A Billion Scooters in Ho Chi Minh - Vietnam!

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PHNOM PENH TO HO CHI MINH CITY
It took the entire day to cross from Phnom Penh to the Vietnamese border, to tackle customs and then to reach Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) itself, but on Tues 10 November 2009 we crossed into Vietnam and at 9pm we finally arrived at our destination Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC).


NEVER MIND ALL THE BICYCLES IN BEIJING, THERE ARE A BILLION SCOOTERS IN HO CHI MINH!
The first thing which struck us about Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) was the sheer volume of scooters there. There were billions!! No exaggeration! Looking out from the bus, you could just see a sea of heads, you couldn't even begin to count how many gathered at each red traffic light (well thats if they bothered to stop at the red lights!) The roads are quite an eye opening experience in Vietnam. In theory you are supposed to drive on the right, however, in practice motorists, cyclists, even pedestrians swerve and dodge everywhere and anywhere. It seems compulsory to overtake at the most dangerous point possible (brow of a hill, blind bend etc). The horn is a surrogate brake and we never saw anybody bothering to use indicators, or in fact headlights at night for that matter!! What about right of way?? Well, as we read this 'invariably goes to the biggest vehicle'!


The city of Ho Chi Minh had a really lovely feel to it, much cleaner and obviously much more affluent than Cambodia. It was a welcome relief to see restaurants, bars, hotels and even tacky flashing neon lights! We booked into a hostel which was just a large Vietnamese house, run by a family who rented out their spare rooms as hostel beds, unlike our experience in China however, this place was a little gem! Right in the centre of HCMC, spotlessly clean and the family were really friendly and helpful - a great little homestay and great to experience how a Vietnamese family live in the city.



GOOD MORNING VIETNAM!
Early on the morning of Wed 11 Nov 2009, just the two of us headed out of the hostel on a walking tour of the city. First stop: The War Remnants Museum. The grounds outside the museum played host to a wide range of US military machinery and equipment used in the Vietnam war including a 28 ton howitzer, a Douglas Skyraider plane, tanks, helicopters, missiles and a huge machine which resembled a tank but was actually a flame thrower!


Inside the museum, the ground floor told some of Vietnam's story including graphic pictures of villages being burned, victims being mutilated and bombs being dropped. One particularly grisly wall showed the effects napalm and agent orange had on the villages where it was dropped, on veterans who were involved with the napalm and also on their children still now to this day being born with defects. There were even glass cabinets housing abnormal foetuses, which had resulted from napalm exposure.


The second floor was dedicated to all the photographers who were killed whilst taking photos of the war. The photographers were from all round the world and the photos they had taken were displayed on the walls - absolutely mesmerising. One wall displayed statistics in graph and bar chart format comparing the number of soldiers deployed and the number of casualties from the Vietnam war to those from World War I and the Cold War. The figures were fascinating. The museum was educational but compared to S21 in Cambodia was it nowhere near as informative and it did feel like it portrayed a very bias slant.


From the museum we walked round the rest of the sights HCMC had to offer including the Reunification Palace and the Cathedral. For the second largest city in Vietnam, HCMC is still relatively small and can be explored in its entirety on foot. It was a quirky little place and had a good atmosphere and feel to it ... still can't get over the amount of scooter/mopeds here though ... its ridiculous!!



THE VIET CONG TUNNELS
This was the main reason for us staying over a night in HCMC. Ever since we knew we would be entering Vietnam I have been looking forward to seeing and experiencing the tunnels utilised by the Viet Cong in the Vietnam war. We were collected at 8am on Thurs 12 Nov for the two hour bus journey to the Cu Chi Tunnels. Our guide, actually a veteran from the war, now turned author (and as it turned out, a bit of a comedian too!) was hilarious and made the journey fly by with his anecdotes and tales from the war. He did become serious at times as he explained real events and historical facts about the war and the prisoner of war camps (he was detained at one for three years).

Mr Bin (pronounced Bean), our guide, took us to the village that held off the American offensives throughout the darkest, most intense years of fighting - Cu Chi. We were shown a short movie on the war which contained still photographs of what the area looked like before, during and after the war. It explained why the people initially took up arms against the Americans and the tactics and strategies they used. It stated that most were farmers or land workers who had few weapons and little experience with confrontation so they set up traps using sharpened bamboo sticks and grinded down American bomb shells which they found to utilise the gunpowder left in them and to use the shards they cut out to create cluster mines (like a landmine/nail bomb type device). We had to confess that traps which the Viet Cong designed, the method of recycling American arms and the way in which they maximised their resources was very clever and creative, even if ultimately deadly!


After the video we walked one of the sections of jungle where intense fighting had occurred and where there were still several tunnels under the ground. In one area there was still a large crater, left courtesy of a B52 bomber. Mr Bin showed us examples of the type of traps utilised by the Viet Cong and how they were set up in the jungle. All of them were made by hand and only using the materials the Viet Cong had from farming the land or the surrounding environment.


