Same Same.........but different
Trip Start
Aug 28, 2005
1
21
37
Trip End
Dec 10, 2005
Ho Chi Minh/Saigon,
Vietnam
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
We only had a couple of days here so they were pretty busy.
Day 1 we decided on the city walking tour outlined in the Lonely Planet book. The main sight we wanted to see was the War Remnants in Vietnam Museum. The biggest display was of media photos, most of which were shocking and gave a very real idea of what the war was like. Many photos of scarred civilians, dead soliders and civilians, soldiers on duty, planes, guns and bombs. There was a large section on agent orange and also 2 cased deformed embro which was a little too much for the eyes to stomach. There was also a display on the weapons used, large tanks, planes and bomb shells outside and inside there were grenades and other nasty weapons, even the guillotine that the French used on so called "Vietnamese troublemakers"! The museum was very well done and I sure as hell hope that in my life time I am never that close to war!
Jo and Pie left us early this morning and have headed into Phnom Penh, Cambodia. We will catch up with them again down in the Thai islands next week.
Dan and I did a 1/2 day tour out to the Cu Chi tunnels today. This was one of the most interesting things we have done so far in Vietnam. These tunnels are 50km out of Saigon and became famous in the 1960s when the VC soliders built and extended the tunnels used to live, fight and defend the Cu Chi area. There is over 250km of tunnels (a network)made and we only got to enter a small fraction of 50m of the tunnel. The part of the tunnel we could walk through was about 6m underground and 1.2m high and only 0.8m wide. It was so stuffy and dark down there and we had to crouch to walk. We both decided that our 30m stroll through the tunnel was enough and decided to flag going down to the next lower level 10m under. How the Vietnamese managed to stay under there for hours/days/months, I have no idea! We had a great informative guide who was a South Vietnamese solider and also got to view an educational video made in the 1960s before going to see the tunnels. Surprisingly enought the US soldiers were baffled by the tunnels and lost many men attempting to get inside the network. The clever guriller soldiers had no guns like the US but instead had to devise there own weapons mostely made from sharpened bamboo and also made many man traps with fishhook like spikes from the bomb shells found on the ground from the US bombings. The kitchen was also of interest to me. Basic cooking and they had to create a vent that would take the smoke from the cooking to another area in the forest so as not to give their position away. All in all a very interesting place to visit.
That is about all we did in Saigon. Same same but different!
We are off tonight to fly back to Bangkok and meeting Dans parents tomorrow night. Bring on a red curry!
