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Published: January 9th 2009
Good bye Cambodia...
Crossing from Cambodia into Vietnam. Yes, here I am in Ho Chi Min City, where coned hats, french pastries and mystery meat on the street prevail. I like it better than PP already!
Staying in a $2.50 USD guest house. I'm sharing with my new friend Helen from England, who is in her 8th month of travel. She's going for a whole year. At our hotel, we get free breakfast too -- your choice of tea or coffee and "baked." Took me awhile to figure out that meant 'baguette.' (You gotta love the English translations and spelling here!) Ate it in a little kitchen that doubles as a hair salon. Hair cuts are also included in the daily rate. 😊
Took the first bus out of Cambodia a few days ago. PP was certainly not a place for one... my gut told me it was time to go. Took about 5 hours to the Vietnam border, again, on some dirt roads and then on some 'main highways.' Note: these highways aren't even as nice as the Prospect Road. The bus dropped us off at the border and pointed to another bus waiting on the other side. Crossing from Cambodia into Vietnam was basically walking
Backpacker slum in Phnom Penh
No wonder it cost me 3 bucks a night... from a great big giant mud hole into a land that's lush and green. Somewhat symbolic, I thought.
The second I crossed into Vietnam, I could hear uncle Paddy reciting his famous lines from Forrest Gump, Apocolypse Now and Platoon. (and of course, Rain Man... ) ***Note to self: must watch all of these movies again upon return.
Symbols of a communist country still recovering from war are everywhere in this city. It's still affectionately known as Saigon, even though it's officially Ho Chi Min City. You can find the red, yellow-starred flag on every building and in every gift shop window on coffee mugs and T-shirts.
Life is truly lived on the streets here, moreso than in Bangkok. The Vietnamese eat, sleep, work and hang laundry to dry, all out in the open. And I can't figure it out, but many women walk around in their silk pyjamas (not the sexy ones) all day long... ?!!??
You can get a steaming bowl of Pho (famous beef or chicken noodle soup) for about 40 cents -- or 5000 Dong (I laugh every time I say that) at a food stall every five steps or so. Buildings
My view from the backpacker slum...
I think the view over the lake was worth it! are short and colorful and remind me of Paris. So do the streets. The pedestrian right-of-way rule doesn't exist here. In fact, I don't think there are ANY rules of the road in Vietnam. They drive down both sides of the street, down the sidewalks, on the grass. Gazillions of motorbikes and bikes weave in and out of the crowds. They'll run you down, and not even blink an eye, if you let them. The honking is horrendous. Crossing the street is a form of art. I must admit, I'm getting quite good at it. 😊 It's not unusual to see a family of 5 zooming around helmetless on one little motorbike -- carrying bags from the market to boot. Chaos seems to work here. Only the westerners seem put off by it.
The streets are still scattered with people begging for money. But for the most part, they're trying to make a living by selling something instead. Young children walk around selling postcards and hammocks and Juicy Fruit gum. Women carry huge stacks of photocopied travel guides and books that are on the 'backpacker's best sellers list' for cheap. Oh, and then there are the Zippo lighters and
Going down into the Cu Chi Tunnels
Not knowing what I'm getting myself into... the cigarettes for sale too. The begging and constant badgering is hard to get around, but I found my way of giving back, at least for now. That's by eating in the few coffee shops and restaraunts that are run by associations teaching families life skills and employing children to get them off the streets.
Took a trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels the other day. You probably already know, but they're the intricate network of underground tunnels that were secretly dug out by hand with farming tools. They were used during the American/Vietnam war. They're three levels deep, with lots of secret entries and exits, traps for attackers, surgery rooms, kitchens, meeting rooms, and escape tunnels to the Mekong River. They took 25 years to build and they stretch longer than 250 km.
I felt like I was in a movie walking through the jungle paths to get to the tunnels. Deep bomb craters are still there... as if the war happened last year. Popped in and out of a few of the shorter tunnels to see the kitchen and a meeting room. Then, we (I went with a group) were taken to one of the longer
In the tunnel...
...when it was still kinda fun. ones. I crawled through a space -- on my hands and knees -- that is 1.2 m tall and 80 cm wide. (They made them a bit bigger for tourists - and were actually much smaller than that). When I agreed to do it, I didn't realize the stretch was more than 140 metres long -- with no quick way out -- in bloody darkness!!! Not such a bright idea for a mild chlaustrophobic! Part way through (I repeat, in the dark and the midday heat) I felt as though I was about to have a panic attack. This was one of those times when the phrases 'Mom would definately, definately not approve. Nanny would certainly not approve' were on repeat in my head. I was terrified. The journey on my hands and knees took about 10 minutes. It felt like 3 hours. My knees are skinned and I came out covered in mud and sweat. I shook for an hour after. I can only imagine what the Vietnamese felt like in there for years!
