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Published: August 7th 2007
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So, Vietnam then.
Cambodia was brief and that was fine. I'll let you into a little secret, we didn't really get captured, it was all a big lie to assure Jenny that I'd written another blog. She didn't find it very funny either.
So, we made it out of Cambodia. Leaving the country was a lot easier than getting in and for us, 10 or so days was plenty.
After about 3 minutes in Vietnam we headed to the infamous Cuchi Tunnels where the Vietcong brilliantly held off the most heavily equipped army in the world by hiding underground. Hiding, scurrying around and making ingenious traps and weapons out of stuff the US army left lying around. We witnessed the 'folding chair trap' which plants spikes into the crutch and legs of unwitting GI's. At last, someone's harnessed the lethal tendencies of deckchairs, we thought. There was a similar thing called the 'armpit trap' which flung spikes into the pits of the other GI's. But nothing quite tops the tunnels. The Vietnamese aren't a big lot, you can't help but notice that just walking around. We both often feel like Gulliver in Liliput. But it's not until you
try and squeeze through the tunnels (which have been widened for tourists), that you realise just how wee they are. I admit, I slipped into AC360 mode down there and was the last person to emerge after getting a bit lost in the pitch black and for a moment, feeling the arse pinching fear that the US tunnel rats must have felt when they were down there too. It was also in the tunnels that I took a pic of Jenny and saw what I thought was a bright green snake right next to her (see pic below). But when the camera display turned off, I could no longer see anything and ended up taking about 5 more photos until I assured myself that it was only a bit of green rope. Frankly it was a relief to emerge back into the open air.
This trip was one of 2 day trips we did from Saigon (Ho Chi Min City), and we did feel a bit like Arthur and Martha on a package tour of Crete as we boarded day 2's excursion to the Mekong Delta. We'd spent so long going up and down the Mekong that we felt
it apt to spend one last day there and see the spot where it spews itself into the South China sea. And what a trip! We were dazzled with displays of how sweets are made from coconuts and then wrapped in not one but 2 types of wrapping paper. We were amazed by the traditional singing of local folk - music which fuses countless different keys and rhythms with no relation to one another. And we watched in awe as our guide showed us bees on a plank. Exhausted but desperate for more, we paid a visit to a bonsai garden where Ant lost a flip flop. Not just any flip flop, but my right one which still lovingly displayed the teethmarks of Spice, Cumbria's four legged answer to the Blue Peter dog.
An emotional day was topped off when we met a guy outside a bar who can only be described as an extraordinary buffoon. We called him GI Mike and I'm going to try to describe him although I'm not sure I can do it justice. The man's head was square, large and carried a cropped haircut that could only be crafted in the Marines. His shoulders
and vast arms were designed for carrying rocket launchers and much like the T Rex, his brain was just a little larger than a garden pea. In the loudest and brashest Chicago accent he informed us what he's doing in Vietnam; 'Whatever the Fawk a want', and then he told us how he can tell the Vietnamese are a happy bunch 'I look at their faces and I see their smiles, man'. But the best thing was how he told us that 'The Vietnamese have been happy since the end of the war in 1946'... nuff said. There was a fine line between humouring a man like this and being beaten to a pulp, so we left him to it.
I should point out that by this stage we'd spent a week or so travelling with Rob and Charlie, a couple who we met on the journey into Cambodia. We'd lost them for a few days as Charlie's illness which she'd picked up Siem Riep turned out to be Dengue Fever, and she spent a few days in hospital. But by Saigon we were well and truly all back together and made our way up the cost to Mui
Ne, a lovely little stretch of coastline which offered us a few days chilling on the beach. Amazingly, Jenny, who takes to lying on a beach better than the average shell, showed what I can only assume to be a streak of attention seeking-ness. Obviously upset that Charlie had stolen the limelight with her tropical disease exploits, Jenny managed to get twatted in the cheek by a sandboard which we'd she'd been using to slide down a sand dune. She was very lucky not to get it in the eye, but it then looked like I'd become a Stella swigging wife beater as her black eye developed over the next few days. I rose to my role, assuring people that I usually only go for body punches so that no one else can see them. Some people weren't quite sure if this was true. Geoff, Linda, I assure you it's not.
And you know what? We finally went a bit brown. At blimmin last. Obviously Jenny claims to be browner than me, but that's only down to the gallons of fake tan she applied the night before we set off on the trip. But as my white bits prove,
there's a tan, and by god it's good.
So rather than lie on the beach and enjoy the sunshine, we headed inland and uphill to Dalat, a town that's got the same climate as Wigan. And it looks a bit like Wigan too. Someone writing for the Lonely Planet must have been taking valium when they described this as a 'beautiful hill' station town. To be fair, it's got some lovely countryside around it, and we spent a day pootling round on the back of mopeds taking it all in. But frankly, now's not the time of year to be there and we quickly realised that leaving the beach had been folly. We plotted an escape route which would see the girls head out of town in the morning to look for accommodation in Nha Trang, while the boys made a thorough survey of the town's golf course, leaving in the evening under cover of darkness. $90 for a round meant that we spent the whole day on the putting green, while the girls had a nightmare finding accommodation. But we were all together in Nha Trang by the evening and back on the beach...
This blog will
continue after a party political broadcast by the Communist party.
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wifebeater
Poor Jen. I always knew that a misogynistic rage simmered beneath that boyish exterior. Still, I am quite jealous of Jen's convalescence, which looks very relaxing.