Ho Chi Minh City and Mekong Delta

---

Ho Chi Minh City and Mekong Delta

30th April - 6th May

Traveled to Vietnam from Phnom Penh for 6 hours by bus, we arrived in Pham Ngu Lao (main backpackers area) and found a hotel. That evening we went to the Go2 bar for a few Saigon beers and food. HCMC (Saigon) is a great party town with loads of good places to eat and drink, there is a mixture of local street bars, which consist of just a few plastic chairs and tables and much classier establishments, also loads of great food.

The next day after Pho Bo (beef noodle soup) for breakfast we took a walk to the war rememberants museum, crossing the road in HCMC is always good fun, with a city of about 8 million people there’s at least 6 million motorbikes and most of them appear to be on the roads at all times. The best way to cross the road is to just walk slowly without looking and the bikes will avoid you.

The war rememberants museum is dedicated to documentation of the Vietnam and American war. The former name was the Museum of American War Crimes, so basically is a one sided view of the destruction and tragedy the Americans caused throughout the years of war. Horrific photographs and stories show evidence of a “take no prisoner’s campaign”, using napalm and chemical weapons such as Agent Orange and the victims of such methods. Most of the experience is very anti-American which seemed to upset a few US tourists. We visited many other sites in the city including the Ho Chi Minh City Museum, Tourist Market, Independence palace, Cathedral, Post Office and Botanical Gardens.

The following day we took a trip out to the Cu Chi tunnels which is where the Viet Cong (VC or Victor & Charlie) fought the American from underground tunnels within the war. You can see various fox holes and spider holes where the soldiers would enter the 2km tunnel system, various man traps were displayed made with bamboo spikes in order to capture and injure the enemy. One of the tunnels has now been enlarged so that fat westerners can experience the life of the tunnel rat. Even though the tunnels have been enlarged it’s still very dark, hot and claustrophobic and involves crawling on your bum to fit through.

The next 3 days we took a tour of the Mekong delta, the first town we arrived in was called My Tho, here we took a small boat to Unicorn island to visit a coconut candy workshop and honey bee farm where we where given time to sample local banana wine and fruits. From here we boarded a small boat to travel through the smaller canals crashing into coconut trees on the way. We spent to evening in Can Tho which is a lively Mekong town full of French people and good food.

The next morning was a 6.30am start to visit Cai Rang floating market which is the busiest Market on the Mekong, wasn’t so sure what to expect but the consists of 300 small boats all selling pretty much the same 10 fruits, for example dragon fruit, jack fruit pineapple etc. We traveled back to HCMC the evening to get the night sleeper bus for hours to 12 Nha Trang.

---

Comments

[JOHN]

VIETNAM
GOOD "TRAVEL REPORT" AGAIN. IT WAS GREAT TO TALK T0 YOU YESTERDAY. HAVE A GREAT TIME IN THE MOUNTAINS AND TAKE CARE. LOVE TO YOU BOTH - MUM N DAD

[Alison]

High Fashion
I hope you bought one of those hats to wear on Morley high street - it would look great with a limp round mozzers!