Ho Chi Minh City and the surrounding area

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The biggest city in Vietnam is Ho Chi Minh City, formally Saigon. It provided the base for visits to the Cu Chi tunnels, Mekong Delta and the War Remnants Museum before moving on to Cambodia. Some people say that Saigon is busier than Hanoi, but as far as I can tell, Hanoi is much more closed in and not as westernised. Hanoi is my preference of the two.

On our first day in Saigon, we thought we had arrived at the War Remnants Museum because there were tanks and a fighter plane outside. We paid our entry fee and went in. Once we got in we found that we went to the wrong place... We had in fact gone to the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group Partnership Meeting lol.. We made a quick exit!

Upon eventual arrival at the actual War Renmants Museum, we finally managed to have a look round! It basically discusses the Vietnam war and documents the various eliments of it. Over three million vietnamese were killed and it lasted for over seventeen years. It started as a civil war between the north and the south but the USA got involved in support of the south. The main war was in the south. They brought with them their weponry including napalm and phosphorous bombs, which wiped out anything and everything they came into contact with - and according to the museum, they used A LOT of them! The museum itself however was really propaganda against the USA... although they were as bad as each other, it was a war, afterall. See Cu Chi, below:

The massive Cu Chi tunnel network, about 60KM north of Saigon, were built by a gorilla outfit against the USA / and Saigon in the south. Over ten thousand people stayed in these tunnels at one time and there purpose was to allow a fight against the USA and the south, over night when they had the best chance of fighting by stelth. They made traps, which were really vicious and basically minced troops with metal spikes when they fell through them. They had their own under ground medical centres and living quarters and they plotted there tactics from them. They had to build and use tunnels because as soon as they went outside, they would be bombed. They needed to operate secretly and were lucky the Americans never found them. Some of the tunnels stretch as far as the Cambodian border. I also had a go on an AK47... so now I can say I fired a machine gun in an old war zone in Naaaam :-)

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Comments

[Chad Sharon]

Hey dude!
Loving the blog, brings back memories, interesting to hear your take on the places Sharon and I visited. Look forward to seeing you when you hit Sydney. Keep up the good work fella! Chad x