SE Asia 2007 - Vietnam - Ho Chi Minh City, Cu Chi tunnels, Mekong Delta

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Day 13: Sat 7 July - Ho Chi Minh City

The train rolled into Ho Chi Minh City at the ridiculously early time of 5am. I only had three beers the night before so I was still really tired. As usual there was a bus to pick us up from the train station on arrival. It was quite strange driving through the major streets of Vietnam’s largest city and seeing them mostly empty because it was such an early hour of the morning, but even then there were still a fair few motorbikes buzzing around the place. We arrived at our hotel and were told we couldn’t check into our rooms until midday, so with all of us still being pretty tired we all tried to catch up on some sleep in a small room with three double beds. So we had enough room for 2 people each to sleep on top of each of the 3 beds fully clothed, but Darren missed out and had to sleep in a chair. Obviously this was bad planning by someone, whether it was our tour guide or the tour company itself or whether the hotel reception was just unsympathetic to our cause. Still, I fell asleep pretty fast.
Before letting us fall asleep (and before he checked into his own room already set up for him) Jackie Chan asked if we wanted to go to the Cu Chi tunnels that morning, which was a major attraction that I really wanted to visit as well as several other people. He wanted to know if we wanted to leave at 8am, but we protested that we still needed time to recover from the early start and we successfully negotiated the departure time to be changed to the more sensible time of 11am. This seemed like the organisation of a man who was running to a set itinerary but wasn’t completely thinking about the welfare of the people he was guiding, although by this point we were all getting a little sick of him and the way he was treating us. He was a nice guy to talk to and seemed to have a lot of local knowledge, but he was unorganised at times and we had to sometimes squeeze a few answers out of him also, and the dishonest ways he tried to get money out of us was a bit too much. I didn’t hate him, but I would be happy to see the back of him.
All 7 of us tried to get as much sleep as possible, so apart from a few showers (having to share the same bathroom as we still couldn’t all check in to our rooms) we didn’t get to do anything at all until 11am, not even getting something for breakfast, or brunch at this point. So when we asked if we could stop along the way for some food, Jackie Chan staying to his set itinerary said we didn’t have enough time to do this, so with the frustration of not having a bed to sleep on and being told we couldn’t have breakfast or lunch Darren just cracked and walked off in search of food, and rightfully so. I went off to look for him as it was 11am and we were due to leave, but Jackie Chan was still inside the hotel and I was hungry too, so when he found some street food I opted to buy some too. Darren found a street stand offering meat and vegetables and rice in bowls, not knowing whether any of it was sanitary or not, but both of us grabbed a pork roll out of pure starvation regardless of the consequences. It only set us back 6000 Dong, less than a Dollar, but to be honest it was damn tasty and just what I needed. After an unusual morning we finally left the hotel at 11:30am, half an hour after the time Jackie Chan wanted to leave. We had won a minor battle there.
Driving through Ho Chi Minh City’s streets was a nightmare. There was so much more traffic here than any other place we’d been to so far in Vietnam, even more than Hanoi. Just trying to drive down on long street took forever with almost a constant traffic jam with cars shuffling forward ever so slowly. There were uncountable numbers of cross streets with traffic lights that I couldn’t imagine having to navigate through these streets every day without going insane. It must’ve taken us half an hour to get through 1km of traffic before we turned off onto a more free flowing road. Once on this road the traffic started to thin out the further we travelled on it as it took us out of the city. I noticed signs on this road were telling us we only had a handful of kilometres to go until reaching the Vietnam-Cambodia border and I didn’t realise how close we were to a new country, but before too long we turned off the highway and we were back in the countryside again surrounded by green leafy trees and bushes. After a few left and right turns the roads became more narrow with less traffic, and at times we didn’t see any vehicles or motorbikes at all. It was a nice change from the noisy streets of Ho Chi Minh City.
