Vietnam: Saigon/ Ho Chi Minh City

  Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Friday, March 16, 2007

We arrived here just in time to get ourselves a good rest before Paddys Day. So the first night was pretty quiet. However the next day we decided to get a bit busy

The first thing we decided to do was to make our way out to the Chu Chi tunnels and firing range :). 

01 A model of the Chu Chi tunnels HCMC

The Chu Chi tunnels are one of the Viet Congs greatest achievements during the war. They are around 250 km long and allowed for easy movement of the VC without being detected. They were started by the Viet Cong when they were fighting the French and were continued during the American war. The tunnels were about 50cm by 50cm big in places. Although the one we went into was extended by 30cm to allow tourists to go through them. They had everything from hospital to bunkers to command center incorporated in them. At the height of their use they held something like 10,000 people in them. The ingenuity involved in creating these tunnels is unreal. They had small air tunnel every few feet, that were concealed from view at the top. They also had smoke vent from the kitchen that would dispense the smoke a few km away from where the actual cooking was happening. So even if the smoke was spotted it was no where near where the actual cooking was taking place.

We made our way into a tunnel and it was a real squeeze.

18. Me making my way

As I said this part of the tunnel was actually extended by 30cm to allow tourists to travel through it. I was able to move by basically shuffling my way through, if it was the original size I would have to have crawled the whole way. As it was it was incredibly stuffy and hot down there with the sweat pouring off me. That and the fact that the only way we knew where people were was to keep shouting and listen for a response as it was pitch black the whole way through. I was glad to be out of them when we got to the end. How people actually lived here for so long is beyond me.

Anyway we livened things up a bit by shooting some bloody big guns. They had an array of them but I went for the AK47, M16 and the M60 machine gun. The noise from these bloody things is unreal. But we looked damn cool doing it.

After we went back to our hotels and relaxed for a while before dressing ourselves up and heading out for Paddys night. We headed for the Irish pub only to be refused as it was a ticket affair.

35. Paddys night

The fact that we were actually Irish (as opposed to half of those in there) didn't make any difference. So none too happy we wandered off and found a pub with two other Irish guys in the same position in their. One of em had a flag so we hung it outside the pub and stood there with our beer touting for business. The land lady was so impressed she gave us a free beer as a thank you. The night continued with a trip to the local nightclub where we danced our little arses off until around 7am. As you can imagine the next day was a bit of a write off. But it was worth it!!!

The last major thing we did before heading out to the Mekong Delta was go visit the war museum. This has a stash of US military machine like tanks and planes etc.The other thing it has are some fairly graphical pictures of the results of the chemical warfare that took place in Vietnam at that time.

44. Huey Helicopter

One of the main problems today are the effects from Agent Orange which was a herbicide used by the American forces to kill off the foliage in the countryside so that the VC were easy to spot. Something in the region of 20 million gallons were apparently used during the war. Some of the result were major deformaties in new born babies along with various diseases and illnesses. The display had deformed foetus preserved in jars. It also included pictures of the effect of Napalm which because of its jelly like texture would stick and burn the skin of those it hit and left some devastating injuries. The museum also had general pics of the effects of war. The good thing about the exhibition was that it didn't just tell the story from the Vitnamese side but also from the American side. With letters and donations of medals and other war memorbilia from American veterans who fought in the war as well. It was a pretty sobering end to our visit in Saigon.