Southern Vietnam

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Jen: We travelled from Cambodia to Vietnam along the Mekong River, which took us two days. We travelled with another kiwi (Brent), a Brit (Sonya) and South African (Chris), all of whom we had met in Siem Reap. The boat took us along the river and down canals through to Chau Doc (the Vietnam border). Along the way there were many locals bathing in the river and they were all waving and saying hello to everyone on the boat. Next day we visited a fish farm, local village (where we saw a lady making silk scarves on a loom) and a little temple (after Angkor Wat we were not that excited about this one). Then it was the long bus ride to Saigon. Here we met a Canadian couple who we spent the evening with at one of the many Bia Hoi's in Saigon. $5US bought 16L of beer, cRaZy. We stayed at a fantastic guesthouse called Capital where the lady there looked after us and even let us hang out in her house while we waited for our taxi to the airport.

We spent a day looking around Saigon on the back of a motorbike and I was very glad I wasn’t driving because there is soooo much traffic on the road and all the drivers are crazy!! We visited the Army Museum, which included lots of big tanks, old helicopters, guns, bombs from the Vietnam war (a boys dream). The museum was pretty anti-American, but this was not overly surprising.

We visited Notre Dame, the mini-version of the one in Paris and the historic postoffice. The architecture throughout Saigon is very beautiful and comes from the French influence. We had a stroll along the riverside, which wasn’t quite like a stroll along Wellington waterfront as neon lights selling beer etc lined the foreshore, but there were some pretty restaurant boats. That night it was back to the Bia Hoi and this time we met up with the crazy Aussies, South Africans etc that we had met in Siem Reap- small tourist world!!

We visited the Cu Chi tunnels, which were very interesting. It was amazing to see the extensive tunnel system that was built; and how they managed to live in them for such a long time was incredible. Many of the tunnels have been made bigger for the tourist and we JUST fitted in those. There’s no way either of us would fit in one made for a Vietnamese!!

We decided to fly to Hanoi from Saigon, as we had limited time, so off to Northern Vietnam we headed…..

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Photos

Mekong Delta
Kids waving from the riverbank

Mekong Delta Kids
If you look closely you will see these kids are about to make dog stew

Bia Hoi
Our Canadian friends Jillian and Derek