After our pleasant drive we arrived at the entrance to the Cu Chi tunnels, which were a series of tunnels that the Vietnamese people built in the Vietnam War to hide and escape and plot strategies underground away from the enemy, the Americans, and a lot of them were still intact. There was a huge billboard showing the map of the outlay of all the tunnels, so I had my photo standing in front of it, partly for show and partly to prove I’d actually been there. I was quite excited about going inside. As well as Jackie Chan we had a local guide dressed in camouflage gear to take us around, so Jackie Chan mostly took a back seat to the tour. Our first stop after getting through the entrance area were a few holes that were identified to us as entrances to some of the tunnels that had either been filled in or were too small for people taller than 5 feet to fit into. Most Vietnamese soldiers were quite short and the American soldiers were fairly tall, so the Vietnamese built these tunnels small so that if the tall Americans ever came across them they would have great difficulty walking through them. Our tunnel guide showed us to a square hole that had been built for people to dive into and hide if the enemy was coming. It was pretty narrow so when I had a go climbing into it I could barely squeeze my large frame through the hole but I didn’t want to go too far down just in case I couldn’t squeeze out again. Some of the thinner girls got inside easily, and Julia was able to step down so far that only her head was popping out above the ground. It was quite a funny photo to take. I also got another photo opportunity when I noticed a set of steps heading down to one of the tunnels, so I climbed down and had my photo taken crouched into the tunnel entrance leading underground.
Next our tunnel guide took us through a narrow passageway amongst the trees to an enemy tank that had been bombed and disabled by the Vietnamese, with a sign proudly stating this fact. A few of us climbed on top of it and had photos taken with it, including myself. There was certainly more to do here than I expected. Next stop on the tour was an area full of disused bombs showing how the Vietnamese would manually defuse any bombs they had found. Then our tunnel guide showed us some of the hidden traps that the Vietnamese laid out for the enemy, most of them with spikes attached to catch and trap the enemy when stepped upon or into which would often rip the skin or even break a leg or arm. Then there was one trap which was a platform that moved away when stepped on so that the enemy soldier would fall into a pit below laid with upturned spikes. It was quite a graphic picture if you thought about what would’ve happen back in war times. Further down the track we saw complete soldiers’ quarters built underground including beds and kitchens and medical areas, and this was where we took a bit of a break underneath a shaded area where our guide gave us some green tea and bamboo shoots to try. I wasn’t a big fan of eating bamboo. At the rest stop I was able to stand in the middle of a big crater that had been left after a bomb had been dropped on the ground. Our last stop was at a place where we could try some locally made rice wine (which was pretty potent stuff when I tasted it) and shoot off an AK-47 gun that was used back in the Vietnam War, but only Darren actually went ahead and shot off some bullets. I wasn’t in the mood for it today and figured I’d get to do it in Cambodia, but I forgot that every opportunity should be taken just in case another opportunity doesn’t come up later, as the chance to do it in Cambodia later didn’t arise as I’d hoped. While we were waiting for Darren we perused the gift shop and I scored a Vietnam fridge magnet. Classy. Not long after that it was time to leave and head back to Ho Chi Minh City.
The bus bringing us back from the Cu Chi tunnels was able to negotiate the traffic well enough to get us to a museum a few of us were interested in, the War Remnants Museum. This was basically a museum holding some of the most horrific images of the Vietnam War, all caused by Vietnam’s enemies and not by the Vietnamese themselves of course, even though the Vietnamese were just as bad as their opponents. So apart from a few pieces of aircraft in the entrance, I saw photos of people that had been blown apart and had body parts ripped off, photos of people who had been hideously deformed by the chemical Agent Orange, that famous photo of the naked Vietnamese girl running with Agent Orange burning her skin, an actual deformed baby kept in a glass jar, photos of buildings and whole towns and cities after being bombed, tales of people who were kept in prisons and tortured, and photos and articles of all the countries who protested against the war. It was some of the most graphic stuff I had seen (outside the internet of course) and I was pleased that I had come here to see it.
We went back to our hotel to find out that we could finally check into our rooms, however the room we left all our bags in was the room I was staying in anyway. Jackie Chan said we can pay him the $8 for the Cu Chi tunnels tour and the $15 mandatory tip later on. I was thinking to myself, didn’t we already pay a mandatory $15 tip in one of the other towns? So I was a bit confused and slightly angered about this, but I let it go for the time being.
