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Published: October 20th 2008
Cu Chi Tunnels
Getting into the tunnel used by the Vietnamese was quite easy. Getting out was another matter...28th September 2008
Flew to Ho Chi Minh City (or Saigon as the locals still like to call it).
The traffic is really crazy here (as is the jumbled wiring which hangs low across the roads...). Makes Phnom Penh seem like a quiet backwater... There are millions of mopeds/motorbikes/bikes/cyclos criss-crossing the streets carrying up to four people at a time and all manner of other items, (animals, washing machines, piles of boxes, sheets of glass. You name it, you can get it on the back of a moped!) and appearing to bear scant regard for the rules of the road. It's quite common to find someone coming towards you on your side of the road... Everyone honks all the time to let everyone else know that they are there. Crossing the road calls for nerves of steel. You just have to take a deep breath and walk slowly and steadily across and everything should go round you....
Cu Chi Tunnels
We went to see the series of tunnels that the Vietcong lived in during the war. The actual tunnels were so small they've had to make specially large ones for the tourists to crawl through - and
these seem small. The traps the Vietcong left for the American soldiers looked very painful. There were a lot of spikes concealed by leaves etc.
I also had a go at firing an AK47. Really noisy despite the ear muffs - and it would have helped if the guy had told me I was aiming too high before I'd used all my bullets... Think the gun sight must have been misaligned...
30th September - Mekong Delta
It was a 3 hour drive to the Delta from Ho Chi Minh. We had lunch on the river at a homestay run by an old veteran. The food was beautifully presented with carvings of fishermen and decorated fish. We learnt how to make pancakes with rice paper, fish, lettuce and cucumber which are then rolled up and dipped in chilli oil - delicious!
We also got to visit a brickworks, a place where they made rice sweets and another where women were crowded into a shed making rice paper. It was literally a sweat shop with the heat from their individual gas stoves. These women are paid by the number of papers they make and have to work 7
days a week.... We also went on a bike ride through the countryside along narrow lanes - fairly terrifying when mopeds were trying to get past too, particularly if it was near one of the many small bridges which had no barriers) and were rowed upstream in a tradional wooden canoe by a group of women.
The homestay was much more luxurious that I'd imagined. The beds all had mosquito nets and there were four showers, although admittedly the water was cold and the shower was in with the toilet.
The food was delicious though and the surroundings very peaceful. I loved swinging in the hammock!
In the morning we visited a floating market where the locals go to buy and sell goods. You can tell what each boat is selling because they hang an example of whatever it is from the mast. If there are plants on the boat it means the owner is trying to sell the boat too!
When we got back to Ho Chi Minh we had drinks on the roof terrace of the Rex Hotel. Way to go!
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Sue Welling
non-member comment
Your travel blogs are a bit like buses - nothing for ages and then 3 come along at once!! You are certainly packing a lot in - what a wonderful experience - am getting quite jealous even though I have always said that I've never wanted to visit this part of the world.