Advertisement
Published: October 4th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Top of the agenda today is a day trip to the Mekong River delta. We had booked a trip in the back packer’s area. An 8.00 am departure ended up being an 8.30 start. A normal level of confusion for the Vietnamese was present in a bustling area. For 2 hours we traveled across flat country with the only hills being bridges over numerous rivers. We boarded a small boat and there were eleven of us on the tour following a well worn tourist path to visit a number of small islands on the Mekong. A short distance across the delta we walked to see a small village in a jungle setting. Followed was a small motorized bout trip along a narrow creek fern lined. It was special. At one stop we had a large snake draped around our necks. After lunch we sat in small paddle boats for a very peaceful trip down another even smaller creek flanked by dense jungle. Final stop was for fresh fruit and local music then we headed back to the mainland for our return to Ho Chi Minh (HCM) by 5.00. Fresh beer followed with Bernard who had done other things during the day.
Dinner at a local market then retired early as Keagan felt slightly unwell.
Next day was a slow start for Keagan to help him get back to full energy. We took a taxi to go to the palace area of HCM. First sight was the Post Office - a beautiful old French building. Walking past a large cathedral we found a lunch spot directly opposite the palace until the palace reopened after lunch. The restaurant was crowded and food was excellent. The palace is in large grounds and is like being in a 70’s time warp - worth seeing. Keagan needed to rest again so we headed back to the Metropole. Kerri ordered prescription glasses (a great deal); we purchased DVD’s, tennis strings and then met Bernard again at the local fresh beer place. Dinner nearby was great. There were frustrations with internet connections and adding to this was that we discovered we had made double payment for our tailored goods. I had first tried to use credit card and Tony’s staff said it had not worked so paid cash. Looking at internet records a couple of days later the transaction had gone through. I made phone calls and
we believe the transaction will be reversed and it will take a few days I think - fingers crossed. At the end of the day we booked a Cu Chi tunnels trip for tomorrow.
Kerri stayed with Keagan who is still not 100% and Declan and I headed off at 8.00am for the 70km’s mini bus ride to the province of Cu Chi to see who the Vietnamese lived underground during the Vietnam War. It was fascinating. Kerri did a market trip in the morning so still had some fun. On the two hour trip north there were two incidents for the bus. The first was the driver was booked for changing lanes inappropriately (happens everywhere all the time so I could not work out what was different). The second was minor clash with a motorbike. A scary fact is that there is an average of 30 deaths on the roads in Vietnam each day. Declan and I loved the Cu Chi tunnel exhibits. Declan went down into an original tunnel and crawled in the dark for 7 metres. I would not have fitted in and for tourists with larger frames than the Vietnamese we got to go into
widened tunnels. The network of tunnels is over 200km long with three levels. Hospitals, bedrooms and kitchens were dotted through. Great ingenuity. Booby trap exhibits were numerous and references to the enemy were never flattering (not sure how you would feel if you were a visiting American). Last stop was a rifle range where you could fire M16’s, AK47’s and machine guns. I purchased 10 AK47 bullets and Declan and I fired them off. Extremely loud and scary. Guns are fixed to a wall so no recoil. WE were back in HCM by 2.30 after a brief stop to push start the bus. My turn to look after Keagan whilst Kerri went off with Declan to the War Remnants Museum. Kerri’s visit summation was it was a significant deterrent to war. Dinner at a nearby café same same as night before. We shopped after dinner in the local streets as it was our last night in HCM.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.052s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 6; qc: 44; dbt: 0.03s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb