Some say Ho Chi Minh City, some say Saigon. I say Oobiliboo, just to be safe.

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Saigon was one of the places we had heard most about from other people before we got there. We had been told that it was manic, modern, wonderful, awful, fun, noisy, smelly and dozens of other adjectives by other travellers we had met along our travels and were excited to find out for ourselves which ones we agreed with. It was also one of the most historically interesting cities on our route with its importance in The American War, as the locals call it. We were also unsure about what to call the city when we got there. It was originally called Saigon, and was the capital of Vietnam, but when the war ended in 1975 and the communist north defeated the US-backed South Vietnamese forces the city was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in honour of the former communist leader and the capital was moved to Hanoi. In Hanoi we had talked about going to visit Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC for short) but when we got to the south, where the people had been against the communist takeover we had wondered if it would be frowned upon to use the new name. The advice we had been given was to call it HCMC when in Hanoi and Saigon when actually there.

Our airfare, booked through Jetstar, cost us the extortionate sounding 1.1 million dong. Not so bad when you realise its only 35 pounds though. We arrived at Ho Chi Minh airport and collected our bags before heading out the front to try and arrange a taxi to the backpacker area. We found a guy at a taxi office so I thought I'd try out my Vietnamese. I walked up and said "Hello, how much is a taxi to Pham Ngu Lao?" in what I assumed would be fairly rubbish Vietnamese but to my surprise he then answered back in Vietnamese, not just with the price which I could have understood, but with a long and rambling tale that was probably his life story and how it had led him to be working in the taxi office which he didn't really enjoy and how his wife had left him and he only had his dog for company. Which he'd eaten. I panicked and sheepishly asked if he spoke English to which he looked rather disappointed and mumbled that a taxi would be twelve dollars. We jumped in and watched out the window as we drove through the city. Although it was utterly bonkers compared to any Western city the traffic didn't actually seem as crazy as that of Hanoi. The roads are wider meaning that there are more cars and motorbikes on the road with you at any one time but somehow that seemed calmer than the windy streets of Hanoi where you never knew when a moto would come careening around the corner. One interesting statistic that we learnt was that there are over 4 million motorbikes in a city with only 9 million people, earning Saigon the title of Motorbike Capital of the World. We also found out that xe ôm, the Vietnamese name for the motorbike taxis that you get offered every 30 seconds in Vietnam if you have white skin, translates as "motorbike hug" because you literally hug the driver to stay on the machine.

We booked into a hotel and then had a late lunch at an excellent Indian restaurant on Bui Vien called Royal India that served some of the best curry I've ever had. As a curry conessior that is high praise indeed. After eating we wandered around the surronding streets taking in the frenetic atmosphere and picking up some travel agent leaflets that we perused in a cafe over some fresh fruit shakes. That night Amy was feeling a little dodgy (6 months in SE Asia and we're still not immune stomach upsets - I refuse to believe it was our heavenly curry) so she stayed in the hotel while I went out blogging and booked a tour for the next morning. Later that evening, on the way back to the hotel I stopped at a cafe to pick up some beef pho and brought it back to a very grateful and recovering Amy.

During the war the communist forces dug an immense network of tunnels across the country to act as hiding spots and bases from which to launch assaults close to enemy lines. The tunnels also served as communication and supply routes, storage areas for food and weapons and sometimes living quarters. The largest network of these tunnels are found in the outskirts of Saigon, in an area called Củ Chi. On our second day in Saigon we joined a tour to see the tunnels and travelled a couple of hours in a bus to the forested site. When we arrived we were ushered into a room to watch a very uninformative black and white video which held even less balanced or useful information than the Hanoi Hilton Prison. Afterwards we were led by our guide to a clearing in the woods where he challenged us to find the entrance to the tunnels. We couldn't so he carefully brushed away some leaves from the ground beneath our feet to reveal a tiny hatch that must have been only just big enough for a person. A Vietnamese guy working at the tunnels jumped down to show us how little room there really was, even for a small person. We were told that we weren't allowed to enter the tunnels at this point because our big flabby western bodies would get stuck. Or words to that extent.

