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Published: December 9th 2008
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Reunification Palace
Site of the official handover of power during the Fall of Saigon in 1975. It's no excuse for being as ugly as sin though. Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) was the next port of call. Larger and more civilised than Hanoi to the north, it certainly seems that the Vietnamese chose the wrong city to act as their capital city. Having said that, I never felt the same affinity for Saigon as I had for her robbing, dirty, smelly bastard of a sister to the north. Quite possibly because I had dicked about so long in Hanoi that there were only a few days left in which to experience Saigon. Fuck it. No regrets!
First on the agenda was accommodation. Having done some research, we were aware of where most of the budget hotels were situated. However, the budget accommodation available in Hanoi was to lack some of the comfort and cleanliness our spongy Western bodies had now become accustomed to.
Straight off the bus Neil, Doug and I were approached by a woman offering a favourable rate for a three bed en-suite. We followed her through a labyrinth of side streets, each darker and dirtier than the last, until we reached the hostel. After a brief scan around inside it was decided that given the shitty area, we could find could find
War Remnants Museum
Advanced camouflage technology ensures that both a plane in the background, and the top of my legs are completely invisible. better for a similar price. An hour later, in an episode not entirely dissimilar to the Hoi An accommodation debacle, we found ourselves back where we had started, having been unable to find a better deal elsewhere. Fuck it; the place was of an acceptable standard, and as long as we remembered to lay out a trail of breadcrumbs so we could find our way home in the evening it would be fine.
We soon got down to some quality sightseeing, hitting the Reunification Palace, War Remnants Museum and Ben Thanh Markets. The War Remnants Museum is definitely worth a visit, although not if you are of a squeamish disposition. The museum is a disturbing look at the atrocities committed during the Vietnam War. It features American tanks, aircraft and weaponry, as well as very graphic images of war casualties, jars of still-born foetuses allegedly killed by Agent Orange and pictures of the lives of victims. The Reunification Palace was formerly the Presidential Palace of South Vietnam, and is the site where South Vietnam finally capitulated to the North. It is definitely worth taking advantage of the free tour guide on offer, otherwise you may miss some of the
attractions that are not immediately obvious to the uninitiated, such as the bomb shelters, war rooms and secret tunnels.
On the nightlife front, I'd have to say that I wasn't terribly impressed. Perhaps I wasn't going to the right places, but I had it on good authority that the backpacker area we were living in was the lively part of town, and made sure to visit any bar or nightspot in the area that had any activity. Had we ventured further out of town we may have discovered some of the larger nightclubs in the city, like 'Lush' or 'Apocalypse Now', but as it was we didn't venture far from the fairly lame 'Go 2' bar five minutes from home. Time was against us at this stage anyway, and the expiration date of our visa demanded that we press on with other plans.
A few hours from Saigon were the Cu Chi Tunnels; an elaborate underground community made up of 250 km of tunnels and chambers below the city. The tunnels were dug during the French occupation in the 1940's, and further expanded during the War with the Americans in the 1960's to provide refuge and a defensive
Cao Dai Worshippers
Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhlllllllllllrrrrrriiiiiiiiiggggggghhhhhhhttteeeyyyyyyyy theennnnnn... advantage over the American soldiers. Despite all the bombings in their town, the Cu Chi people were able to continue their lives beneath the soil, where they slept, ate, planned attacks, healed their sick, and taught their young. Some even married and gave birth underground.
The tunnel trip was excellent. It began with a nice anti-American propaganda film, before our flirty Vietnamese guide took us through the jungle. She showed our group through the dense jungle to the the craters left by B52 bombs, and some of the first tunnels which were barely able to fit a man inside. There were others later in the tour which were a little more accessible though, if a little uncomfortable to maneuver through. I was only crawling through the pitch black tunnels for a few minutes and when I came out I was sore and filthy, I can only imagine how arduous it would have been to live in these conditions for years on end.
We soon reached a clearing in the jungle and were greeted by the deafening crack of gunfire coming from the shooting range. I had never heard gunfire previous to this and I was taken aback by
Shooting Range at Cu Chi Tunnels
'Are you sure this is fair? That sheep doesn't even have a gun...' how loud it was. I was dying for a go!
There was an arsenal of weapons on the wall to help trigger-happy patrons decide which gun they wanted to get to grips with. It was a no brainer for me; it had to be the AK-47. 100'000 Dong got me 5 rounds of ammunition, which the guy at the desk plopped into my hand as though they were smarties. I wandered down to the bunker and handed the bullets to a Vietnamese guy waiting behind the AK. After loading the magazine he handed me ear muffs and ushered me into position. My five rounds didn't last long, but I fucking loved it! Even with ear protection it was loud! There were targets to aim at some 200 yards away, but I barely hit them. I blame that on the gun sight being squinty, not the fact that I was rubbish at shooting. Neil was up next, and I watched on as he too fired several rounds into the bank above the targets sending a puff of dry earth into the air. It's a powerful feeling, and I got a real buzz out of it. 'How difficult it would be
Inside One of the Cu Chi Tunnels
I was taken by surprise up the passage from the rear. to get a Kalashnikov through customs?' I wondered.
On the way to the tunnels we stopped off at a Caodist cathedral about 60km north of Saigon. Caodaism is a religion which encompasses, combines and is in harmony with several elements from other principal religions: Buddhism, Confucianism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Taoism while taking into account Vietnamese traditions. That's a bit fucking greedy of them eh? The cathedral is called the Holy See, or the Tay Ninh Holy See, and it is very impressive. Apparently God told one of his followers what it was supposed to look like and faxed him the blueprints so he could be sure it would be a fitting venue for worship. We arrived in time to see the midday service take place, and were able to watch from a balcony as the robed congregation chanted and prayed.
With the deadline for our visa expiry looming large, an exit strategy needed to be formulated. We came across a two day boat trip up through the Mekong Delta and into Cambodia. It seemed like an interesting way to finish our Vietnamese experience, and definitely more entertaining than the bus.
At this stage of the
Rough in the Jungle Business
Neil does a fine job of blending in with his surroundings. Unfortunately, soon afterwards, he was spotted by a fridge in a denim jacket which fell out of a tree and killed him. trip my Sony Cybershot camera was completely fucked, so I was forced to use the camera on my phone to document the next portion of the adventure. Sand is fucking camera kryptonite; it gets everywhere! Just check your shuck the next time you get back home from being at the beach and you'll know what I mean.
The Mekong Delta boat trip was an entertaining jaunt up-river, taking in sights like the floating village, fish farm and views of the natives going about their daily lives on the river. The Delta is a very rich and lush area, covered with rice fields and plant-life. It produces about half of the total of Vietnam's agricultural output, which I thought was fairly impressive. The slow meander up-river passed by picturesque scenes of farmers planting or harvesting rice, and was made all the more relaxing due to the fact that we remembered to bring beer. It was Vietnamese beer though, so that still counts as cultural.
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