A few of us planned to go out for a meal fairly soon, but as we were meeting downstairs we noticed Jackie Chan was talking to a new group in the hotel foyer. Later on we found out this group had just come from Cambodia and were doing our tour in the opposite direction, and that they would be joining us for the next few days in the Mekong Delta section of our tour. I thought this was great as we could find out what the rest of our tour would be like and we would have more people to socialise with.
I met up again with a few people from our tour group and we took a taxi into the city, or at least to an area with lots of restaurants. Somehow we ended up at a really upper-class looking Italian restaurant, although the prices were reasonable so we went in. There were lots of waiters everywhere who were dressed really nicely, so I felt a bit out of place in a t-shirt and shorts and thongs but the waiters didn’t seem to care. They were very welcoming and the food was really nice and was high quality stuff. I figured I’d go for a glass of wine to go with the pasta I ordered, but afterwards I ordered a beer and our waiter even poured it into a glass for me. I felt so spoilt. I didn’t care how much it was going to cost me, I enjoyed every part of it.
We grabbed a taxi and headed back to the hotel where we met up with a few more in our tour group and walked around for a while. Some of the girls were keen to find a karaoke place, but we didn’t have too much luck with that. I think we were just in a boring part of town. We found a dodgy café which didn’t even serve cold beer, then everyone left Darren and I as we walked towards the street market area to see if we could find a decent bar. Then out of nowhere Liam turned up and we walked a bit further until we found a jazz club. Feeling curious we walked in. The sound wasn't too bad, but the drinks prices were horrendous. Every drink on the menu cost the same, 75000 Dong each, about $6, which was pretty much the equivalent of a drink in a swanky bar back in Australia. I figured since everything was the same price that I'd go for one of the most expensive drinks on the menu, a Brandy Alexander cocktail. It tasted pretty damn good, and we decided to head back to the hotel after one drink as the prices were too ridiculous to bother sticking around. About half an hour later I was starting to get stomach cramps and I couldn't figure out why. I was a little bit concerned but I figured they would go away soon enough.

Day 14: Sun 8 July - Mekong Delta
As I woke up this morning and got ready, the stomach cramps I had earlier were still there, and they had also moved to my bowels. Then I had a sudden urge to run to the toilet, and it was bad news from there. I figured it was just one of those things and it didn't bother me too much at the time.
We were back on a bus today but this time it wasn’t just our tour, we were being joined by the other tour group, so I was pretty excited about meeting new people. They had Aussies, Kiwis, a few English, and a couple from America. Jackie Chan was basically the tour guide for all of us so it was interesting to see how he’d handle us and how the other group would handle him. What was strange was that they were talking about how they were being asked to pay $15 in mandatory tips and they didn’t think they should be forced into paying it, and we were saying we thought the same thing even though we’d already paid another $15 earlier, so we got talking about that and we decided that none of us would pay Jackie Chan until we got everything sorted out. This was a bit unfortunate for a few from our tour group who had already paid him without questioning it as we didn’t like their chances of getting their money back.
We were off on the road with a bit of inter-tour mingling happening already, cutting our way through the Ho Chi Minh City traffic and out onto another main road full of motorbikes, trucks, and dirty towns. Halfway into our journey we stopped for morning tea at a place with outdoor seats and tables underneath a large awning. This place was selling a lot of weird looking sweets and biscuits, most of which had Vietnamese writing attached to them. I wasn’t game enough to try something as I didn’t know if I would be eating nuts or biscuits or chocolate or insects or dried dung or something else. I did find a small bakery area where I scored a pineapple fruit bun, and all soft drinks were written in English so that was helpful.
