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Published: March 24th 2009
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Water Buffalo in Mekong Delta
This guy was just chilling in the midday sun We were catapulted straight into the mayhem of Vietnam's second city, Ho Chi Minh (affectionatley referred to as Saigon). The city is officially home to 8m people, 11m unofficially and 4m scooters. This is the first thing that strikes you upon leaving the airport. It's a head spinning introduction to Vietnam. The bus driver leaves the airport goes into a roundabout, doesn't stop & honks his horn constantly while scooters swarm around the bus on all sides. It's absolute mayhem but we loved it!! We also loved the price 9000 D for the two of us - that's the local currency, Dong, and you have 25,000 in the pound. This makes us all millionaires for about 40 quid!
What a great place - you can eat out for maybe 80,000 dong - that's food and drink. There are about 5 local beers but my favourite is Saigon Red which costs a whopping 10,000 D per bottle which I reckon is 40p. Hurray - we can drink again (this is after experiencing UK type prices in Malaysia and double UK prices in Singapore). Anyway I digress...
We decided to pamper ourselves. Melissa got a manicure and a pedicure as well
as her nails painted. I got my second hair cut in 2 weeks (he's worse than a girl) after the unsatisfactory job I had done in Borneo. This time I got the lot off - number zero - shaved to the bone. I opted for a cut throat shave as well. This was going well until he cut me (by mistake-or so he said!) - on the ear too which is my best feature. The blood literally spurted out! Melissa's nails looked very good as well (see pics).
Next day we did a bit of sightseeing. I reckon there's only 5 attractions on the radar in Saigon. That may be a little optimistic. We attempted to see 3 on Monday. I say attempted because we got dropped off by the botanical gardens and zoo. We wanted to visit Jade Empreror Pagoda. According to the guidebook (rough guide) this is '10 mins stroll northwest of the gardens'. Sounds easy enough. We walked a couple of mins before meeting a cross roads. We had to cross 2 lanes of traffic going both ways. Being Vietnam there's no green man or anything like that. Traffic is manic with non stop scooters. I
said forget it - we'll see if anyone knows where this place is. No one speaks English never mind knows. We went back to the crossing. I have been dreading this for weeks.
You have to check there are no cars coming first then step into the road, in front of the speeding scooters. Then you walk across the road slowly and they magically weave around you. I found if you look anywhere other than straight ahead its dangerous as you are liable to panic and stop. The crucial thing is don't stop! Stop and you are liable to be run over. It's scary stuff. Anyway we crossed three junctions and still couldnt see the Pagoda. Then we hit the roundabout in the video. This was way too daunting to cross so we turned back. We now realise
ROUGH GUIDE IS AS BAD AS LONELY PLANET - MAYBE WORSE That afternoon we walked from the Botanical Gardens to War Remnants museum. This was a good 40 min walk and we were proud of ourselves for doing that as it's still way too hot - damn hot - real hot. The museum is basically about the Vietnam
UH 1H Huey
Iconic Vietnam war chopper war or American war as its known here. There are lots of cool things that were captured from the Americans when the north eventually over ran the south in 1975. There was a huey chopper complete with mini gun, M4 tank, 155mm self propelled artillery piece, F5 jet, mortars and lots of guns. It was my kind of place.
Inside the exhibition wasn't quite so much fun as we were shown pictures and all kinds of testimony of American and South Vietnamese atrocities in the war. It was sobering stuff and we were both moved by the pictures of children who were born with gruesome birth defects as a result of the Americans liberal use of agent orange and other chemicals to clear the forests that the NVA were hiding in. There were some miscarried foetus' that had been preserved which showed some of the hideous mutations that are still happening even now as a result of American war policy. I didn't realise before that in the Vietnam war the Americans dropped 15m tons of bombs on thic country. To put that in perspective during the whole of WW2 the allies dropped 5m tons. It was a real eye
opener.
Next day we headed out on a tour to see a Cao Dai temple and the Cu Chi tunnels. We travelled out highway 22 which is where Nick Ut shot his iconic photo from the vietnam war showing the aftermath of an American napalm attack on Trang Bang which is only about 40Km from Saigon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Ut
The Cao Dai religion is a mix of 7 major religions. I'm thinking those guys are covering all the bases. It was really interesting but was brutally hot outside: 38C we heard. Cao Dai is a matriarchial religion where a woman can have as many husbands as they wish. But they have to pay a dowry for each - namely one water buffalo! Vietnam is home to many crazy religions and our tour guide explained one that has since died out called coconut religion. The followers lived entirely on coconut. He said the religion died out as followers were too weak to go to church!
After lunch we went to the Cu Chi tunnels where Viet Cong (VC) Guerrilla's had to live after coming under repeated napalm and B52 bomb attack. The VC used the tunnels as a base to
Mel's fancy nail
How long will these last? harass the local US army camp and to lay pretty ingenious booby traps for the troops. We got to go through the tunnels which are 80cm wide and tall. This means you can't stand up. It's really hot down there that when you come out you are sweating profusely. I only managed 50m but Melissa stayed under for 100m. Melissa good Viet Cong - Gareth poor.
We booked a 2 day trip to the Mekong Delta which is in the very south of the country. The Mekong river which starts in Tibet and travels through China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia finally spills into the sea on the Delta. At that point the river is 2.5Km across and about 20m deep. It's an impressive sight. The area is very fertile and produces much of the countries fruit and veg. We got to sample some local fruits and honey tea and to taste the local rice wine which was toxic and of unknown alcohol content (I reckon you could go blind easy enough). We also went to a factory where a family makes sweets out of coconuts and had some coconut sweets which were lovely. We got to see a
Gareth with M4 Tank
Captured from americans at the fall of Saigon in 1975 floating market in Can Tho which was huge (see panorama above). It's a real market and not just for the tourists. We bought half a pineapple for 2000D which I thing is 8p in English. We also saw fish being sold that were still alive and flapping around. It was pretty gross.
All in all we are both really pleased with Vietnam so far. The people are very funny and have a good sense of humour. It's by far the cheapest place we have been so far and the local foods are some of the best we've had. Theres a fine selection of local beers that cost well under a pound. Happy Days!
PS - we are writing this in Dalat but are heading to Nha Trang in a couple of days time - any tips, advice, comments, bars, restaurants, accomodation, - anything would be appreciated!! Cheers, Gareth & Melissa :-)
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Roma
non-member comment
Hi
Hi Gareth, I'm happy you are enjoying your holidays! I have just returned from mines so I haven't been able to go through all your experiences. I was now reading your days in Saigon. We only stayed in Hanoi and we went to Halong Bay. That was probably enough for me, considering I'm pregnant. It was not easy for us finding somewhere safe to eat, but we managed quite well. The horns, motorbikes and the people eating in the pavement was pretty amazing. I can see you are experiencing the same in Saigon. Not sure if you have already visited Hanoi. The poppet theatre is not bad. Happy to hear you are enjoying your holidays! Roma