After that traumatic experience, some people took turns shooting AK-47 rifles... Kind of ironic, I thought... but anyway.
Drove back to the city,
Out of the tunnels...
Check out my dirty knees and the look of terror on my face! These two American guys were just as scared as I was... passing a rubber tree plantation, and the region that was saturated with agent orange. Then we went to the War Remnants Museum. Saw US Army helicopters and fighter planes. The faces of war. Pictures of US troops invading small communities and killing entire families. Photos of children with birth defects due to the use of defoliants and chemical warfare. (I've also seen some of these people in the streets). Having really only seen and heard about the American point of view, it was both enlightening and disturbing to see the Vietnamese side of the story. I certainly wasn't prepared for the images I saw. I'll leave it at that for now.
Before leaving PP, I visited the Choeung Ek Killing Fields and the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, or Security 21. In 1975, it was a high school that was taken over by the Khmer Rouge and turned into a torture prison known as S-21. Classrooms were changed into cells and torture chambers. The shackles and weapons are still on display in every cell. Barbed wire still surrounds the buildings. Prisoners were intellectuals. Farmers. Diplomats. Teachers. Entire families. These people were detained and tortured, some up to 7 months, and
Remnants of bones and clothes...
...along the paths at the Killing Fields. Look closely. You can see a tooth. then taken to the extermination camp just outside PP at Choeung Ek -- or the Killing Fields. It's a half-hour motorbike ride outside of the city, and basically, a mass grave site. More than 8000 human skulls are kept in a glass cabinet. There are bones and pieces of clothing peeking out from the dirt and grass along the paths. In 1977, they killed more than 100 people a day. That's the year I was born.
I am embarrassed to say how little I know about these horrific events in history. Unless I was asleep through high school, we didn't learn about this stuff in class. Pretty sad. But being here is better than any history class or book anyway.
On a lighter note, took a day trip to the Mekong Delta yesterday. Floated along the river wearing a cone cat, sampling exotic fruit, marvelling at the fact that the water came from Tibet, through China, Laos and Cambodia into Vietnam. Visited a honey bee farm and a coconut farm. Sampled coconut candies. Drank banana wine. Vietnamese villagers (dressed in traditional outfits) sang for us gleefully. It was an entirely orchestrated affair (hence the reasons I don't like
doing tours) but it's really the only way to get to those areas. If you venture out on you're own, you're likely to pay up to 500 per cent more. The dumb tour group sold it as an 'off the beaten track trip where you get to meet villagers and see village life. You can walk through the exotic fruit orchards and sample whatever you fancy. You'll take a long tail boat through the meandering back rivers....' Huh. The fruit was pre-cut and served on fancy platters in a little hut. I never did see a tree with fruit growing on it. Nice day on the river... but another example of dumb tourists totally being taken for a ride. "Never get out of the boat!"
The one upside of the tour though, is that we met some more great people. A bloke named Donal from Dublin, Benjamin from Belgium and Tensy from Calgary. Since we're all staying in the 'budget' area of Saigon, we took a tour of the more upscale part of town last night. Sunday night in Saigon is absolute mayhem! Thousands and thousands of people were out riding their motorbikes in their Sunday best. I've never
Skulls.
Thousands of them. You could see where some had been beaten... seen anything like it! And when they're not riding around, they gather at coffee shops and ice cream shops. I think we found the only ice cream parlour with motorbike valet parking in the entire world. Had their famous coconut sundae in a coconut!
Today, I took a breather and walked around the city on my own. Visited China town, the upscale area and took a ride on a cyclo. That's like an adult baby carriage, really... Old men ride old fashioned bicycles with little seats in front for tourists. Ha!
We're leaving Saigon tomorrow and heading inland to Dalat. We hear stories about spectacular waterfalls and mountains. Hoping to do some biking. On a mountain bike, Phonse... not a sewing machine. 😊
After that, I'm heading up the coast... to Nha Trang, Hue, Hoi an, Hanoi and Halong Bay. Check out the map below for details.
Oh, I got so excited the other day because I found a menu that had breakfast with peanut butter toast on it. I made the cross town trip to get it, but 'peanut butter' was some sort of brown paste that tasted nothing like peanuts. BUT, I found a
Torture Chambers
In the school turned prison. People were strapped to these beds and tortured. supermarket today that sold peanut butter. I bought it. And a bunch of bananas. Happy day... 😊
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anonymous
non-member comment
Good Morning Viet Nam!!
Hi Kel - great pics & stories! Stay safe! Miss you, Love, Mom xoxo - Mom