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These flags are everywhere in Sigon I have never seen soo many motobikes in one city before in my life, there are literally millions of them everywhere. This makes crossing the road a unique and interesting challenge for first timers to the city. There is literally a constant stream of bikes so the only option if you want to cross is to step out into the traffic and hope for the best. The best metaphore I can give is to imagine the waters movement around a stone breaking the surface of a river, like the water the bikes literally flow around you as you creep to the other side and to saftey. If there is any solid objects like cars or buses your done for there is no where to run! Vietnam is definatley more commerce orientated that other SEA nations and influences from it's northen neigbour, Chiana are apparent. Around Sigon there are banners displaying the hammer and sycle everywhere reminding you of the countrys communist government.
I only spent a week in Vietnam. While I was there travel was difficult as the country was celebrating victory day over the Americans. Most of the buses to Na Trang, where I hoped to visit were
The F4 Phantom
Representing American technological superiourity in the conflict fully booked therefore I only got to see Sigon. Im a way I am glad as I definatley want to return to SEA and this way I have a corner which will be completley new to me.
One of the few things of note I did in the city was visit the Cu Chi tunnels on the outskirts of Sigon. Being a history buff the visit to the tunnels was a must do for me and one of the main reasons I made the trip over the border from Cambodia. The maze of tunnels were used by the Vietcong in the war against the United States. Often little more than one meter high and 80 centimeters across, these tunnels were supply routes, kitchens, hospitals and training facilities.
Crawling through the tunnels was a hot and claustrophobic expirience even when they have been enlarged for the portly western tourists. Adding to the atmosphere of the tunnels was a fring range overhead like the one I visited in Cambodia. While you are crawling through these pitch black tunnels you can hear the dull thud of an M60 or the crack of an AK overhead. Our gide for the day was
a local guy from Sigon who acted as an interprater for the US Airborne during the war. During the day he told us about his expiriences during the war many of which were pretty harrowing as you can well imagine. Around the sight of the tunnels were various traps used by the Vietcong which where explained in graphic detail by our guide.
Also while in Sigon we took the oppertunity to vistit the war remanants museam. To give you a feel of the place it used to be called the museam of Chinese and American atrocities. The photography of the war displayed there is all at once spectacular, moving and grotesque. There were various sections in the museam. Out side is home to relics of the war, where as inside has sections dealing with themes ranging from American atrocities, through to the effects of chemical warfare on the people and environment of Vietnam. All harrowing stuff. Just walking around Sigon you can see people begging on the street who have been born with a deformity as a result of wide spread use of the defolient Agent Orange and others like it. Throughout South East Asia the scars of the
past are no more apparent than on the people who live there. After a visit to the museam you get a real appreciation about how much this part of the world suffered during those decades.
Other than that I had a few nights out with the gang and found time to learn how to play chess. After a week it was time to split from the group I had been travelling with throughout Loas, Cambodia and Vietnam and return once again to solo travel. The journey to Thailand went right acorss Cambodia which slowed things down signifigantly but was a bit of an eyeopener in its own right. Door to door it took 18hrs! In the west of the country there are no roads, only tracks carved out of the hills and mountains. All the way allong men were working to prepare roads and bridges which will propel the nation into the present. I spent my last few days in Bangkok where it had all began and enjoyed my time there before I caught my plane to Australia.
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