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Published: January 19th 2011
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Xin Chao everyone! We safely arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), this time by the luxury of air and even with no visa hassles – thumbs up all around! One of the first things we did was to withdraw some cash out of the ATM, it was a nice feeling to withdraw 5 million from your bank account (even if it was only in Vietnamese dong!).
We jumped in a taxi and made our way to Kate’s flat which was a small village called An Phu (District 2) just a short taxi ride away from District 1 (the city centre). We couldn’t wait to soak up some home luxuries for a week or so whilst at Kate’s. Saigon is a big bustling city that is getting more modern every day, swamped by motorbikes going in every direction, but it’s also a place filled with history and recent memories of the Vietnam War. We were wondering if things would look a bit different with Vietnam being a communist country – although there was red Vietnamese flags on every building along with communist banners, there was no shortage of Western shops and advertising.
We were hoping to see both sides of
the city during our stay.
Our local city guide Kate took us on a wee tour of the city centre – we went to see wait for it… the Post Office!!! This is apparently one of the first sights that tourists are taken to, although to be fair it isn’t your average Royal Mail building it’s a pretty impressive building for a post office. We also seen the Reunification Palace, Saigon’s Notre Dame Cathedral, the busy Ben Thanh Market and the backpackers district of Pham Ngu Lao.
We also visited the impressive War Remnants Museum, which is a museum about the Vietnamese struggle for independence against the French and United States. It is filled with American tanks, helicopters and planes and graphic photos of the carnage of the Vietnam War. Although there are no lies in the museum you cant help but notice it does only give a one-sided account of the war (only American war crimes, and no Vietnamese).
Since Saigon is filled with many delicious places to eat, we decided to get into the local way of eating and tried the famous Pho soup which is basically watery soup with either chicken/beef and noodles, spring
onions and basil. It was tasty and cheap (vital for the backpacker)! Kate also took us to an open-air Vietnamese barbeque restaurant where you cooked the dishes yourself on your table. After cooking up some boar and chicken, we ordered some prawns which came out alive and wriggling! It took some time until eventually Tina and Kate thought oh well and decided to chuck them on, it was a sad sight to see them barbequed alive in front of our eyes! Paul refused to participate in the cooking, but hypocritically did enjoy eating them after having to pull off the heads and legs!! On our last night in Saigon Kate took us to the Sheraton Hotel rooftop bar and we took in the sights of the city with cocktails in style!
Cu Chi Tunnels Another part of the Vietnam War history we really wanted to visit was the nearby Cu Chi Tunnels. We booked a tour for $4 to take us out to Cu Chi, the tour guide Bin was a war veteran who had fought on the American/South Vietnamese side. It was a privilege to have a guide who actually experienced the war and he enjoyed telling
us his stories of his time in the war, and gave us loads of details on the tunnels. They were basically a network of 200km of underground tunnels built and used by the Vietcong to fight the Americans - they stretched all the way from Saigon to the Cambodian border. You are allowed to descend into the actual tunnels, and crawl along in complete darkness for about 150 metres. We both found it really hot and claustrophobic, even though the tunnels have since been widened for us tourists to go down! We were also shown the vicious traps the Vietcong used against American soldiers in the war. To finish off the day we were taken to a firing range where Paul got the chance to fire a round of live ammunition from one of the weapons used in the war (had to stop himself from applying warpaint and charging into the battlefields!!).
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