Saigon and Dalat

---

Once we arrived in Saigon, right away you could tell we were in another country. The streets are in immaculate condition compared to Laos and Cambodia, it's MUCH cleaner and the whole city has a much more western feel with big buildings and bright lights. Not to mention the INSANELY large amount of traffic.
I think we read that there is 8 million or so people in the city and I swear each person has their own motor bike and are on the road at the same time. Crossing the street becomes more of a life and death experience then a simple 5 meter walk.

Our first day we decided to really take in the city so Tommy the tour guide (me) got out our Lonely Planet and walked around all the major areas of the city. It was actually very fun to walk around because there's no tuk tuk drivers hasseling you and the sidewalks are in picture perfect shape. Once again, the only battle is crossing the road but it becomes somewhat of an art because you just walk in the middle of traffic and all the motor bikes somehow avoid you ( actually, we were scared out of our mind for the first day doing this).

We ended up going to the War Remenants museum which is all about the Vietnam War reffered to over here as the US War. This museum was VERY biased towards how awful the US were and in some parts, extremely, ridiculously graffic. Once again, it was great to take this all in because none of us really knew much about what happened over in during this time.

One of the highlights was going to this Vietnamese restaurant. We were the only foreigners in there and it was obvious because once they brought us our food, we had no clue how to eat it!! Thankfully, a nice guy sitting beside us showed us how to eat it.

The next day, we took a tour out to the Cu Chi Tunnels where the Viet Cong lived and fought during the war. This was more like a museum but it was great to see how they lived and fought in these amazingly complex tunnel systems. We got to walk through one of them but we only made it half way because it was so tight and small. I sat in the front of the bus and spoke to our guide the whole way to the tunnels. He was the most interesting guys I've met so far because he fought for the South in the Vietnam war and told me about so many details of the war and the country that you don't learn in museums.

After 2 amazing days in Saigon we took another 7 hour bus to Dalat which is a city northwest of Saigon about 1500 m high. This was once inhabited by mainly the French until the late 50's. It's so weird because the three of us will be speaking in french and randomly older people will come up to us just so they can speak french to us. Very weird but really cool for being in Vietnam. Since this city is so high, its about 10 degrees colder here so it's a nice change from the 35 degree days we've had.

The area around here is beautiful, full of mountains so we went on a day hike where we got 2 guides to come along with us. They spoke great english and really made our day very fun. The trekk wasn't that hard but we saw beautiful scenery.

So far, we've fell in love with Vietnam. Everyone has been so nice and accomodating which might be because they're isn't as much tourism here as some of the other countries. Nonetheless, not only are we having fun but I think we've learned more on the history and politics of these countries then we could have ever imagined.

---