SAIGON

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Saigon City was a really hectic city, and in many ways it was how we'd both imagined it would be. It seemed a contrasting mix of old and new, ladies in traditional Vietnamese hats selling things on bikes, and ultra modern glass buildings. We found at first the people to be less friendly than Cambodia, but still in most cases extremely polite. We had to work really hard in oder to get conversations going to local people, but it was worth it when we did!

We decided to take a tour of the Cu Chi Tunnels, which is where villagers and the Viet Cong hid underground and fought the American GI's during the war. It was quite an eerie place to be as so many horrific things have happened there. When we went into the tunnels, they were tiny. Crawling through them was quite claustrophobic, despite the tunnels having being made bigger for tourists. There was also a shooting range near so you can hear gun shots, which was a bit quirky. When I jumped at the sound of a gun shot, our guide joked that there was still fighting going on. We also visited a factory that only employs victims of the Agent Orange chemical that was dropped on Vietnam. Seeing how this has affected people so much, even 2 and 3 generations later, was almost too difficult to take in.

The War Remnants Museum was full of graphic pictures that took me a little by surprise. The gut wrenching pictures were certainly a lot to think about.

After walking around the city for a couple of days, we really got a feel for it. It seemed to rain heavily every afternoon from about 4 pm onwards. The sky was filled with flashes of lightening and roars of thunder. The people all seemed quite reserved but very polite. We really loved the atmosphere and were both really glad that we decided to take the chance and opportunity to go there.

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