First we walked through the grounds and the guide showed us some of the ingenious but incredibly cruel booby traps that were used to ward off any intruders. They were primitive and generally consisted of a trap door built into the ground that would be covered by leaves and open up when a soldier trod on it, dropping them to the spikes, snakes or explosives below. We were also told that the tunnels were deliberatley build very small to minimise the risk of collapse and shown some of the ways that the tunnels were kept livable, including how smoke from cooking was cleverly extracted over several release holes so as not to show one large plume of smoke.

Finally we arrived at the tunnel that tourists are allowed to crawl through. Our guide warned us that, even though the tunnel had been widened for us fatties, it was still incredibly narrow and that we may get claustrophobic. I decided to go for it while Amy stood above ground with another one of her "Don't men do strange thing for fun" faces. The guide said that the tunnel stretched for about 100 metres and got progressively smaller towards the end. If we wanted to get out there were exits around every 10 metres and the best thing to do would be to go forwards to the next exit rather than back. I descended the three steps in the earth to the entrance of the tunnel and crawled in. At first the tunnel was larger than I thought it would be an I was able to half crouch, half walk along but after I passed about five exits and was halfway through it suddenly got quite a bit smaller. By this point most of the other people who had chosen to go through the tunnel had left and there were only a few distant voices ahead and a couple behind. There was occasional dim lighting but for the most part the tunnels were pitch black. After a while I came across a hole in the floor that I had to drop down into to follow the tunnel along another level before climbing back up to the higher level only a few metres later. This was incredibly difficult in the dark, with no footholds and in a tunnel that by this point was no wider than my shoulders and no higher than my crouched body. By the time I had reached the exit I was drenched in sweat (it was around 30 degrees above ground and significantly more below) and exhausted. I have no idea how the soldiers lived in those tunnels, some for months at a time.

Next we were shown to a rifle range where we had the option to fire various guns that had been leftover from the war. I decided to buy 10 bullets for an M60 machine gun, purely because it was the biggest thing they had to offer. I rattled off my 10 shots and then we walked through the souveneir shop before boarding the bus back to the centre of Saigon. Along the way we were taken to a handicrafts centre that employs people who were left handicapped by the war or the poisoned earth the agent orange bombs left behind. Walking through the workshop where the disabled people worked did feel a little bit like a human zoo but if it helps raise awareness and brings in extra money I suppose its probably a good thing. The items being made were of an excellent quality and we really wanted to buy some of the plates and bowls but they were actually quite expensive. We settled for taking a card and potentially buying some online when we get back to the UK and actually have some cash!

That afternoon we had booked onto a tour of the city but on the way back from the handicrafts centre the heavens opened and enormous sheets of rain pummeled Saigon. When we arrived back at town we decided against taking the second half of the tour and instead sheltered in a cafe until the rain subsided.

The next day we tried to make up for missing the city tour by going to see some of the sights on our own. First off, we walked to The Reunification Palace where the famous picture was taken of a north Vietnamese tank crashing the gate on April 30th 1975 to end the war and and complete The Fall of Saigon. Prior to that point the Palace had served as the presidential residence and the building, with the exception of a repaired gate, has been left more or less as it was found on that day. It was a sight that we were both looking forward to, something that is part of an iconic image and important recent history. However, we were left distinctly underwhelmed. The palace itself is a fairly ugly building, albeit with a attractive grounds, and inside the Palace is essentially a collection of grand rooms with 1970s furnishings. The only information contained in each room is a small label detailing its former use and occasionally a label identifying a painting on the wall. We looked around for a while and were quite interested by the helicopter that is still on the landing pad on the roof before leaving and walking to our next landmark, The Notre-Dame Cathedral of Saigon. If that sounds a strange sentance, the sight is no less odd. Towering above the distinctly Asian surroundings is the large and elegant building that does look like it has come straight from France. It was built in the late 1800s for the French colonialists and has stood ever since, surviving the war with minimal damage. We stood in the gardens outside looking up for a few minutes before walking back to our hotel through what must have been the Saigon equivalent of Bond Street. The streets were lined with expensive hotels, designer shops and snooty looking shops. As we have learnt on our travels in SE Asia, in poor countries such as Cambodia, Laos and to a lesser extent Vietnam, not everybody is poor and the rich are very rich.

