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Published: December 14th 2007
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Rob and HIS plane!
at the ho chi minh war remnants museum. Xin chao!
The journey was fine and we arrived in saigon just about on time, where An phu tried to get us to stay ay their hotel again. Me and p went and had a look at the rooms and they were disgusting. Black mould covered the majority of the walls and the light fittings hung from their sockets. The girl showing us was riduculously hyperactive with a really high pitched giggly voice! That alone had us in stitches looking at the rooms. She only knew 'you look at my hotel', 'follow me please', and 'wait for me please'. Following her up the stairs, every few seconds she would say 'follow me please', we were just thinking where exactly does she expect us to disappear to without her noticing, to warrent saying it that often!? Funny though. We went for a bit more of a wander and found a nice little hotel just off behind the main street. The staff were friendly and we could all share a big room(which was actually two as it had a wall and a door between each, but only had one toilet in the second bedroom to share) for just $18. Ideal only $9
demolition derby!
looks just like a big snow plow really. a couple! Ant it was clean and tidy which was the main thing.
The city itself was totally different to Hanoi, it was more developed with high rise buildings and bigger roads with few quaint, little shops like in Hanoi. There were no ladies walking around with shoulder scales either, there just seemed to be less culture and more bars and fluorescent lights. However, moto drivers were still prevelant, asking 'you want moto' everytime you passed them, 'where are you going i take you there!' They were always met with something along the lines of ' no thanks we have legs we can walk!'
So, we had a few places we wanted to visit here, one was the war remnants museum. It was and amazing incite into what happened in the vietnam war with america. However, the pictures we have seen and read about i think will stay with us forever. It really churned your stomach at times. The torture not just to men but women aswell was very graphic! We found out all about the agent orange vivtims too. The Americans dropped thousands of litres of this chemical over villages and forest, which was meant to just
Tiger cells at war remnants museum
the cells were only 2.70m x 1.5m x 3m and the men were shackled by the ankles inside them not able to move.In summer 5 would be crammed inside and in winter just 1! knock them out so the Americans could take over, but instead it killed thousands, completely destroyed the forests and seaped into the earth. Some that were infected with agent orange but were not killed suffered grose mutation and illness. Those infected then passed the disorder onto their children when they were born. They suffer from bent limbs or no limbs at all, giant heads, diabetes, parkinsons, twins born stuck together(which the museum actually had pickled in jars!) there are hospitals for the agent orange victims all over vietnam and we saw a few while we have been here but we just didn't realise what was wrong with them. Its really sad because it's not their fault at all yet they suffer.
Next, we went to the reunification palace which is where the presidents headquarters are. It was ok but not really anything special. The only thing interesting about it is that a tank drove right through it and it was bombed over 10 years ago by the north vietnamese. But it had all been restored so it was just a big building really. Back at our hotel we booked up on the cu chi tunnel tour so the next
The presidents layer!
where the president lives, what a surprise! day thats where we were headed. Unfortunately a small mini bus picked us up and it was already crammed so the journey was a tad suffocating. We got to have a look at the narrow hide outs in the ground, that Rob jumped in, we saw the traps they used and got to go down the tunnels undergrund, which have actually been widened for westerners. the short distance we walked was hard enough let alone the 200 km they walked in the war. It was fantastic to see though. We also got to fire AK47 here if you paid so me and rob had a go, it was cool to fire a gun like that!
We got back, booked up for the mekong river cruise tour for $35 and got ready to leave Vietnam. The cruise takes you from ho chi minh through the border to Cambodia on a 2 day trip. However, it wasn't quite how we expected it to be. Find out in the next installment of hand and robs bogus adventures!!!
until next time
han and rob
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