Good Morning Vietnam

---

Some fascinating facts about Vietnam





The country’s best coffee is made from weasel poo

It’s made from civets, a type of weasel with these incredible noses to let them sniff out the best beans. Once they’ve found them, they chew them, swallow them and, as nature would have it, they poop them out, at which point the beans have become a little fermented and apparently all the better to make your cup of Coffee with.



Vietnam is the world’s largest exporter of cashew nuts

Interesting Vietnam fact for you: they produce 60% of the world’s cashews



The world’s largest cave is here

Hang Son Doong Cave is the biggest cave worldwide at over 200m high, 175m wide and 9.4km long. Also known as the Mountain River Cave, it was first discovered in 1990 and you’ll find it in central Vietnam’s Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park



The Motorbike is the number 1 way to get around, and there are 50 million motorbikes in the country; however, car ownership has also shot up. 5.7% of Vietnamese households now own a car. By 2025 that number is expected to jump to 9% and 30% by 2030.









The sun rises above the port of Phu My, about 70 miles up the Mekong river and the new port for Ho Chi Minh City. (Or as the locals know it Saigon, despite 48 years of being renamed it is apparently still called that by southerners and signs abound with Saigon this or that. Unbelievably The show Miss Saigon is showing in one of the cities theatres!) Vietnam is one of only 5 communist states left in the World, can you name them all? (Answer at the end).



I am staying on the ship to use the spa whilst Ian is off to explore the tunnels of Cu Chi so I am sorry but I have to hand you over to him.



Cu Chi is about halfway between Ho Chi Minh City and Cambodia. During the war it was key to the Viet Cong / North Vietnamese Army (VC / NVA) to support attacks into Saigon and equally important for the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and the US to stop them. At the time it was largely jungle with various villages and towns. Ever since the war with the French local communists had dug tunnels as a means of protection and hiding. From 1954 the construction progressed apace. By the end of the war 250km of interconnected tunnels existed across the entire province. The tunnels were approximately 3 feet high and 2 feet wide and at several depths, 2m, 4m, 6m and up to 10m. All could withstand a tank driving over them and the deeper ones artillery or bomb hits. It is estimated a total of 1.2m cubic metres of clay was removed during the digging. Well that is the background, now over to the narrative.



The tunnels are about 140km from the ship, a journey that will take 3 hours. The roads really are not that bad but the traffic is appalling. Saigon has a population of 8m, and I am told 7m scooters / motorcycles. Apparently they also have 2m cars.



Now the first thing to know about the Vietnamese road traffic rules is that there aren’t any. Road markings are very few and far apart and appear to be treated as suggestions rather than requirements. The scooters swarm all over the city and there is absolutely nothing that you might put in your car that they can’t put on the scooters. None of these examples are made up, honest. I see scooters with families of 4 on them, carrying ladders, rolls of carpet, mothers with baby carriers strapped to them driving scooters (none of this ‘baby on board’ sticker rubbish for them), but my favourite was the man with 3 full sized mattresses carried on the panier with the long dimension protruding out into the traffic. Scooters can of course be adapted (I am sure the local police rigorously check the safety of such conversions) into pick ups and in one memorable case a sort of HGV with 2 linked trailers being towed. Scooters shoot in from all sides and avoid the delay at red lights by simply driving over the pavements. (Being a pedestrian really is exciting here.) Countless times I am convinced we are about to kill a scooter rider but they always dash out of the way just in time. Still, unusually for SE Asia most riders wear crash helmets, so that’s alright. Although they also use their mobiles for texting etc while riding so perhaps that evens it all out! To provide the sound track to all this chaos there is the never ends honking of scooter horns.



Saigon itself is a relatively low rise city, the tallest building is about 25 storeys. There are lots of Apple stores, well at least lots of small shops with the Apple logo prominently displayed, in fact one every few hundred metres or so. Similarly scooters sales rooms and scooter repair shops. Clothes shops spread out onto the pavement with mannequins widely used. Sadly the level of litter is very significant.



While it may be Saigon to the locals, there is never any doubt about who is in charge. Uplifting posters of Ho Chi Minh and heroic workers / soldiers / sailors are in view even if they are outnumbered by hair product adverts. The national flag (red field with gold star) is regularly seen.



The guide tells us that whilst Vietnam is indeed communist, the government has no issues with people getting really rich and income inequality. (One lecture I attended quoted a poll which shows the Vietnamese as being the most pro capitalist society on the planet, 95%, US only managed 90%) It seems communist in this case means only one political party allowed.



Finally we arrive at the Tunnels. Essentially they are an underground city, workshops, hospitals, schools etc etc. almost all of the complex is closed to the public but part has become a museum area. We are shown variations on the traps that were constructed using bamboo spikes (smeared with excrement, although the guide left that bit out), hiding holes, fighting bunkers, ventilation systems disguised as termite mounds etc.



The first tunnel we see has been enlarged for western visitors, it is possible to go along it’s 15m length merely hunched up. The second is more constricted and requires a small amount of crawling. The final tunnel is 100m long and has not been enlarged. We are just about to move off without entering it when I ask to go and do it. The guide looks a little surprised but points me towards one of the tunnel officers. He literally rolls his eyes and then has a conversation with two other guides (all in very smart green uniforms). I don’t speak Vietnamese but it is clearly along the lines of “who’s going down the tunnel with this nutter?” More conversations follow and they finally just indicated the entrance and it is clear none of them is coming.



This tunnel has not been expanded and involves crawling all the way as well as wriggling around 90 degree bends and up and down various level changes. It is hot and It is difficult to imagine doing it with a weapon and any kit. Interestingly because of all the hidden entrances you can clearly hear all the conversation from the surface at all times. A really interesting experience. Anyway on emerging from the tunnel, very sweaty and grubby I understand why the smart guides were less than enthusiastic to show me the way.



A few closing facts regarding Cu Chi. In the 20 years the VC and ARVN / US fought over the area, the communists lost 55,000 killed. The US dropped 500,000 tons of bombs (and this is really a very small area). At the peak of the fighting (1966 - 67) the US had 20,000 troops deployjed, 2,000 of whom were killed. Remember for every fatality there are usually 3 or 4 wounded. The landscape was devastated.



A fascinating country, amazing traffic and despite all the thousands of people I saw only one was even slightly overweight. Despite having McDonalds, it seems it is pretty much ignored by the people even in a place like Saigon and they stick to healthier food.



Communist states, Vietnam, China, Cuba, North Korea and Loas.



Back to Singapore for day and then two sea days to Bali.

---