That evening we decided to eat some street food and walked down our road, Bui Vien looking at all of the tasty looking stalls that had been set up. We decided on one that had an older guy barbequing some pork on the pavement and two ladies serving up a variety of dishes. We settled for some of the marinated pork, some fried rice, dried sausages, vegetables and the obligatory sweet vinegar with chilli that we've come across a lot in Vietnam. The dinner was absolutely incredible and one of the nicest we have eaten in SE Asia. So much for posh restaurants, streetside dining on plastic chairs is the way to go.

The following day we went to The War Remnants Musuem. We didn't hold out high hopes for it after our visit to The Hanoi Hilton was so disappointing but when we got there we were surprised at how informative and relatively balanced it was. There were some tanks and planes outside that were interesting and we both said that Dad/Steve should have been there! Inside we learned some of the facts and figures, and, although there was still a fair degree of flag-waving it was at least bearable and, in places, understandable. That evening, having read about the horrors of napalm and agent orange, we decided to visit Sozo, a cafe that was set up to help disabled people find work and training. Most of the staff were disabled in some way but now have stable jobs and good catering backgrounds thanks to the cafe.

The next couple of days we spent just relaxing and soaking up Saigon's very welcoming atmosphere and eating some great food. We found the locals far friendlier than in Hanoi and our attempts at Vietnamese were met with grateful and often over-enthusiastic praise. We quickly developed a real affection for the city, despite the fact that it rains a lot more than in the rest of Vietnam and is more manic than Camden Market on a busy day.

Near the end of our stay in Saigon we decided to go to the post office to send some stuff back home. The post office itself is actually listed in The Lonely Planet as a tourist attraction because it is set in a grand attractive building. It is next to the Notre-Dame Cathedral which is not far from our hotel but we decided we couldn't be bothered to walk so got in a pair of cyclos and headed over, enjoying the slightly daredevil feel of being in a tiny aluminium cart attached to a bike on some of the craziest roads in the world. The building was actually quite grand but the thing that struck us most was the bureaucracy involved in sending a couple of packages home. Our passports were checked, we had to fill in forms in triplicate and every single item had to be catalogued and then the bags were rifled through by the assistant to check we hadn't added anything that wasn't listed. Finally, after nearly an hour messing about our packages were stamped (the guy still eyeing us suspiciously) and we paid before walking back to the hotel.

That night we went to the Saigon night market. It was, as expected, fairly hectic and we were fought over by a lot of food sellers before we chose one who was grilling various meats by the side of the road. We had dinner and a few Beer Saigons (one of the best beers in SE Asia, along with Beer Lao) before browsing the clothes and souveneir stalls. I bought myself a Vietnamese national football top which is pretty cool and managed to haggle the lady down from nearly 700,000 dong (about 25 pounds) to 100,000 (about 3 pound 50). She had started off saying that it was authentic addidas but when I said I wouldn't pay that much for it she quickly changed her tune and said I could have it for less because it was actually a fake!

We spent six days in Saigon and by the end, we didn't want to leave. It is definitely one of our favourite cities and somewhere we would love to come back to at some point. However, we were also really looking forward to our next destination, Nha Trang...

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Comments

[Dad and Kathy]

Hello Hippies.
Well I am impressed, Lee talking in Vietnamese about Dong. Why would you climb through that tunnel? That would have troubled me somewhat, methinks I would have stayed in the sun with Amy. As usual guys fantastic stuff, you could write a great book when you get back. Missing you both XX Has Lee got a new hat?