Vin Lup Lup??

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until our South to North of Nam trip is over 😞

A full day ahead of sight seeing around Ho Chi Minh City. We started off at the Reunification Palace, after catching a taxi there and the driver kept repeating "vin lup lup" (and laughing)....found out anyhow later (after also saying it back to him not knowing what we were saying) that it simply meant 'Reunification Palace'. So...the Vin Lup Lup was kinda interesting, but a place that you could walk through, we chose the english tour...which we ended up leaving toward the end of it...there's only so much time you can spend there. Bunka wasn't feeling the best, so she headed back to the hotel and we stayed on, almost getting hit by two cars while crossing on the way to the War Remnants Museum.

This place was very, very, very interesting! Plenty of old tanks, helicopters, planes and bombs to be seen, as well as many photos (quite graphic in parts) and interesting things such as jars with babies who had suffered severe defects from Agent Orange. Disturbing at parts, but this is reality and that's the most interesting part about it. There were also some 'tiger cages' which were tiny cells used to keep prisoners. In the hot weather they'd keep a massive, massive number in the one cell, while in the cold months they would keep just 2 or 3 in there. Depriving them of food and water, not just water to drink, but to bathe also.

We also then decided to see a chinese pagoda called the Jade Emperor Pagoda. How much do they love their incense! wow, very strong and the smoke was killing my eyes! Very pretty on the inside though. There are also small ponds with a million and one turtles, found out you can buy baby turtles to throw in for good luck. Maybe I should have done that! got ripped off by the taxi driver too, but not as much as Bianca on her first day! Instead of paying $5 for the taxi from the airport, she ended up having no choice but to pay around $80-$90!!!

Had a rest in the arvo which did wonders and watched election stuff (something we never do, which shows the lack of TV shows!). Another simple dinner, then we booked our bus for the next day as we had decided to head up to Mui Ne. Early night? ah...no...I manage to mess my room and Macpac up in no time at all! Had to get that in order for the early morning ride before sleeping...worst part of travelling!

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