 hours east of Ho Chi Mihn City. But unfortunately the flights were unavailable for the weekend, (the cheaper ones) so with a Friday flight we decided we did not have the time to go to Mui Ne.

Real Tunnel Entrance

It has worked out good though, have visited some tourist traps that have been a lot of fun. We first went to the CuChi tunnels, about 1 hour (60km) of HCMC. These are the supposed tunnels that allowed the Viet Cong to turn the tide of the war. It really is amazing reading all the communist propaganda everywhere, telling the story of the victorious comrades repelling the dirty American oppressors. The tunnels we saw were mainly replicas, however there was one genuine tunnel (apparently, how could we tell?)immediately adjacent to a massive crater from a B-52 launched bomb. It had the tiniest wooden entrance, but that didn't stopped Debbie, she jumped down the hole to see how small it was. She experienced a bit of mild panic trying to get out again, but no problems! We crawled through 100m of recreated tunnels, built slightly larger for big western bellies, but was quite a lot of fun.

Riding bikes in Mekong Delta

What we couldn't get over was how the Americans coped with the oppressive heat and humidity. We were very lightly clad, and not doing too much, yet were feeling very lethargic in the 37° or more heat. Seeing photos of troops dressed in full battle gear carrying really heavy guns and ammo made us all wonder how they did it.

We had a great guide for the trip, a 60 year old Vietnamese man whom worked as a translator for the Americans during the war, after initially fighting in the front lines for the South Vietnamese. He got sent to a "re-education camp" for 5 years after the war, in the jungle, where he had to work as a peasant farmer to teach him the "right values" (for the party I guess). He seemed very philosophical about his ordeal, and one comment he made was that in war, no one ever wins. We have heard it before, but from him it felt especially poignant.

Stewart and Friend

The next day, we took a day trip out to the Mekong Delta, a massive wet-lands rice growing region, where boats are the primary form of transport.

We were taken to a point where the river is about 8km across, with numerous Islands (Is - lands in Vietnamgrish) We joined a boat load of tourists, and cruised around looking at things, taken to markets, to a coconut candy making operation, a row boat through narrow canals with overhanging water coconut trees (very Venice) and to a lunch stop on an Island somewhere. After lunch, there were bikes provided, where Debbie and I rode through little paths in the jungle past lots of little huts and houses. Very cool.

Was a very relaxing day, and got to see a lot of interesting things that perhaps we would have missed had we been lying on the beach.