Crossing The Roads In Saigon - Eyes Closed!
Trip Start
Oct 30, 2005
1
54
122
Trip End
Ongoing
Ho Chi Minh City,
Vietnam
Monday, March 13, 2006
Having already travelled through several asian countries before we had a good idea how it worked, but now was the most extreme case yet. Coming to a decent crossing filled with traffic, Glenn took Christie's hand as she insisted on closing her eyes and we walked slowly ahead on a determined path, trying to ignore the motorbikes weaving around us without slowing
Cao Dai Temple (1)
. Another crossing... and again the same chaos - you have to trust that the motorbikes will go around you as they judge your path. By the third, Christie's eyes were open and we gained confidence. The traffic worked like in India, but just an extreme version of it. It was only Cambodia that was different from the rest of the asian countries, and we never did quite get their system mastered. But now we were fearless (well sometimes it took a while to build up this fearlessness :) ) and we could cut through the traffic when we needed to.Off to the sights of Saigon, we set off on a walk to see the Ben Thanh market - a huge undercover market full of people grabbing you to come and have a look at their stuff! Sure the attention here detracted us from shopping so we continued on through the streets to the Fine Arts Museum. Not too bad a stop, but not quite the international art standard we have seen before. Still it had some interesting war paintings and relics.
Continuing on we saw the Notre Dame Cathedral in all its French glory. Next door to it was a Post Office in an old colonial building, which was actually quite interesting, despite its current function. Some wonderful old maps dating back to the age of the building were on the interior walls, but all the stamp licking couldn't hold us for too long
Cao Dai Temple (2)
. We spent the afternoon at the War Remnants Museum - a Vietnamese perspective of the Vietnam War. Filled with very graphic and moving images, we spent a good chunk of the afternoon here, and after Glenn oggled at some of the old tanks, planes and cannons on display we headed back to rest.
The following day we took a tour to see the Cao Dai Temple and the Cu Chi Tunnels, used to live and fight the Vietnam war from underground. The Cao Dai religion exists only in Vietnam and combines ideas from many other religions, including Buddism and Christianity. It was quite a strange affair with a huge temple painted so bright and filled with so much colour. We stayed for part of the lunch time service before heading to the tunnels - what Glenn was looking forward to, although expecting it to be touristy.
The tunnels was a great trip and although touristy, it was informative with many of the bamboo traps on display do see how they worked. First we were shown the un-westernised size entrance to the tunnels - a small rectangular opening. Seeing the small Vietnamese guide get through it, we were offered a chance to try. Doubting he'd fit, Glenn managed to get all the way through it
Cao Dai Temple (3)
! Off to the shooting range, Glenn just had to shoot off a few rounds of an AK-47, but at over US$1 a bullet, he only had a few shots. After this, with Christie nearly deafened by trying to take Glenn's photo while he was shooting, we went to the tunnels and although they had been enlarged for westerners, were still quite small. Several lights dimly lit the tunnel, but not adequately and a lot of the time we had to feel our way forward.
We were last in our group, and there were three exits to the tunnel, one at 30m, one 60m and the last at 100m. Having lost sight of the people in front, Christie decided from Glenn's dawdling (attempting photos) that the first section was enough, but Glenn was determined to do it all, and after having to crawl on hands and knees for a while in the hot, stuffy and limited air, he immerged at the far end to an applause - he was the only person to do the whole distance from the group. Still, he immerged dripping wet with sweat from the heat and stuffiness of the tunnels.
While we were not quite crazy enough to hire a motorbike and "be the traffic" we spent the next few days wandering around Saigon, and also trying to spend some time planning our Vietnam trip - whether to join the tourist circus and use the open tour buses, or tackle the public buses. Any request of information we were always pointed towards the open tour buses, and so after much deliberation about trying to get off the beaten path, we realised that it was near impossible with only a few weeks and opted to join the many other tourists using the (cheap) open tour buses.
After being totally spoilt by our guesthouse owners and getting treats every night, from fruits to cakes, we said our goodbyes to Long and Thuy, our adopted Vietnamese grandparents :( and boarded the bus to Dalat.