Back on the road for another boring trip, and after a 3-hour trip all up we had reached a boat dock. We got out of the bus and were asked to assemble in a tent-like structure where this lady showed us a large poster of the Mekong Delta and explained what we’d be doing and where we’d be going for the next two days. After her little intro we were getting into one big long wooden boat with enough room for our overnight bags, but we had to duck to walk inside the boat without hitting our heads. The boat pushed away from the dock and we were off and moving on the brown and murky Mekong river. Our guide was talking to us about certain things but I really wasn’t paying much attention. I was too busy checking out the scenery around us. The first thing we got to see on the river was all the boat traffic around us. We weren’t bombarbed with boats like the busy roads we’d just travelled on, but this sort of traffic was more of a pleasure to watch rather than a hindrance. The locals were carrying all sorts of things on their boats, from different sorts of fruit and vegetables and meats, materials they were trying to sell, fishing gear, and even their houses for some of them. It was remarkable to see these boats completely stacked up high with things that you wondered how they kept everything stable without anything falling into the river.
As our boat moved down the river we were able to get up from our seats and sit on the uncovered back deck. I went out there to catch some of the warm sun on my face, and Leszek went out there to take lots of photos as he usually seemed to do on this tour. We turned around corners, past houses, and then we docked and were asked to deboard.
Our boat guide took us to a place where a Vietnamese lady was making rice pancakes with an old style press. Next to that was a man cooking rice using a method of sifting the rice husks and cooking them on a huge heated element, similar to a big flat frying pan. Another lady was making rice cakes smothered in something sweet that tasted a bit like honey but I couldn’t tell exactly what it was. Obviously this was all staged for the tourist market, but it was still somewhat interesting to see. Of course everything was on sale at the end of the demonstrations, and we were given a few free taste tests. As we walked back to the boat the guide took us through some markets were people were selling handicrafts and clothing, but I wasn’t overly interested and was just happy to keep moving.
Further down the river we turned into a narrow passage where we basically had just enough room to pass through . We stopped at a small village for a walk, and it was by this point I started to feel a bit unwell again. I had a bit of a headache and a stomach ache and wasn’t really in the mood for a walk, so any moment I could I tried to sit down. I even had trouble swallowing water but I made sure I tried to drink as much as I could. I knew something was wrong but I tried to ignore it. Still, I tried to enjoy what I could.
We had docked here for a while so we could have some lunch. My stomach didn’t like that idea, but I had to try to eat something. We were served vegetable soup, spring rolls, pieces of beef and pork and vegetables, but the most exciting part was a large fish that had been cooked to the point where the skin had started to become crispy and peel off. It looked like it would be pretty yummy, and even the head and tail had been kept attached. I couldn’t fit much of it into my stomach but from what I did eat it tasted great.
After lunch and a rest (and another bowel movement or two) we were back on our little boat pushing our way through the narrow river, and I was starting to feel a bit better. As we went further the river got more and more narrow, and then it started to rain, which started off as a light shower and then turned into a torrential downpour. It was a good thing we were underneath the roof of the boat. Even though the rain was so strong, the river was getting more and more shallow the further we went up it, even to the point where we actually got stuck in the mud on the bottom of the river! Our boat guide said we were too heavy and we all had to move to the front of the boat to release some weight off the back so that the outboard motor could push us through the water. It was quite unusual having all the passengers of the boat get up front to help a boat get unstuck. I was right up the front also so any false move and I would be falling into shallow muddy water. It felt very dodgy, but this is South East Asia and anything that could possibly work is worth trying. Eventually all the effort got us unstuck and we were on our way again for a few minutes, and then the boat driver decided to rest for a while and wait for the rain to stop so we could get a better passage out of the little canal we were stuck in.
We got out into a little store with seats and tables that was surrounded by a garden filled with bonzai trees and large green leafy bushes. The path to get there was quite slippery, especially for people wearing thongs, so it was an effort just to walk there. There wasn’t much to do there or buy from the store, so we just sat around and talked until the rain died down. For some reason the owner of the store had a pet anaconda in a cage, which was quite bizarre. People from our tour started talking about it, and then somehow the conversation turned to how the owners would feed it, and then they asked if we wanted to feed it a live chicken! Well, that was an offer we couldn’t refuse. One of the locals went down to their local market and came back with not a live chicken, but a live duck. She opened the cage and literally threw the poor duck into the cage, and immediately the anaconda grabbed the duck and started to squeeze it and crush the life out of it. It was like a tragedy that we just couldn’t turn our eyes away from. The duck had no chance in that cage, and the anaconda just kept wrapping itself around the duck, squeezing tighter and tighter. The duck was twitching occasionally and was trying to escape, even several minutes after being caught, but it was all over.
