War & Snake Wine

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Cu Chi tunnel conflict

It seems to further east across Asia that I venture the more dense the motorbike situation becomes and the more insane the drivers become. Ho Chi Minh City apparently has about 3 million motorbikes razzing around it's streets everyday, and it shows. In the first few hours of walking around the city I had already witnessed two accidents, it's like the entire population is running late for something so they have to drive like maniacs.

The first tourist attraction that I attended was the war remnants museum, once named the museum of Chinese and American war crimes, the name being altered as it was deemed to offensive to the respective nations. Now I'm pretty sure that all war is messy, but visiting this place, reading the stories, seeing the pictures, the Vietnam/American war was just very very messy indeed. One particular disturbance that stuck out was the after effects of Agent Orange. This was the code name given to a herbicide which was used by the Americans to destroy some 16% of South Vietnamese natural cover in an attempt to try and expose the hiding VietCong. The after effects have been brutal, 100's of children are still being born today deformed, practically mutants. One exhibition has specimens of deformed babies pickled in jars accompanied by many photo's and stories of various deformities. A lot of people in tears at this point, I obviously wasn't because I'm hard, but it didn't stop me from feeling sorry for the poor little buggers.

The following day involved a trip to the Cu Chi tunnels, basically a series of dark and sweaty tunnels created by the VietCong during the war to escape the American assault above soil. Apparently though a number of the tunnels have been widened to allow American tourists to pass through them.....opps! I mean widened to allow for certain larger boned western tourists to pass through them. It is all very confined down there though and a lot of people found it to claustrophobic and had to bail. I struggled through and found it incredibly hot and sweaty and it would have been some what of a challenge to have remained down there for up to a month at a time as the VietCong supposedly did.

Within my remaining couple of days in Ho Chi Minh I went to see Die Hard 4... AGAIN! But it was free if you purchased a chocolate fudge brownie massacre ice cream and also Paul and Curtis who I am currently travelling with hadn't seen it yet. But to be fair the chocolate fudge brownie massacre ice cream probably swayed my decision more so, although the outcome was meek. It looked nothing like the bad boy monster illustrated within the menu at almost 1/5 the size, obviously though it was still more than edible. But what did leave a foul taste in my mouth was when some grimy jock abruptly tapped me on the shoulder half way through it to inform me that I had a really annoying head! Whilst to my left there were a couple of OAP Aussies mauling their skanky ass prostitutes.

Nothing left a more foul taste in my mouth though than the night after a few beers when me and Paul thought that it would be a genius idea to have a glass of snake wine. The taste was bloody wretched and I wouldn't endorse it upon anyone, apart from maybe the Spanish guy at the bar with a constantly surprised look upon his face who wouldn't have it that there was a huge lake near the centre of Phnom Penh, he can choke on a pint of the stuff for his arrogance. And also maybe the homo that turned my Nine Inch Nails song off the jukebox to put on the Scissor Sisters, that was just a downright low, disgusting and hanus act.

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Photos

Snake Wine (ii)
YUMMY!

Beer BGI
Not great but drinkable considering most of the Vietnamese beer tastes grotesque.