The Sniper hole was absolutely fascinating. A rectangular hole at the top measuring a mere 45cm long by 30cm wide, leading to a straight narrow drop down a few meters. To get out the snipper would have to come out arms first and squeeze one shoulder then the other out of the gap and finally use there arms to pull the rest of their body up through the hole. Mr Bean offered us the chance to try and get into the sniper hole. A young girl from Vietnam managed to squeeze in and so did one particularly thin lad but when a tall, well built lad from America had a go, he lowered his legs in and his bottom just sat on the top of the hole, preventing him form squeezing down any further - very funny!


During the break there was a chance to not just look over some of the guns used in the war but for a small fee you were allowed to take the gun of your choice to the shooting range behind the rest area and fire ten shots. We didn't have a go but some people from the group before ours was and the sound of the guns going off was absolutely deafening, with every shot, everyone in there blinking involuntarily!!! The guns on display included:
AK47 otherwise known as the Kalashnikov, M16 rifle, Cabin, Ga Rang M1 gun, Thomxong, Dailien M30, Dailien M60 machine gun. If your anything like me most of those names mean absolutely zip ... although, I can tell you ... all the artillery looked extremely menacing and sounded even more terrifying. It created a surreal atmosphere, walking through deep, intensely humid and sticky jungle with the sounds of gun fire ringing from seemingly all directions. Still, what the men sent out there to fight must have been going through in that sort of environment was impossible to even imagine!


The best part of the trip, without doubt, was the Viet Cong Tunnels themselves! On four different levels dug out only using makeshift spades and farming tools by 1965 there were over 250km of criss crossing tunnels throughout Cu Chi and the surrounding area. The layout was ingenious. They had escape routes out to the river in every tunnel, sleeping quarters, cooking quarters, latrines, meeting rooms, wells and dorms. There was even a make shift hospital where operations could be conducted. They had even made provisions to prevent the smoke from the kitchens escaping and giving out their whereabouts or for fires or instances where a tunnel entrance was discovered. Inhabitants could stay below ground for weeks and weeks at a time. Probably the most astonishing element of the tunnel design was its size and shape. The Vietnamese are a very small and petite race, especially in comparison to the Americans!! The tunnels were tiny (some could be as small as 80cm tall by 80cm wide) and up to 24m underground. ... not to mention boiling hot!! We got to attempt to follow a tunnel system which various exits had been put into in case of panic. The tunnel was so narrow you could not turn around once inside and so small that you had to walk in a squat position with your bottom on your heels - shuffling along. Bless, Paul could not walk properly for four days after his quads were aching so much from the strain! We had noticed, the people in Vietnam (all ages, male and female) never sit down - but they do squat, when talking, waiting for buses, eating at the street stalls. Now when I say squat, I mean they bend their knees until their bottom touches their ankles but whilst still keeping their heels on the floor. They can stay like that for hours!! Mr Bean said that many Vietnamese can actually sleep in that position!!


The tunnels were stifling hot and pitch black. immediately upon entering you could feel beads of sweat running down your face and back. Before passing to a lower level you had to drop down through a small hole to descend further into the ground, at one stage we crawled on our stomachs using our elbows and feet to help propel use through the tunnel. Filthy, caked in mud, sweltering hot with clothes sticking to us and all muscles protesting with cramp, we crawled onwards and downwards! At the lowest section of tunnel we were allowed to pass through we were over 12m below the ground surface! The tunnels were so effective that despite several attempts by the Americans to flush the Viet Cong out of the tunnels, including the infamous scorched earth operations and widespread carpet bombing by B52s, no attempt was ever successful!


The days events had given us the most amazing experience and a humbling one too. It was very sombering thinking of all the people on both sides who lost their lives or loved ones.


We returned from the tunnels exhilarated but very muddy and sweaty and had to transfer straight to the airport for a one hour fifteen minute, just under 1000km, flight up the East coast, heading North to Da Nang.

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Photos

Soldier Photo
look closely at what he is holding

Vietnemese Trap
If your foot stepped into it ... you would not get your leg back out ever again!

Comments

[Barbara]

Not another new exercise!
Hi Angie andPaul! By the time you read this you will be in Oz! Takes me time to get to all the e-mails on our computer! I know you thought that the tunnels were fascinating - think I would personally skip that tour! I hope that this hasn't given you ideas for a new gym torture - knees bent down to heels scenario! What I would like to know is what happens when you want to go to the loo??!! On second thoughts I think I would rather die wondering! Have a great time in Oz! - look forward to your next adventure! Missing you! Be well, be safe! Love, light and hugs, Barbara (and George!) xxx