Ho Chi Minh City and cruising along the Mekong Delta

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OK next entry, hey we are only 2 months and 2 weeks behind now.....maybe we will catch up at some point!!!

11th November
Another long bus journey, this time to Ho Chi Minh city (formerly known as Saigon), which is the capital. As we arrived closer to hcmc the rain started to come down and it looked as though it had been raining there all day. On the way our journey was hampered by a river running through the road. We looked out to see locals on scooters and motorbikes still trying to ride through the water which was coming up to the tops of their legs! We saw one woman clinging onto her child trying to ride her motorbike (which of course was laden with boxes) through the water. To be honest she wasn't doing a bad job of it, it does seem Asians are very resourceful!
Our bus eventually made it through and we arrived at the bus company's shop near our guesthouse. As we got off we heard an English lad causing a big scene shouting at the bus driver. It transpired that his backpack had got wet in the storage compartment (as had everyone else's) and he was blaming the driver for this. One Australian guy said to him "you should have got a cover for your bag mate" which was a good point but obviously didn't go down too well! We had learnt early on in China to put covers on our bags after they were stored next to raw chicken and got covered in chicken's blood! By the time we had sorted ourselves out ready to walk to our hotel we saw him shouting at a member of staff in the shop. She was doing a very good job of smiling politely at him whilst moving his bag in front of a small fan in a pretty poor attempt at drying it out! Should have got a cover for your bag mate!
After checking in we headed out to find somewhere for a drink. It was absolutely chucking it down by this point. We ran down the street and managed to find somewhere. We were soaked through by the time we got there and walked in dripping all over the floor. Of course the staff thought it was hilarious and enjoyed pointing and laughing at the wet "frog eyes" (we recently found out that a lot of asians refer to white people in this way!). Good news was that the restaurant didn.t have a carpet so our dripping couldn't damage it! Also it had an open front (as most places we have been to do) so we could watch everyone rushing around getting soaked in the rain. Our waitress was also very nice and helped to teach us a few more words and phrases in Vietnamese. We rets in English! After the rain had died down a bit we headed back out into the road which was now a stream. We grabbed some very tasty pho on the way back to our guesthouse, yum yum, we love vietnamese food!


12th november
Day trip to see chu chi tunnels. These are the tunnels dug by the Viet cong during Vietnam war. All of which were approx 0.9m high. People lived in them for long periods to hide from American and launch attacks. We were lucky to have a very good tour guide who spoke great english and was very enthusiastic! On the way to the tunnels we stopped at a factory/shop set up by an organisation who are helping victims of Agent orange to work and make a living. They make artwok from egg shells and paint and some of them are very impressive. See picture of huge vase for evidence! Whilst at the tunnel site we were able to go into an original entrance to one of the tunnels and experience what it felt like once the lid on the entrance was on, not much fun. We also saw lots of replicas of the many different types of traps which the viet cong used to trap/maim/kill American soldiers. We were also given graphic descriptions of how they worked and exactly what injuries they would cause. Basically you don't want to fall into one - you will get hurt alot! Still not sure why they had so many different types. We definitely got the impression that everyone on both sides of this war got a bit blood thirsty and went slightly mad during it. Both sides did some pretty gruesome things, but this could well be explained by the gruesome things that had been inflicted on them and their friends/family. Of course a nice dose of propaganda probably had a fair part to play as well.
After this we had the opportunity to fire an AK-47 which was pretty exciting. I wasn't going to but after seeing Michael have a go I couldn't resist! It was on a stand (apparently because someone had killed themselves when they "wanted to see if the gun really worked" (tour guide's version of events). Despite the stand you still got a lot of kick back and it felt like being punched in the shoulder. The noise was also incredible and although we were given ear muffs i didn.t get mine on in time before someone next to us started firing his gun...it hurt like hell. I would not be very good in a war, everyone must end up deaf i reckon.
We then had a chance to go into the tunnels. Luckily the tunnels have been widened for "big western tourists" so they are 1.5m high and wide instead of the original 0.9m. However they still feel very small. I am slightly claustrophobic so i found it pretty tough, and we only did 200m of it. I really cannot imagine living down there, it must have been hellish.
After this we learnt about some of the many resourceful things the viet cong had done to help win their fight, including reusing bomb shells and using tyres to make sandals!
That evening we wandered around the streets a bit more enjoying the sights and sounds and smells. We had some more lovely food at a local restaurant which was packed! Tried to ignore the sight of more old western men with young beautiful Vietnamese ladies. As we had run out of AA batteries for our camera we went to an electrical shop to buy some more. This ended up taking about 40 minutes! The batteries were in a locked glass cabinet so we asked a member of staff if they could open it for us. He said "ok, yes yes" and then promptly walked off. A few minutes later he came back with a woman and they looked at the cabinet, then looked at us, smiled and promptly walked off. Next the lady came back and asked us what we wanted. Again we pointed at the batteries. She smiled and said "ok, yes yes" guess what? Yep she then walked off. Again She came back and finally opened the cabinet and took out the batteries. However, she did not give them to us, oh no the process was not over yet! She walked off and we decided to follow this time. She left the batteries behind the till in the shop and so we decided to wait there. A few minutes later another girl came to the till and gave us a form asking for name address birth date etc. to fill in and sign! We then paid the money and...we were finally entrusted with the batteries! Both of us wondered why we had bothered waiting but the whole process was very intriguing. Next time we will buy them from a street stall!

