Vietnam to Cambodia on the Mekong Delta (Saigon and Pnom Penh)

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Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City as its official name, is a city with a lot of bloody history which we took in when we visited the various war-time sites around the area. First we went to the Cu Chi Tunnels, 45 miles south east of Saigon, which is a huge 75 mile network of underground tunnels that the communist villagers and Viet Cong used during the war with America and the South of Vietnam.


As we entered the shady woods we first notice the ear piercing drills of the AK47s rattling off in the distance as visitors try their hand at firing an array of guns. The sheer volume and pain you feel from just being in the same area as the noise makes you appreciate what soldiers did and still go through on the battlefields. But that is nothing compared to how small those tunnels are!


The first tunnel we came to just fits around your hips and is shoulder height, so just your head shows. Although we were not allowed to go further, if you crouched down then crawled forward you would be at the start of a long tunnel. Some of them go all the way into Cambodia! We looked at the Viet Cong's way of life from their black pjama suit and their famous sandals made from rubber tyres, to the way they ate, spied and butchered the enemy with remade bombs and trapdoors complete with rusty spikes.


From the big gaping leftovers of B52's bomb blasts to the suffocating size of the tunnels you definitely get a good feel for the dark war that raged less than 40 years ago. We did get the chance to go through one tunnel for about 100m, and with barely enough room to move your bent legs and no light to see at all, by the time you emerge you are sweating and a bit scared!


Then we got dropped off at the city's Museum of War Remnants, with its displays of captured weapons and its photos and information that leave you speechless. It only recently amended its name, with changing times, from the Museum of American War Crimes, but it needn't have bothered, it is clear from the nasty pictures of American soldier's war 'victories' of chopped up Vietamese soldiers and butchered families that there is no forgetting what they did to this country.


There is a lot of information about what Agent Orange, one of the chemicals did and is still doing to people born and related to the area where the bomb containing the compounds were dropped. There is a collection of photos of severely disfigured young adults and chlildren who were born from mothers exposed to Agent Orange, and a video explaining how and what is being done to help. There is definitely some images in this museum that will not leave my mind for the rest of my life.


There is also many jets, bomb and tanks to pose next to, but nothing will affect you like the pictures inside. One picture is the world famous picture of 7 year old Kim Phuc as she runs screaming and naked from a napalm bomb dropped on her village. Not only did this photo bring on the start of mass Western attention to the never ending war in Vietnam but it changed people's ides of war in general forever. Me and Fle have been reading her autobiography, The Girl In The Picture and it gives a fascinating background to her life which means all the more where you are treading on the ground she did as a girl too.


In Saigon there seems a lot to do if you want to go out drinking, dining and dancing, but we didn't really want to this so made our way slowly to the capital of Cambodia via the Mekong Delta. This was definitely the perfect way to near the end of our journey as we have been following the Mekong River for most of our travels, so it makes sense to visit the place it spills finally at the end of it's magnificent journey through South East Asia, into the China Sea.


First we went to My Tho and got off the boat at various points of interest, the first being a coconut candy making place! It was delicious, and we ate a whole bag of peanut coconut sweets that day... Next was a honey bee farm where we got to hold a python! For some reason I could not hold him without his long neck going all straight and I thought I was going to be a gonner but it was OK!


Then we had fruit and Vietnamese tea and listened and watched traditional music. It is lovely to be on a peaceful river instead of getting about by noisy tuktuk, and it feels so tropical slinking along the brown waters in between the palm trees. But I can never get the war out of my head, and imagine sneaking along the river and seeing soldiers and hearing gun fire. (It is a long boat ride, I have a lot of thinking time!)


We stayed the night in Can Tho, where me, Fle and a very lovely couple we met managed to get very lost after dinner, but the town felt pretty safe even late at night. In the morning we got back on the boat and got to see a couple of floating markets. Unluckily for me, at the very front of the boat which is the only seat which can not get plastic pulled down to protect from the torrential rain, I got soaked in a monsoon rain. But eventually we dried off and it was interesting to see the buyers and sellers bargaining on water, their wares signaled by a stick on the top of their boat dangling the fruit or vegetable or fish they would sell you.


On the way back we went to a crocodile farm which I was worried was cruel, and a fish farm which has mental splashy fish in it on someone's floating house. We also went to a Cham (Muslim) minority village house on the river and I bought a traditional scarf they had made.


Then we went up the river to Chau Doc where we easily got through immigration and entered the long awaited Cambodia. The first difference we spot is how excited the Cambodian people see to see us! We wave continuously as children and even adults wave at our boat. When we get to Pnom Penh we go to a cheap guest house overlooking the Boeng Kak lake, which would be perfect for hippie type travelers as is full of western studenty types who smoke, drink and watch dvds all day and night, even though there is so much to see in Phom Penh.


We go straight to the Killing Fields, a very sad site where the prisoners of Pol Pot's corrupt communist Khmer Rouge regime in the early to mid 1970s were taken to be shot and piled up in deep pits among naked family members and children. Even though it is mainly just grassy holes now, you can still see rags and bones poking through the ground as you walk, which leaves you feeling pretty empty. Although the history of Vietnam and Cambodia are filled with sadness they cannot really be compared. It is important to know the past and the sad sad tales of these countries which let us in so warmly to their land.


After the Killing Fields, we visited the S-21, which was a secondary school the Khmer Rouge turned into a torture prison where Cambodian families who Pol Pot thought were middle class or city-people, rather than perfect specimens of his ideal agarian farmer communist country were imprisoned. This is where the Cambodian people would spend their last days on earth before being transported to the killing fields. The haunting photos of victims who stayed at the prison are placed in the old classrooms among vivid depictions of the tortures used on them. There are still drops of blood on the floor. The whole building reeks of sadness, and the brewing storm outside adds to the horror of a mass genocide that happened when our parents were already teenagers. That something so horrible could happen so recently and the rest of the world be quite censored from it is terrifying.


We have also been reading First They Killed My Father, which is probably one of the best books I have read in my life. Luong writes from her perspective of a 5 year old little girl, from a loving city family in the 70s, who gets driven into the country during Pol Pot's evil regime. Even if you do not like sad true life or history in any form, this amazing story will trick you into it, as you will fall in love with Luong like we have. It is the best way to understand what happened here in Camboda only a few years ago.


There is much to do in Pnom Pen itself, with many tasty restaurants and swish bars. We went to the Lighthouse Orphanage to donate things and help out, but most of the children were away on a long trip! So we are going back before we fly back to Bangkok next week. I promise to take a cutey pie picture or two if I can!


We also visited the central and Russian markets, took in the river side lifestyle of the trendy bars and restaurants and tried to see the silver pagoda in the Royal Palace about four times. Each time it was shut or our shorts were too short or something silly! So even though we did not see the bling of the golden Budda, we celebrated Fle's birthday in Pnom Penh by buying the Premium Golden Baseball Caps Of Our Dreams, and being illuminated gangsters of bling all day. UKRAINE FREVA! (We may be taking the books we read too seriously...).


Cle xxx

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