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Published: September 2nd 2008
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SAIGON AND THROUGH THE MEKONG DELTA AUG. 20 to AUG. 27, 2008
September 1, 2008
Hello and hugs from Sihanoukville, Cambodia -a beautiful beach town where we are this week. A rainy day today - it is of course the rainy season - and perfect weather for catching up on the internet and our blog.
Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City was quite an experience. About 11 million people in this rapidly growing city and 4 million of them drive motorbikes! One of our tour guides told us that there were something like 10,000 traffic fatalities a year but in September 2007 the helmet law was implemented throughout Vietnam and this number is now decreasing. This is a city that never seems to sleep; much action and stimulation, horns honking, people zooming and selling anything and everything, cyclo and motorbike taxi drivers everywhere offering you a ride - ‘Thanks we are walking today ” (we say that about 100 times as we keep being asked by different drivers!). It is a city steeped in history and we had some intense explorations and lots of learning and affirmations on the horrors of war and a look at the speed of progress
as we saw the very very rich and the very very poor.
We stayed at Madame Cuc’s - Hotel 127 - at 127 D Cong Quynh. Excellent. $25 per night including breakfast. Warm friendly staff and free coffee, tea and juice whenever we wanted. Very relaxing.
We took ourselves on a few walking tours. And we saw….
- The Ben Thanh Market -crazy busy - we entered and immediately were surrounded by clothing sellers pushing shirts into our hands - “for you special price madam/sir” whew! You have to be strong to resist and get away! There were other quieter less aggressive sections of the market too and we did end up with a few purchases.
- The Fine Arts Museum -modern to antique; a few new paintings that were very tempting to purchase…but no room in our backpacks
- The local People’s Committee building - the former Hotel de Ville- beautiful but not open to visitors
- The Ho Chi Minh City Museum - beautiful old building - houses grim horrors from the war and shares the story of the struggles through photos and artefacts.
- The Reunification Palace - built in 1966 to serve as
South Vietnam’s residential palace…we only saw the outside…..sometimes it is just time to stop the self guided tour!
- War Remnants Museum - as LP says: “ unique, brutal and an essential visit”. Extremely well done. Displays of photos taken by foreign photographers who were killed during the American War and an honour to their memory, international protests around the world to protest the American War -scenes we remember, children’s art on war and peace, graphic photos of the My Lai Massacre and other scenes of war, the Tiger Cages in which prisoners were tortured, photos and fetuses of those affected with birth defects by Agent Orange. A place that must be visited.
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- After seeing that all we could do was walk to the beautiful Post Office and on to the rooftop bar on the 23rd floor of the Sheraton Saigon -a little posh and a little pricey - a splurge at $50 for drinks and snack considering we have been living on about $15. per day for food and drink here! But the views were amazing!
- Pho Binh -the soup shop that was the secret Vietcong headquarters during the American War where the VC planned their
attack on the American Embassy and other places in Saigon during the Tet Offensive of 1968…still looks as it was then.
- We also took a day tour with Delta Adventures to the Cao Dai Temple - Great Cao Dai Holy See - in Tay Ninh and had the privilege of seeing part of their noon time prayer service. The structure is an interesting combination of many influences including French, Chinese, and Hindu,
- Also to the Cu Chi Tunnels that same day at Ben Dinh, used from the 1940s to the 1970s for the Viet Minh and the Viet Cong to plan attacks during the wars. Many many lived underground here and we were able to get a small sense of their lives when our group went into the tunnels and had to hunch down to walk…we did not last long in the dark and crammed spaces! Got out with most of our group at the first exit. Logan, how did you do there? There was an excellent (and gruesome!) display of how the VC developed weapons and recycled American bombs parts.
- And a highlight of our visit was reconnecting with our friend Susan who we met on
the sky rain in Bangkok in May! She and her 2 cousins treated us to a fun evening traveling on the back of their motorbikes (yes, we were actually in the midst of all that crazy traffic! Felt a little vulnerable!) from one restaurant to another for appetizers then 2 main courses at different restaurants and then dessert at a fourth. Fascinating places located down alleyways and serving delicious foods. We would never have found these places on our own so it was truly an authentic Vietnamese treat! For one main course dinner for 6 we spent $6! Thank you Susan, Minh and Huang!
And then, on August 25th, we said an early morning good bye to Saigon and the staff at Madame Cuc’s and headed off by bus for our Delta Adventure - “The special trip all by boat”…well -this was an experience -and we do not recommend it! First it was “all by boat” except all the parts that were by bus. We moved on and off buses as the tour guides sorted and resorted the 1 day, 2 day and 3 day Mekong Delta tourists. Our tour guide changed frequently as we entered and left different
tour groups and we learned to just go with the flow and realize something would happen next but it would not necessarily be what was in the tour brochure! But…..We did have some beautiful boat journeys on the Mekong, saw floating markets, floating villages, floating fish farms, a Cham village, marking of coconut candy and rice paper and pottery. We were able to bike through some of the villages and to stay overnight at a home stay -7 of us stayed here -very lovely - beautiful welcoming family, of 3 generations. We shared in cooking dinner and had some cooking lessons. A lovely comfortable peaceful place to stay - with a yummy breakfast outside the next morning. Hand rowing sampan boats took us through the maze of Mekong canals; perfect! The second night we did not stay on a boat as promised -“so sorry. It is being repaired today but you will go to a more beautiful floating hotel” - and the floating hotel was OK. We bonded with our small group as we shared in the adventures and the next day we travelled with many other people on the very slow and very noisy boat to the Cambodian border
(4 hours) and then by bus to Phnom Penh. A rather crazy adventure -but we did see a lot and we would not have missed that.
More to come about Cambodia.
Take care all!
Love Al and Robin
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Logan
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great blog guys. I will have to say... your visit to vietnam was much more in depth than mine. I only got 5 days, and 4 were working. I will have to go back someday soon :) on my own time