South Vietnam

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Dalat

After a long bus trip (as per usual) I arrived in the Dalat in the late afternoon and as soon as I had stepped into the hotel that I was going to stay at the heavens opened and we got a dose of real tropical down pours.

As I was a bit late in getting going in the morning all the motorcycle drivers that I had been hoping to catch a lift with that day had already got their customers for the day so I decided to go and hire a bike and do my own tour.

Now having studied technical drawing at university and dabling in orienteering during my school days I thought I was pretty good at reading maps. After riding around dalat for half an hour trying to find the first site I could only come up with two possibilities;

• 1) The maps are very poor, or
  
• 2) I am about as capable as a two year old when it comes to maps
  

Anyway after deciding to use the map only as a 'rough' approximation I was on my way.

There wasn't really a lot to see around without going treking but one thing that caught my eye was the 'crazy house'. This place had been created by the daughter of Ho Chi Minh's(previous ruler of vietnam) successor. One really has to wonder if this is what happens when you get red alice in wonderland to much and what was she on when she got to designing. The whole building has been crafted out of concrete (or similar) giving the impression that the whole building has grown rather than been built. Every bed room has a theme and large concrete animals with red lights for eyes. All the beds and seats are set into the walls of the building and there are mirrors by all the beds (one on the roof and one on the wall beside). All in all very interesting and very crazy.

After by bike trip it was another afternoon of massive rainfalls so I decided to boost and go do something else. I joined a tour to cycle from Dalat to the beach town of Mui Ne. This was basically a road thing (I kinda wanted more off road) but it was something in the realms of 950m decent over the first third of 70km. For anyone who doesn't do any cycling this is a lot of downhill and it was fast and fun.

The cycle tour was good and it was really nice to be riding through the forests and some of the ethnic minority villages that are off the beaten track a bit unlike those visited by countless bus tours in other places. We got a 'little' bit of rain at the end of our ride but it all added to the experience and was quite good for cooling down. The only shocking experience was the fatal motorcycle crash we passed shortly after finishing our riding, needless to say when a young girl on a scooter wearing no helmet (no one wears helmets) meet a but on the motorway it is not a pretty site.

Mui Ne

After finishing our ride to Mui Ne we were taken to a great little resort along Mui Ne beach. It was certainly a different atmosphere here with the one and only road passing parrallel to the beach and about 10 to 15km of resorts there are not to many places to go but it's real easy to slide back into a hamock and have a snooze.

The one site to see in Mui Ne are the sand dunes and on the advice of the locals we organised to head out to see them at dawn (that means 5 o'clock). Very nice piles of sand and we saw white dunes, yellow dunes and red sand stone. I think the more interesting part was seeing the way the locals work. As with any touristed site any opportunity to make some money is utilised. The popular activity at the dunes was sand sledding. The young kids help/follow you up the sand dunes and hire out the mats for sliding down the hills. The first kids were being dropped off by their parents at the same time as we arrived shortly after 5 and there were still more arriving when we left closer to 6 or seven.

Now to hire a sledge (for someone who is not bargining too hard) is 10,000d about US$0.70 when we went there as a group we hired four from two kids. The average income for an adult is US$3.50 per day. On this logic the kids could be earning well over the average wage. But then where the sledges came from is another question as they didn't seem to belong to any one in particular and were often put down and picked up and switched by the children. There is certainly a lot more of a comunal feel when doing business.

Anyway after one full day of chilling out at the beach it felt like it was time to move on. The beach wasn't very good for swimming anyway because of the amount of trash there. One of the girls went for a run and counted 9 bra washed up on the shore (might have been an interesting night out there).

Saigon a.k.a. Ho Chi Minh

Another bus ride and we arrived in Saigon. Yes it was big and yes there were a lot of motorcycles. It is near impossible to walk 5m without being asked if you need a "moto?" and if you refuse this it is quickly followed in a slightly quieter tone with "marijuana?".

It's a busy city and on the Sunday I went for a wander around to see what people were up to. I found the central park and the scouts were out in force. Tieing knots and making stuff these guys were doing it. All sorts of things were going on. Someone had set up a shooting range for air rifles. This was parrallel with were some of the scouts were doing their thing but the targets were at least 5m away from the kids!!

The day trip I took from Saigon was to go see the Coo Chi(spelling) tunnels. This is part of the network of tunnels used by the Viet Cong in the war. The tunnel network extends over 200km. Our guide was a veteran from the South Vietnamese army (opposing the VC) so it was interesting to hear a little bit more about the war from his perspective. The actual trip through the tunnels was brief but that was probably a good thing as they were so small you had to crawl on your hands and knees. Everyone was dripping with sweat by the time we got out.

Mekong Delta

I joined a tour for this section as it also included all the transportation to get me from Saigon to Cambodia. I was half expecting a short bus trip to the river followed by a slow cruise up interupted only by the occasional site seeing adventure. Alas I was once again on a bus for a few days!

The trip consisted of a number of small trips on small boats to see some interesting sites like markets and farms but nothing too memorable (I did get to hold a large snake though).... The trip was all tied together with seeminly endless bus trips and several long waits. It all ended up pretty well though with a trip to a lovely pagoda (although all they wanted me to do was bow to Buhda and donate money. This did not impress me) and then a walk to the top of the hill to see the view shown in the photo below.

The final day was a slow cruise up the mekong and through into Cambodia. Customs was certainly not an issue as our bags stayed on the boat the whole time. nice to be in a new country now and ready to explore again.

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