Blogs from Cu Chi, Ho Chi Minh City, Southeast, Vietnam, Asia - page 11

Ive still got to add photos from Nha Trang - so we are jumping fprward to Ho Chi Minh city. As crazy with motorcycles as Hanoi - just as much fun crossing the road! Here, we visited the Cu Chi tunnels - the tunnels in which the Vietamese people dug & lived in during the war - amazing to see that they lived in this claustrophobic way - Justin & Neil went down into the tunnel but jo wasnt so stupid! Here we also got tto fire some AK47s which was good fun!... read more

Monday Nov 12 to Wednesday Nov. 14th “Good Mornin’ Vietnam! We’ve always wanted to say that. (thank you Robin Williams) Very hot here, about 33 degrees, and humid (so a very bad hair place, but great for things such as an $18 massage and $6 french manicure---that’s U.S dollars, so even cheaper in loonies)..Note to Michael and Harvey: see how much money we are saving?) Our base, Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) is in terrible disrepair. The French colonial influences are present, but the heart of the city lies not in it’s architecture, but in the Vietnamese people. They are a lovely, gracious, hospitable people who have suffered much. A most outstanding feature of HMC is the traffic chaos which is composed of some 2 million mopeds (the main method of transportation) all jumbled in ... read more

We set off at 8am for teh town of Cu Chi to see the informous tunnels for themselves. Again we were in tourist heaven but it was teh cheapest way to see as much as we wanted in the short space of time. It started like a school lesson and of course it was very VC prone, then we were walked around a path with mock areas of the tunnel set up. All quite mundane. Then horror of horrors we were taken to the firing range. Why on earth do people want to fire the same machinery which was responsible for killing millions?? The sound was deafing and the whole thing was made to be like a fun fair game. I was horrified. Eventually we we allowed down a 'real' tunnel. After the cue of watching ... read more

Good. (Yawn!) Morning.(Yawn!) Bill, our Intrepid leader, had assured us that there would be no need for alarm clocks in order to wake up. He wasn’t joking. Cocks were crowing, dogs were barking, chickens were clucking, boats were chugging away. I felt the door shake and rattle that gave ME a rude wake-up call at 05:30! I’m a light sleeper so going back to sleep was just not an option! The night before, I had slept in my clothes as I didn’t want to disturb my “dorm girls” and I must confess that I wasn’t sure that I hadn’t been locked out. No worries. I’d merely sleep with the boys! Fortunately or unfortunately, You decide! I was able to get into my room because there were no door locks! This morning, I had discovered that I ... read more

Dzisiejszego dnia po raz kolejny w Wietnamie udalismy sie na zorganizowana wycieczke, ktora w programie miala przewidziane dwa punkty: Swiatynie Kaodaistyczna, oraz tunele Cu Chi. Wyjazd o godzinie byl o godz 8, wiec spokojnie zjedlismy sniadanie i wsiedlismy do autobusu. Jazda nie byla do konca przyjemna ze wzgledu na nie najlepszy deliktanie mowiac stan drog prowadzacych do swiatni. Po 2.5h dojechalismy jednak na miejsce. Kaodaizm - religia, ktora posiada okolo 3 mln wyznawcow, glownie w Wietnamie. Jest to proba stworzenia tzw. idealnej religii przez polaczenie religii i filozofii wschodu i zachodu. Przede wszystkim Buddyzmu, Konfucjanizmu, Taoizmu i kultu przodkow, gdyz te religie byly i sa najbardziej popularne w Wietnamie, ale takze wykorzystywane sa w niej elementy Chrzescijanstwa, Islamu czy Hinduizmu. Jednak 70% zasad pochodzi z Buddyzmu przykladowo wiara w reinkarnacje w... read more