13th november
We spent the day wandering around the streets of hcmc and visiting some of the main sights including the presidential palace complete with underground bunker and then onto notre dame church (yep really!) In the afternoon, after having a drink whilst watching a man paint the outside of a multi storey building with no safety harness and no scaffolding, we went to the war remnants museum. This museum is full of pictures taken during the vietnam war. Most of them are pretty gruesome. There is also a whole section dedicated to agent orange and the effects it had and still has on a significant number of people in Vietnam (and cambodia and laos we were to find out later). Although it was not the most pleasant way to spend an afternoon we both felt it was worth going to. That evening Vietnam were playing football and this was being played in most places. We watched a bit and enjoyed watching how excited the locals were getting. Good news Vietnam won, by about 8-0! Shortly after the end of the game the roads were overtaken by youngsters on motorbikes driving around beeping, waving Vietnam flags and cheering. Every now and then they would all stop and someone would lift up a huge crudely drawn cardboard replica of the world cup which of course led to more beeping and cheering. At one point there must have been over 100 of them driving around. We thought that it must have been a big game and that maybe they had qualified for the world cup. However when we saw our (very nice) guesthouse owner the next morning we found out that it had been a friendly match. She explained that this happened every time they won a game and that she actually wished for vietnam to lose every game so she could "get some peace!" bless her!

14th november
Today we headed off early on a 3 day mekong delta tour which would take us along parts of the mekong river, to small villages on land, small floating villages on water and finally to cambodia.
We started on bus and were taken to a small boat which took us along the river to our first stop...a brick factory, (more interesting than it sounds), then onto a place where they make a special honey. We sat with an english couple robin and claire whilst reading some information about the many wonderful powers of the honey which included making women's skin more beautiful, making men stronger, curing cancer, curing impotence, increasing happiness... We were then treated to a musical performance by some locals. Next stop we were taken down a small stream on a punt boat by a nice man. This was followed by a ride on what looked like a vehicle used for transporting livestock! We ate lunch at a lovely little place and were given a huge fish to share between 6 and various other dishes were brought out to us as we ate. In the afternoon we had a very long bus ride to a small town wherewe were spending the night. We wandered down to the river for dinner and then on the way back got ourselves a bit lost. This was mainly because we tried to use the crappy photocopied map with only 2 road names on given to us by the hotel we were staying in. We ended up walking down a narrow but very very long alleyway lined by small houses. As we walked along we were greeted by lots of friendly smiles and shouts of hello from the people living there. They all seemed so happy to see us, it was really lovely! After this walk we were even more lost and had to ask for directions in a pharmacy. We eventually made it back to the road our hotel was on. We decided to stop for a drink of coke on the way back at a shop with lots of chairs outside and a big tv which was showing a film. We obviously couldn't understand the talking parts of the film but luckily it was mostly action, and included a tuk tuk race. This was pretty impressive, at one point one tuk tuk did a somersault, very realistic!

