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Published: November 9th 2012
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We arrived into Saigon at 5am after a 12 hour bus ride from Nha Trang and didn't have much to do until the Hostel opened up. We had heard of this place being crazy busy with mopeds and cars but at 5am as it would be at home it was quiet. An hour later though and it was buzzing, vehicle and people everywhere accompanied by two milky white Brits, blending in not so well on a run. Running around the city at that time meant that we saw quite a lot in a short period of time, and its easy to see why they have no obesity problems! There were hundreds of people up doing exercise classes, on the streets and in the parks playing badminton and a keepyuppy sort of game with a shuttlecock like device, and not only young people but the elderly too!
We were both in for a history lesson today, going to visit the Cu Chi tunnels outside of the city and the war museum on the way back. Our guide, Jackie (real name doubtful), had been a solider in the war for the the USA as an interpreter. Filled with stories and knowledge our
ears were going to take a hammering today, in a good way. Because he cared about his job and was passionate about it he gave us a more indepth tour than other guides, first up actually going into the proper tunnels and not the tourist ones. These had no hard floor, light or cleanliness, these were filled with leaves, all kinds of insects that I'd rather not remember and BATS!! The tunnel was only high enough to crawl through and you could feel the bats fly past your ears. Not for the feint hearted, but ideal for Laura. It did show you the conditions that the Vietcong used to live in for up to 3 days at a time. There are over 200km of tunnels all around this area of which 18 000 or so people lived in. All in the effort to stay alive. It was much better than GCSE history, sorry Mr Samphire!
But what happened after was awesome, there was a firing range with a whole load of different guns! We paid a couple of dollars and next news I had an AK 47 in my hands about to shoot, at nothing more than a sand
wall with a few targets, still the paper elephant is no more.
We visited the War remnants museum on the way back, filled with memorabilia and photos from the war that finished only 50 years ago. It was horrible. It showed the victims and victims generations after all affected by the agent orange, mutations so severe you couldn't look a the photos. It showed a different side to the war than the one we had learnt about 5 yeas ago. We left the museum feeling utterly shit. No other way to put it. It was hard to believe it all happened and the effects of it are still ongoing today.
There was a good group of us on the trip and we met a good group of people along with the guys from the hostel to go out with for the night. It definitely suppressed the mood from earlier.
Next day and no hangover around we went off around the city on a 'lonely planet' guided walk. Don't do them, you would be much better off exploring it on your own rather than following a stream of people around the city, guide books in hand, happy snapping
away. As it was our last day we made the most of the Vietnamese coffee, having 3 within 4 hours ensuring there would be no sleep on the bus to come. At 3pm we were going to our next country after saying our goodbyes, Cambodia. A place we knew nothing much about.
We had heard endless stories of problems people came across on the Vietnam/Cambodia border, ones like the bus operator getting arrested for a passport scam and people being charged way over the odds to get in. Ours was boring and we were through with no problems.... Got a good stamp in the passport though.
Instantaneously, we were reminded of India once we got to Phnom Penh, Tuktuk's, dusty roads and the smell that neither of us will forget, nicknamed now the 'India smell'. We were greeted by a Cambodian version of Deirdre Barlow, expressionless in the face and rude. We should have walked out of the hostel at that point but we needed a place to stay and we had put a deposit down here. The room followed suit of her personality. We had a toilet wit no flush, a bathroom that flooded and more than
probable a cockroach infestation but we didn't hunt for it. We were glad for our sleeping bags now! In the morning we were met b the manager asking us to stay another night, we ignored the comment politely and went straight out to find a different hostel.
This was to be another history lesson, although one we had never heard anything about previously. The mass genocide in Cambodia, led by the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot. To say we were so unaware of what happened is quite shameful, a regime by which a quarter of the Cambodian population were killed in an effort to become a communist country. We visited the killing fields outside of Phnom Penh, and with an audio tour to teach us we walked around the mass graves of the regime. Truck load after truck load of innocent people were brought here and slaughtered in anyway possible, there was a killing tree used for babies and the pit next to it. You could barely call it history as there were still clothes of those killed arising to the surface during the rainy season. All this happened in the late 70's. At the end of the walk
there is a memorial Stupa which displays the skulls of over 8000 victims, harrowing to say the least.
On a much brighter note, we saw our first snake at the killing fields. A green one about a meter long fell from the tree in front of us, hitting the ground hard and then slithering off.
The remainder of the day we explored the city, going to the S-21 museum, Russian markets and the royal palace. We didn't know until we got here that the king of Cambodia has recently died so the palace at night was lit up with thousands of people gathered outside. A good way to finish our time in Phnom Penh. We need a break from the cities so next stop is a small town called Kratie up north on the Mekong river, along way from the busy city of Phnom Penh.
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Beverley Firbank
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Fantastic blog - I've read it all in one go (it's taken a while) but reminds me of Hannah's time in Vietnam and India. You are both so lucky and it's something you will remember forever. Monday sees Thomas starting work, but of course already planning his next holiday - skiing in Bulgaria in january! Take care and have fun Love Mummy Firbs x