No photos, not my fault this time

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So all those facebook devotees or friends thereof will be aware by now that on the night of the something of April, maybe May (days blurring), my camera didn't make it home with me, and neither did about 600-700 photos of Cambodia. All of my award-winning photos of Angkor Wat will not be published in Nat Geographic this year. Neither will the great photo of me in the middle of a sea of mopeds in Ho Chi Minh, or my photos of the view of the city at night.
Well, the mourning is over, the camera replaced as a parent would buy a child a new puppy, and I'm back in the game (lost wide-angle, gained full manual controls and AA batteries.) Cat has her photos of the temple, and being her camera is vastly superior (jealous) a lot of the good photos were taken with hers anyways, so the memories are still there.

So Ho-Chi-Minh. Had a laugh when I just read my last entry finished with something along the lines of "I have a good feeling about this place" Don't get me wrong, actually quite liked Saigon (quicker to spell) in all its glory, from the loss of pavements to the sea of mopeds during rush hour, to the kamikaze slow walk across, trusting people will just swerve to avoid you (only way across, red lights don't mean much here) to the busy markets and the noodle soup place Bill Clinton went when he was president. They didn't seem as excited when we walked through the door.

Things to do are quite numerous in Saigon, and we attempted a city walk that supposedly took 3-4 hours, taking in 4 museums, a couple of palaces/residences, a couple of temples, markets, and finishing on the Sheridan roof for a cocktail with a view.
We made 2 museums, one market, a cathedral, and a cocktail with a view.
The war remnant museum in Saigon has some amazing photos of the war, and a while floor dedicated to the photojournalists who died in the first war when they weren't considered neutral. Some of the more disturbing photos show corpses blown apart by the enemy Americans, and photos of the aftermath of Agent Orange's ability to deform a foetus. The museum of Ho Chi Minh, or the Ho Chi Minh museum (one of the 2 that exist, confusingly), had old relics from the liberation as well as the independence from the French (referred to as the tyrant french in all posters) and a disturbing photo of the monk who burned himself alive in protest against the persecution by the South Vietnamese. The whole Affair leaves you pretty disgusted with war, pretty disgusted with torture, and morbidly aware of how much still goes on now around the world, albeit with less publicity. On the lighter side, a collection of tanks and planes they captured was good fun to see and play with. The cathedral, called Notre Dame, is a pretty decent replica of the real thing, but unlike the real one this one didn't have scaffolding! We didn't hang there for long due to the level of beggars and the silly loud music played by the ice-cream bikes. Yep, bikes. With a cool-box/esky.

We've met up with a British couple that we'd met on one of our tours in Chiang Mai. After having dinner we decided to go to the Cu Chi caves together the next day. The caves in the North West of Saigon were built by the Vietnamese against the French, but were expanded by the peasants during the American occupation, fighting against the South. So clever were the disguised entrances that the Americans built a camp on top of one and wondered why people were being attacked during the night. The tunnels have mostly collapsed, but some sections have been expanded to accommodate "larger" western tourists. Well it turns out they're pretty small as it is, most people might struggle through as my shoulders barely fitted into sections of the 100M tunnel, which lied about 8M underground. The original tunnels were about 40X80... Luckily they've also got rid of the evil booby traps that filled these tunnels for safety.
On this tour we also went to the Cao Dai temple, an original vietnamese religious cocktail that worships Buddha, Jesus, Confucius, Mohammed, LaoZi, and are in regular contact with the soul of Victor Hugo... The religion sounds pretty confusing, though the temple was incredibly colourful and the "priests" wear different colour representing different religions, and there's a whole system of promotion every 5 years to come closer to heaven. They have a pope and cardinal type system, but no-one has been deemed worthy in their conversations with the dead souls, so that seat remains empty for now.

So we had dinner again with Fay and Chris that night, and discovered that our timetables were pretty similar for Vietnam, and we got along well so we've teamed up for the journey so far. They've been good fun to have around, and a nice introduction back into the UK life that awaits us! They've been traveling a bit longer than us in the area, and its been great to have some company.
So off we went to Dalat, a town lost in the mountains of Vietnam. The scenery was spectacular, and the weather cooler (finally!!) Unfortunately we didn't have too long here and our timed was dampened literally by rain, so after getting caught out on our bikes we made a hasty retreat to the hotel. Beforehand we'd managed to visit the "Crazy House", a weird Alice in Wonderland type housing with stairs running here and there and nowhere. Photos required to quite describe it. We also managed to find a waterfall, with a steep slope running down to it. Fortunately they decided to install a track with one-man bobsleighs down it so we had possibly more fun getting there than at the waterfall...

More to come, will update in due time to avoid silly block of text. Plus, knackered due to long-haul bus last night. But I'll explain that next time.

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