15th november
We visited a floating market in the morning which was pretty cool. We got to see everyone on boats selling and buying goods.
In the afternoon we were put on a different bus along with others travelling to cambodia where we joined people who were doing a 3 day trip to mekong delta and then back to hcmc. We also had a new tour guide, who was rather unintentionally hilarious. Let's just say he took his job very seriously although we think he may have been confused as to what his job was perhaps believing that he was a drill seargant! He shouted alot, all the time! unfortunately we spent a lot of hours on the bus today. We didn.t mind this as we knew we had to cover a lot of land to get to cambodia. However, understandably those on the hcmc mekong delta and cal to hcmc tour were understandably not impressed as they got to see very little except for the back of the bus seat in front of them! Two dutch girls in particular were making their unhappiness well known to the tour guide. We actually felt a bit sorry for him at this point as a group pretty much surrounded him whilst he tried to placate the 2 girls. Unfortunately his loud speaking voice wasn't doing the best job of soothing the angry mob. On the bus journey we spotted a few motorbikes with what we we thought were dead pigs strapped to the back. After a while we realised that they were not in fact dead. Two or three pigs to a bike tied up tightly with rope to the back. Not a nice way to travel, poor pigs, maybe pork should be off our menu from now on. Late afternoon we were told we would be getting a ferry across the mekong and that this would take about an hour including waiting time. Our tour guide informed us that we would get to see a beautiful 'panoramic' view of the mekong river on the ferry...hmmm... After about waiting in a traffic queue for the ferry for about 1 hour we realised this was going to be a long one! In total we were in traffic queue for 2 hours before being shepherde off the bus and into what looked like a big animal enclosure. Here we all waited with numerous others including lots of people selling very strange looking and smelling food. We waited here for just under an hour then we were herded onto the ferry. The ferry was big but appeared to behearde towards transporting vehicles not people. It was quite fun climbing up to the top though for the 'bec8viet panoramic view!'
We arrived fairly late in the evening at another small river town and went for some food with the rest of the group. In the restaurant the gloomy mood continued and everyone sat in pretty much silence at our table...awkward! Those of you who know me will know that when faced with such situations i try to make jokes, these are usually very bad and awkward. So being me i did this, it did not help lift the group's mood...whoops. To make things even better at one point the girl and guy sitting next to me pointed to my crotch and i looked down to see a rather large cockroach. I did not keep my cool i'm afraid, i leapt out of my chair and squealed. This was greeted by looks of disgust from our fellow travellers and a rather embarrassed looking Michael. Poor guy. Needless to say, after dinner we scuttled off to bed pretty sharpish!

16th november
Today was a much better day! We spent a lot less time on a bus and more time on a long tail boat instead. We started off by visiting a couple of floating villages with lots of wooden houses floating on water! In the afternoo we took a motorised long tail boat along the mekong to the cambodian border. Along the way we saw lots of signs of daily life. Water buffalo and cattle grazing, people lying in hammocks and children running to the waters edge to give us a cheery smile and a big wave! At the border everything was handled for us whilst we went to a floating restaurant for some tasty pho before jumping back in the boat to cross the border. Once we were across the border we got off to get our visa stamped and transfer to a minibus. On the journey we saw our first glimpses of village life in cambodia. All the houses are built on stilts and the families gather underneath to shelter from the heat. Hammocks are thee underneath and cooking equipment and lots more are kept underneath too. This is poverty we thought as we drove along but everyone seemed so incredibly happy, we were treated to many more waves and friendly faces. At one point the road ran out literally coming to a stop in front of a big drop into thesiter. The bus driver explained in sign language and broken english that we would need to walk as he wouldn't a able to drive across the dirt track with us in the bus. So we walked across greeted by lots of cambodian children who were very pleased to have their photo taken and even more happy to be able to see the picture on our cameras. Afterwards it was a bit more of a bus ride to phnom penh, cambodia's capital. When we arrived we were pounced on by tuk tuk drivers. Choosing one we jumped on and were taken to our hostel. Our first impressions of cambodia were very very good, we already knew we were going to like it here...

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Photos

making art from egg shells!
We went to find out about an organisation set up to help people affected by Agent Orange to work and earn money. This is some of them in action

Going in
Maybe I should ahev put a few more leaves on to camoflague

Girls Be Fabulous
We loved everything about this middle aged lady's outfit!

Door trap
Swings at you when you open door

boom
apparently I am holding it wrong and would have had my hand melted...whoops!

Michael in small tunnel
and these tunnels had been widened....

Katie's bottom in the tunnels!
Yes my big bum can squeeze through thank you Michael!!