After our anaconda adventure the rain had died down enough to allow us to get back on the boat and head off. The boat took us a few more minutes further down the river where we stopped and were asked to take all our belongings with us. We had arrived at our accommodation for the night, which we were told was a homestay. It wasn’t much more than a tent covering with fold-up beds all lined up in a row next to each other, with the only privacy between each other being a mosquito net for each bed. We didn’t care too much about that though as we had a fridge full of beer and two pool tables to keep us entertained! It really got the social aspect of the two groups together and we mingled well. I couldn’t remember all the names of the other tour members but no-one cared.
We sat down for dinner and had a really nice meal, not that I can remember what we ate exactly but I remember it tasting good. The most fun though was the chatting we had around the dinner table, and even after the meals were finished a few of us still sat there having a great chat and a laugh about all sorts of things. Before I knew it several hours had passed since we’d arrived, and it was just a fun night even though I didn’t drink very much. I went to bed about 11pm or so, but there was a group over by the pool tables who were still up and drinking after that. An hour later Amber and Julia rocked up drunk off their faces and started talking loudly and almost shouting at each other waking everyone up, and one of them even started kicking my bed because they heard someone snoring and thought it was me. I wasn’t that impressed at the time but it was pretty funny to talk about the next day.

Day 15: Mon 9 July - Mekong Delta, HCMC

A good thing about sleeping in beds all lined up next to each other is when a few people wake up and make noise they tend to make enough noise to wake up everyone else whether they want to be woken up or not, so there was no need for alarm clocks! The showers and toilets we had were pretty basic, and reminded me of the type usually found at an Australian campsite, or a European one for that matter. After a reasonably good breakfast we were heading back onto the boat, out of the narrow river, and into the open river delta. At one point there was nothing but muddy water and trees on the edges as far as the eye could see, with no villages or other boats in sight. It was much different from the narrow passages and dozens of boats we had been passing by just the day before. Eventually we stopped at a dock which held a warehouse full of pottery and kilns for baking pottery clay. We saw the kilns first which were not much more than modified fires kept in by bricks. Past the kilns we saw hundreds of rows of clay pots and sculptures with varying patterns and shapes and sizes. It was like the warehouse of a huge hardware store. Our boat guide told us a lot of these works were exported to be sold in other countries. We also got to see a few people making the pots and making patterns in the soft clay. It really wasn’t all that exciting, but at least we got to stretch our legs from the boat.
Back on the boat we were taking our last trip back to the dock we started at the day before, and the same bus was there waiting for us. I wasn’t really in the mood for another bus ride so I was pretty much counting down the time until we arrived. We stopped halfway at a service station for a drink and a toilet break before we were off on the final leg of our bus trip for the day. I borrowed someone’s South East Asia guidebook to read and pass the time. I picked up a few things about some of the places I’d be travelling to in the coming weeks with the tour and also by myself after leaving the tour.
We arrived back at our Ho Chi Minh City hotel, grabbed our bags out of storage, and checked into our new rooms which were actually ready for us this time. We had a bit of time to relax before our next tour meeting to find out what we’d be doing in Cambodia, so I spent some time stuffing around on the hotel’s free internet. I was also slaughtering the toilet again, and after a bit of thought I had pinpointed what had made me sick. On the day I got sick the only thing I had eaten or drank that no-one else around me had was the cocktail in that jazz club the night before leaving for the Mekong Delta. I remembered that my cocktail was ice cold as I drank it, and then it hit me. The bartender had mixed my cocktail in a blender with ice made from water with water parasites in it, and that’s the evil gremlin that attacked my stomach and bowels. I had to make a note to be more cautious of what I drank from this point on. After being told the water was bad and refusing water for the whole tour, I let my guard down once and that’s all it took to be overcome with sickness. I learnt an important lesson, and I was very lucky that I wasn’t sick to the point that I couldn’t continue with the tour.
