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Published: February 9th 2009
Goodbye to yet another fantastic group of people Over the past 4 weeks l have spent an incredible time with 14 people on the projects in Thailand, so it was another sad farewell on the steps of the hotel in Bangkok. Myself & Marny shared a taxi to the Airport on Sunday morning, but not before the rest of the group sung Ronan Keatings "When You Say Nothing at All". My flight to Vietnam's Ho Minh City was a short 90 minutes and as soon as l passed through the passport control l was whisked away to my hotel in the heart of the city to met my new group for the 2 week tour of this dramatic country. After checking into my room, and yet again l wasn’t sharing as the rest of the group were mainly married couples or female, we had a welcome meeting with the Intrepid Tour leader and then taken to dinner to have our first Vietnamese meal.
I have arrived in one of the best cities in the world, so far Ho Chi Minh City is still more commonly referred to as 'Saigon', despite the official name change
in 1975. Located in southern Vietnam, on a huge bend in the Saigon River, it is the economic centre of the country. The Communist government, who took control of Vietnam in 1975, tried to suppress the entrepreneurial tendencies of the Saigonese and the city went through the economic doldrums until recovery in the 1990s.
Now, high-rise buildings dominate the shabby French colonial ones that are tucked away at their feet, while saffron-robed monks collecting alms walk past glitzy car showrooms and karaoke bars.
Ho Chi Minh City has enjoyed over 30 years of peace following decades of unrest. After the defeat of French colonialists in 1954, Vietnam was divided into two. Saigon became the capital of the Republic of South Vietnam but almost immediately Communist North Vietnam, under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh, began an attempt to unify the country.
The USA, fearing the spread of Communism, stepped in, sparking the bloody Vietnam War that coloured much of the cultural, social and political climate of the 1960s. Driven back by tenacious North Vietnamese defence and jungle warfare they were ill-equipped to deal with, the Americans left in 1973 and the whole of Vietnam came under Communist
rule.
Massive inflation and poverty followed until 1986 when the government introduced doi moi, the Vietnamese equivalent of perestroika, relaxing its hold on the people and allowing them to run their own businesses. The skyline of the city reflects this, as it has changed dramatically from a low-rise cityscape to one whose central area, District 1, is dotted with glittering skyscrapers. The Saigon River meanders through the east of the city and is the all-important link to the sea.
I think every motorbike was on the same road at the same time this morning We left after breakfast this morning and within a few minutes we were in the middle of the biggest traffic jam l have ever seen, but unlike the UK/USA/Europe there wasn't a single sign of "Road Rage", and as within no time the thousands of motorbikes disappeared and we were on our way. Our first stop after a hour was a Handicapped Handicraft centre which helps people within the area of Ho Minh City and the crafts they were producing were beautiful and we watched as traditional Vietnamese pictures were being produced using black lacquer boards decorated with egg shells to
make scenes of landscapes or two woman wearing the famous cone hats. After some of the group purchased some of these items we continued our journey for another hour towards the Cu Chi tunnels made famous during the US & Vietnam War.
It was one of the weirdest tourism experiences we've ever had. As though Fellini and Disney had teamed up to do 'Nam.... The Cu Chi tunnels of Vietnam are one of those horrible remnants of a horrible war that most folks would probably rather forget. So, of course, they've become a tourist attraction. Cu Chi Tunnel is 70 km from Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) in the Northwest. At the height of the Vietnam War, the tunnel system stretched from the outskirts of Saigon all the way to the Cambodian border ... something like 250 kilometres of tunnels.
It is miniature battle versatile of Cu Chi’s military and people during the 30-year struggle long-time and fierce to fight invading enemy to receive independence, freedom for motherland. It also is the special architecture lying deeply underground with many stratums, nooks and crannies as complex as a cobweb, having spares for living, meeting
and fighting with total lengths over 200 km. Real legends coming from the Tunnel are over human imaginativeness. Creeping down into the tunnel, only some yards, you can find out why Vietnam? A tiny country could defeat its enemy, the large and richest country in the world. Why Cu Chi, a barren and poor land could face strongly for 21 years to the army crowded many times compared with its force, warlike and equipped modern war weapons and means. In the fight, Cu Chi people won illustriously. Thanks to systems of tunnel ways, fortifications, combat trenches, soldiers and people of Cu Chi fought very bravely creating glorious feat of arms. The American invaders at first time stepped into Cu Chi land, they had to face so fierce resistances from tunnels from important and very difficult bases that they cried out, “Underground villages”, “Dangerous secret zone”, “cannot see any VC but they appear everywhere”… With its war pasture, Cu Chi Tunnels become a historical war hero of Vietnamese People like a 20th century legend and famous land in the world. The tunnel system, built over 25 years starting in the 1940s, let the Viet Minh and, later, the Viet Cong, control
a huge rural area. It was an underground city with living areas, kitchens, storage, weapons factories, field hospitals, command centres. In places, it was several stories deep and housed up to 10,000 people who virtually lived underground for years.... getting married, giving birth, and going to school. They only came out at night to furtively tend their crops.
The ground here is hard clay, which made this whole thing possible. But even so, the planning and construction was incredible. People dug all this with hand tools, filling reed baskets and dumping the dirt into bomb craters. They installed large vents so they could hear approaching helicopters, smaller vents for air and baffled vents to dissipate cooking smoke. There were also hidden trap doors and gruesomely effective bamboo-stake booby traps.
Of course, the U.S. military knew about the tunnels. The tunnels not only allowed guerrilla communication, they allowed surprise attacks, even within the perimeters of U.S. military bases. The U.S. retaliated with bombs, eventually turning the region into what writers Tom Mangold and John Penycate called "the most bombed, shelled, gassed, defoliated and generally devastated area in the history of warfare."
War is hell, and, sometimes, the aftermath is just plain weird.
Finally, we came to the tunnels. We dropped through a trap door to the first level, 10 feet below the surface, and squeezed through narrow passageways to see bunkers, a hospital, a kitchen and the actual command room from which the 1968 Tet offensive was planned. There are tables and chairs, bunk beds, crude cooking stoves, dummies outfitted in guerrilla garb and, for effect, the occasional live person to give an authentic touch. Even with the tunnels widened it was a squeeze, especially one serpentine stretch at the second level where we had to drop to our knees and crawl while the ceiling scraped our spines. There was a third level, which is hardly 18 inches high and definitely would have required wriggling on our stomachs. We gratefully declined.
The day we did all this, the temperature was 98 degrees with correspondingly high humidity, and the sweat gushed so heavily we could hardly hold onto our cameras. It gave us an incredible admiration for the people who lived and struggled here. After one last wriggle, we came up at a snack stand where we got to taste the taro root and green
tea that tunnel residents ate.
We left the Cu Chi tunnels and made our way back to the city and visited the War Memorail Museum by Cyclo bikes and spent about hour looking at displays about the war between Vietnam & the US with some horrific photographs and even US tanks, airplanes and a helicopter.
In the morning we leave Ho Minh City to spend a day & night visiting the Mekong Delta.
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Fab
non-member comment
u remind me!!!!
u remind me of a film i saw.....Private Benjamin!!! by that tank....!!! looks real interesting hon!!! if a bit scary!! xx