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I love the smell of 'nam' in the morning
Entry 8 of 72 | show all | print this entry |
Well, here I am in Vietnam (arrived a day late, due to an illness which may or may not have been my own doing, but dont fret I am fine now!!). Had another nightmare bus journey to get here - possibly the worst yet, but who is counting. We arrived and that for most is the main thing - border crossing was once again scary - no idea what to do or how long it should take. Think it took us a good couple of hours just to get passports stamped, and of course pay the standard corruption fee.
So anyway, we have spent the morning being ferried around on cyclo's (basically a bike with a seat on the front) seeing the sights in HCMC. The guide was actually a Vietnamese soldier (one of the good ones on the Americans side) and had some good stories and some not so good, especially the ones associated with his gun shot wounds!!
Basically he took us to see a war remnants museum which as you guessed, had a lot of stuff from the war - most disturbing were the photos taken of the locals who suffered because of the chemical bombing, even today it seems it can affect the newborn just through exposure of a parent etc. Also saw another temple, where we were introduced to more buddha's, but I have fogotten most of that now, and would need pictures to explain it all anyway. Apart from some other stuff, he took us to a market where they sold animals - quite sad to see all puppies and kittens kept together in little cages in the sun just waiting for someone to buy them - apparently it was mostly 50/50 what they were for: some people brought them as a pet, others to eat. I fear we may have had issues with customs should we have tried to import any; besides which Huey would not have approved!!
Oh we went to a factory as well - it sold pots and picture type things. And that has been our day so far. The rest will no doubt be taken up by sleeping and boozing - maybe not in that order. And just for the record the local beer is disgusting; so if anyone offers you a bottle of Saigon, Just say NO (you heard it here first).
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