At our tour meeting for Cambodia, I got to meet our Cambodian tour guide as well as three new guys who had joined us for the Cambodian leg of the tour. They seemed nice enough but were a bit quiet, although at least I got to meet them briefly. A few of the Kiwis from the other tour had invited some of us out to have a meal with them, so we had the option of doing that, making our own plans, or going to a final tour dinner with Jackie Chan. In light of the whole money ripoff scandal I never wanted to go near Jackie Chan again, so I caught up with the Kiwis. Further to that, we had spoken to the other tour a bit more about the extra $15 mandatory tip Jackie Chan demanded from us, they emailed the tour company head office, and they were given a response that the $15 tip was not mandatory but optional, and even though Jackie Chan had asked us for $15 for each week or the two-week Vietnam leg of the tour he should’ve only asked for the $15 once. I don’t know if he just wasn’t aware of this or whether he deliberately tried to squeeze an extra $15 out of us for his own pocket I don’t know (from 7 people that’s a total of US$105!!), but all I knew is I had good reason now not to show him any more money. So I got a printout of that email, showed it around to our tour group, Darren grabbed it and showed Jackie Chan, and then from that point on he stopped trying to hassle us for the extra money. We had another success, but it shouldn’t have been that much of a hassle, and we shouldn’t have expected something like this from our tour guide who we were putting our trust in to take us around the country. It was just immoral to me and I didn’t want to see him again.
So not being able to find anyone else to come with me to have dinner with the Kiwis, I eventually decided to meet them at the restaurant they chose, but not before another visit to the toilet. I was becoming so used to it now that I was able to control it and hold on for a few hours, so I had a minor victory there. Anyway, the restaurant these guys had chosen was huge! It was absolutely packed out with people and I must’ve seen about a hundred tables and all of them were occupied, and there was still a lineup outside the door to get in! The place also had these huge open kitchens that took up the whole length of the restaurant on both sides. I was lucky the Kiwis were already seated or I probably wouldn’t have got in. I ordered a Cau Lo, just like I’d had in Hoi An, and another noodle dish, and everything tasted magnificent. It wasn’t this popular for no reason.
After eating we went outside and we ran into the rest of my tour who had chosen to have a final meal with Jackie Chan. They said he took them to a place which was empty until they turned up, had a pretty average meal, and Jackie Chan barely spoke to them at all. So I guess I chose the right option there. So there were about 15 of us standing on the side of the road, half of oru group decided to head back to the hotel, and the other half were ready for a night out on the town. My social senses kicked in and I was off with the party group. We all piled into a 8-seater taxi and we asked the driver to take us to a decent bar. We drove up and down the streets for a while with nothing really looking that appealing or welcoming, and then eventually we found an Irish pub. It’s hard to find a bad Irish pub, actually I don’t think I’ve ever found a bad one, so went got out of the taxi and went inside. We had a couple of drinks, a few more people left us to go home, and those of us remaining went to a nightclub that someone had heard was a good place to visit, named Apocalypse Now. We caught a taxi there and we saw loads of cars parked outside. Inside the dance music sounded pretty good, but the place was about 95% full of Vietnamese people. We didn’t care too much though as the locals were in good spirits so we moved over to the dance floor. We all had a bit of a dance, some randy Vietnamese guy started dancing with Amber which we all had a good laugh at, and we pretty much got down and danced for a couple of hours before we decided to head back to the hotel around midnight. I wasn’t drunk and I’d actually ran out of money as I was trying to use up all of my Vietnamese Dong before leaving the country the next day so I couldn’t buy any more drinks after a while, but I still had a good time. We had a long day to relax and sleep on the bus tomorrow so I didn’t care that we got to bed a bit late.

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