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Published: August 11th 2008
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SAIGON & MEKONG DELTA
The word 'Busy' is an under statement to describe this city!!!! Trillions of bikes, cars, buses, Quadillions of people!!!...... I love the name 'SAIGON' though, has a important historical ring to it.!
End of the day a city is still a city (busy and chaotic) so the point of filing through here was to vist the sites surrounding Saigon, in fact most of the history of the 1960-70's war lies here, again numerous agencies advertise crappy tours to these sites that include all kinds of rubbish - as you know, not our thing so the only other option really was to hire a scooter and do them all ourselves. Hmmmmmmmm before arriving here people warned us how dangerous & difficult it is to navagate the city on a scooter (car out the question as the roads are jammed packed). Yeeeee haaaaaa our kind of challange!!!!........So got the bike and off we went, near misses (loads of others crashing) sorry mum yes it was dangerous but we're getting kind of addicted to danger and adventure!!!
So the main attraction was the Chu Chi tunnels.........History lesson now.The Chu Chi tunnels are around 200km of underground tunnels
built from 1945ish to 1965ish they sit between 3 and 9 meters undergound. When the Americans attacked during the Vietnam war the Viet Cong used these as their underground fortress, it's like an underground city with Hospitals, kitchens, armories etc so we spent the day exploring. Very hot & very claustrophobic.!
Nic - There are 2 amazing things about these tunnels; The first is that no-one ever made any plans for them and there are no maps so they remain a piece of safeground in case of any future clashes. The other thing is that the small amount of tunnel that we visited has actually been enlarged by approx 3 times in order for foreigners to fit in....you can see by the photos how small they are even now, so it's crazy to imagine how tight the rest of this network is!
Really enjoyed being free on the scooter again, to visit wherever we wanted....just a small piece of advice, which I wish I was told.....get off on the left as burning flesh doesnt smell very nice and whole in the leg certainly doesn't look to pretty either....damn exhaust!
Dan - Up next was the War remnants
Museum.............Oh my god!!! it's has pictures of the war and they are not pretty, the museum tells the whole story ...The tourture inflicted by the American's on the people and the facts about the chemicals that were used . This includes photos of tourtured victims, chemical victims etc........Nevertheless the Vietnamese were by no means the innocent party and were partly responsible for thier own atrocities.
Mekong Delta..........When I first heard about this area I imagine floating down rivers full of wooden huts, Mangroves, fishermen........So when we arrived in Can Tho to a small city and hardly any idealic sceanery we were a little disappointed.!! Don't worry we thought we still have the floating markets to visit dont we????????? again the same rubbish tours were on offer.!!! the market was like 6km out of town so when we were told a boat tour would be $30 and a scooter was not possible (still not sure why!) we decided that we could hire a pedal bike between the 2 of us for a doller and I could backie Nic the whole way.....6km is nothing really.! Fastforwrd to 6.00am this morning me riding, Nic sat on the shopping rack burning down the
main road in Can Tho......This is why we are so original because this is unheard of......Two westeners on an old female bike with a shopping rack and front basket riding down the road at 6.00am, we sure did get a lot of strangre looks!!!! usually travellers take a tour or hire a really expensive boat.!!
Hmmmmmm unfortunatly the bit*h who we hired the piece of sh*t bike from failed to tell us that the back wheel was buckled and the spokes broken (our fault for not checking it over first, but we're not too bright that early in the morning!) so the weight of us both on it caused the back wheel to kind of collapse!!!!! approx 4km from our area.!!! Game over ..I had to drag yes drag the bike all the way back.!!...to which we got even more odd stares!!
As my mate Rob once said "A bike is great until it screws up and then you're buggered - you have to push it all the way home" so no market for us........!!! Prob would have been rubbish anyway.!
Right then we've decided to cut Vietnam sort by a couple of days and make the
Our guide through the tunnels.....
Essential to stop you getting lost!!! it's a maze down there crossing into Cambodia, were quite excited and nervous about this as crossing International borders can be tricky.......still it's an adventure. This took us to Chau Doc the last point in Vietnam before you reach the border. Our boat leaves in the morning which takes us to the border, from there we change to another which takes us into Cambodia somewhere! then hopefully we can get a bus to Phnom Penh. Mum if you don't hear from us for a while dont panic!!
Oh I almost forgot...........It was Nic this morning that turned into the hulk and got us out of another scam.!! let me explain....... Upon arriving at Can Tho bus station this morning we were approached by many bus drivers asking our destination and giving us prices. " TO Chau Doc you pay me 50,000 Dong" my arse i'll pay you that, so went over to te counter and found out the price should be 32,000 dong!! (which incidently there was none left for us foreigners) Anyway a bit of bartering later two tickets to Chau Doc miraculously appeard. Nic handed over 1 x 100,000 Dong note so when the lady gave her back only 4,000 this was
a problem.........So picture the scene........I'm on the bus with the bags wedged under the seats, the driver is pulling away, and Nic is arguing with the lady for the correct change but the lady tried to say the amount shown on the window was wrong and there was no change!! So Nic shouts to me to get off and get the bags off, i'm shouting to the driver to stop, (at the same time as trying to free the bags which are stuck fast) Nic has hold of the bus and the ladies arm, trying to get our money back and the lady is screaming in Vietnamese. The police come over and the lady shouts to him, Nic shouts too and he shouts back (as a fight was about to break out i'm sure) then Nic just went Ape sh*t screaming "GIVE ME MY MONEY" and "DAN GET OFF THE BUS"....we created such a scene that they backed down and gave us every penny of change!!!!! Bosh jumped back on the bus and off we went.!!! Nic & Dan......2 Vietnam 1...!!! Advice to other travellers don't take their sh*t take a deep breath smile (if you can) and stand your
ground!!!
Nic - Thankfully we made it here in one piece without further incident...I think we shocked them by not backing down even when the cops were there!!
So to round up Vietnam.......Ha ha, where do we start??!!! I think if we'd have come here on a holiday, and were happy with taking tours and being told when to have lunch and when to get the bus and where to go next etc etc, then we'd have had a lot less hassle and stress with dealing with these people in the "service industry". Also if we'd come here with a large budget and not thought about every dong we were spending (or actually every dong we were being ripped off by) then we also would have had a stress free time. However, this doesn't sit right with us, and out of principle we dont like to be taken advantage of, or told what to do when and where - after all this is our advevnture!
Dan - For the Tourist, It all ends when the tour ends......... BUT for the Backpacker it all ends when the bloody money runs out.!!! remember this my fellow backpackers and this
will be when your trip or tour turns into an ADVENTURE.........!!!!!!
Us
XXXX
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Dad Walton
non-member comment
What happened to "Be bold, be bold, but not too bold"?
Listen up people, we don't wan't you ending up as fish bait, believe it or not we worry about you out there in that bad old world. Don't take any more risks. That old gal who tried to rip you off could have had a badass old man, with a bloody great big machete up his sleeve, and a few friends. Be cool, be careful. You're in their country. Remember, they think you're wealthy. By the way, thanks for that parcel of meat you sent us last week from Thailand, it was the dog's bol***ks. Excellent, we really enjoyed it! Love as always, from the wise old man