Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City)

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Local Colour & a Great History

Quiet breathing all around me, faces concentrated and involved on a level I’ve never seen before, eyes on the verge tears signaled by strong and uncontrolled emotion at the historic sights held within the Saigon War Remnants Museum……….

This was the sight of people all around me, and as I viewed the photos in the museum myself I couldn’t help but wonder if many others shared the same uneasy feeling from there stomachs up to their chests. The museum here in Saigon was very different than the northern Hanoi museum, and the pictures were extremely graphic. They depicted war crimes such as; Agent Orange chemical birth defects, horrific Napalm burns, and Children who would not get a chance to grow past puberty. The pictures also captured the results of warfare and were in comparison just as gruesome as the ones labeled war crimes. One picture sticks in my mind particularly; a US soldier holds up the remnants of a fellow comrade at the result of a landmine. I didn’t use my camera inside the museum once.

I spent the morning driving out of the city to have a look at the Cu Chi tunnels. During the war the Cu Chi villagers/soldiers were forced to move underground to avoid air strikes. They dug around 258 km of underground tunnel in total with some of the deepest parts reaching depths of 8m (25ft+ or about two stories). The tunnels were used to steal US supplies while they were sleeping, move undetected from location to location, have meetings, avoid air attacks, and as sleeping quarters. The sound of gunfire echoed off the trees from the shooting range as you were shown Trap holes, bunkers and tunnel entrances. This added to the intensity of the emotional Vietnamese tour guides words. The tour arrived at the shooting range and I had my go at 10 shots of an M-16, which was about the fastest I have ever spent 15 US dollars in my life. After everyone who wanted to shoot was finished we continued on to the tunnels and my ears didn’t stop ringing until we arrived there. Upon arrival at the tunnel entrance the tour guide gave us a brief breakdown of what to expect and I think he said “there are no lights, the tunnel is 180 meters long, it will drop down to 3 meters underground and proceed for about 80 meters, if you feel sick at this time do not panic, you can’t go backwards so keep going down to 5 meters and proceed for another 20 meters where you will find an exit on the right, the rest of you who wish to continue, keep going another 50 meters and the tunnel will briefly narrow before dropping down to 8 meters, once again don’t panic and you can’t go backwards, You will proceed at this depth for another 30 meters and then you will start to ascend through the tunnel”. After he had said these words, I ran for the front of the line worried that I might have someone panic in front of me and try and turn around. I ended up the fifth person to go in and no one else out of a group of 25 actually had the nerve to go through the tunnels which by the way was the whole point of visiting the site. It was dark down there, and in the middle of the tunnel you couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by a feeling of claustrophobia as the air suddenly became so thick that it seemed unbreathable. While I was down their I couldn’t help but thinking of the soldiers who would sometimes walk like this for 5 hours at a time carrying provisions and guns, all the while on a diet of mainly rice. Lets just say when we got to the other side everyone had the same smile on their face as they saw daylight.
See you all very soon

Cor

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Photos

Cu Chi tunnels
one tight fit into a tunnel entrance

Moving Lumber
the traffic was bad enough, now add these guys to the mix and it is like a joisting match

Traffic jam, get that lumber out of the way
This was a common site, people dropping bags, baskets of tomatos, and other materials because believe it or not they tried to load their scooters like the back of a pickup truck

The police were pulling people over who didnt' have helmets
not sure what constitutes a helmet, because they didn't pull people over who were wearing rice hats, and they let this guy go buy wearing a hard hat that wouldn't pass saftey standards on a job site, let alone be safe enough to protect your melon

is that his mom on the back
imagine that moms all over the world.

Tiger Trap
used for to trap dogs, that the US sicked on the Viet minh

me asking if they had earplugs and the guy laughing
damn guns are loud

Comments

[andrew]

What up buddy. I guess your vacation is over i hope saved enough money to pay me rent when you arrive here, if not, i've seen a few adds in the paper for room mate wanted for about $1000 a month, sure hope you have money. With your skills and training i can probably put you to work for $15/hr being me and Karrahs servent. lol. I'm just jokin Corey I'll pay you $20/hr. By the way I changed the locks your computer is in the shed.