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Published: November 17th 2010
We were relaxing in a café drinking 2 ice cold beers when we heard a Kylie song. This reminded me of our time in Hue (pronounced Hway) which is where we flew to after leaving Hanoi. We were eating our breakfast on our first morning in Hue when we heard Kylie’s “The Locomotion”. It was pleasant if not a little outdated but we both sang along happily, that was until the song finished and the next one began. It was definitely familiar yet strangely new sounding. It took a while but I eventually recognised the song:
“Like a surgeon, hey
Cuttin' for the very first time
Like a surrrrrrrgeon
Got your kidneys on my mind
Like a surgeon, ooh like a surgeon
When I reach inside
With my scalpel, and my forceps, and retractors
Oh oh, oh oh, woe, oh”
Have you guessed it yet? Madonna? Like a Virgin!
Well here’s the link to the lyrics if you’re interested.
http://www.elyrics.net/read/w/weird-al-yankovic-lyrics/like-a-surgeon-lyrics.html
The guide books don’t write too kindly about Hue but we both enjoyed our limited stay of 2 nights and 1 day. We walked around the old Citadel which had 3 city walls in total and went
into the old palace area which was crumbling and ancient looking but unfortunately parts of it were being spruced up which took away the authenticity of the buildings. There are also tombs in Hue but they were outside of the city and this meant going on a tour which we didn’t want to do and neither did we have the time to do it. We left Hue on a bus to Hoi an. It was painless and we got to drive though the countryside and see the green and less touristy side to Vietnam.
Hoi an was fantastic. The town was set on the river bank and was full to the brim with tailor shops and shoe shops. You can get anything you could ever dream of made here. You could take in clothes for them to copy or give them a picture. They had next catalogues for you to look at designs we basically spent the whole 5 days doing exactly the same thing. Wake up rent a bike for 50p for the day cycle into the UNESCO world heritage town and have breakfast, cycle to a tailors shop, cycle for coffee, cycle for a fitting at a
tailors, cycle for lunch or dinner and so on. We had 2 different tailor shops on the go at the same time. The most expensive chain shop in town and a small but independent tailor. One did proper measuring, took photos and did 2 fittings, the other measured you, made the clothes and sent you on your way but was half of the price. We soon became addicted to getting clothes and so 1 top turned into 6 tops- each plus a couple of pairs of trousers and a skirt for my mum. Phew!!! The good thing is in the better tailor shop they keep your measurements for 3 years so you can phone up and they can make and deliver you more clothes once you are home.
Strolling around the local market looking at the handicrafts and tropical fruits on offer we were bombarded by local stall holders encouraging us to come to their stall. The grab you by the arm and try to guide you towards them. We were busy saying “no thanks” and “Just looking” when a lady asked us if we wanted a manicure or pedicure we gave our usual reply but had a joke
and a chat with this lady who then said: “Lady I make your skin soft?” So before we knew it we were following her to a stall and she was showing us how she removes dead and hard skin from feet. Wearing sandals for months on end does leave you with hard skin on your feet so I was a little interested. The lady was friendly and always laughing and so I agreed to have it removed. She got a clean blade out of a packet soaked my feet in a bucket of water and then focused on Jacks.
Stall owner:“I remove your hair Lady? You very soft then?”
Jacks: “No thanks”
Me: “Yeah you should Jacks. How do you do it?”
The lady got out 2 pieces of cotton coated Jacks face in powder and said:
“see very hairy” and I of course agreed. A little more encouragement from me and the stall holder and her friends and Jacks was soon being de-haired sat on a small plastic stall in the middle of a market whilst I was laughing and taking photos. The 2 pieces of cotton are used like scissors across the face and they soon had tears
rolling down Jacks face and mine too but for entirely different reasons. She claims that ever since she has had it done it feels as if she has had Botox in her top lip. It was very red for a few days after and she has still not recovered entirely.
By this time my feet had been soaked and one woman held my leg up whilst the other shaved off hard skin with a clean blade. My treatment was not anywhere near as entertaining as Jacks was. I suspect it wasn’t the cleanest market in the world before we arrived but during our treatments both facial hair and foot skin could be seen blowing through the market and so now any thoughts of eating tropical fruits were long gone. Somewhere in amongst the treatments, the laughing the bartering and the chatting the stall holder decided to feel Jacks boobs. Not just once and through her t-shirt but 3 times and inside her bra.
“Oh big boobies - me small want big”
It was time to pay and leave.
From here we flew to Nha Trang which is Vietnam’s best beach area. Again we spent many lazy days
eating and lounging in the sun on the beach under coconut trees listening to the waves pound the shoreline. We became regulars at the Sailing club restaurant bar which served the most delicious food and our favourite lemon juice with ice and sugar which is really Lime juice. The beach came alive every night with locals eating, playing and chatting and it was a favourite place for teenagers to come with their boyfriends and sit on their mopeds together looking out to sea. All sounds very nice but for the huge rats we saw. In fact they only came out at night and appeared to do a good job at clearing up after the people. We saw a few each night but never in the day. Our first few days the sea was wild and there were signs everywhere saying it was illegal to swim and very dangerous. One day we were sipping lemon juice in our fav place when a woman came running down saying that someone was drowning in the water. A commotion followed and then eventually 3 guys dragged a womam out of the water but even they had found it hard to fight the strong waves.
Apparently she had been walking on the beach and a wave swept her into the sea- she was fine though. A couple of days later the sea changed significantly and was bright blue, calm and warm and the signs came down and the people flocked in. The locals tended to go in fully clothed in jeans etc. There was a half marathon whilst we were there and we had every intention of watching it until we found out that it started at 6 am to avoid the heat so we avoided the marathon and woke for the heat instead. We had fantastic weather and so spent every day on the beach and really enjoyed our time there. We were preparing ourselves for our return to hectic and busy City life in HCMC.
“10 bullets please” asked Jacks. “Which gun?”replied the soldier. “AK47” responded Jacks.
It was just another normal day in Vietnam. In fact that’s not true it was another extraordinary day in an extraordinary country. After nearly 3 weeks of travel in Vietnam we had arrived in our final destination Ho Chi Minh City or Saigon as it is still affectionately called and we were on a
trip to the Cu Chi tunnels. The tunnels show the remarkable ingenuity and determination that the Vietnamese people had in their 100 year struggle against different invading countries. During the Vietnam war local villagers, guerrilla fighters and army members fought their war from underground because the Americans had carpet bombed the entire area in what is known as the “scorched earth” policy. This meant that a war above ground was certain to end in death for the Vietnamese and so they built a complex network of tunnels which are rumoured to have stretched as far as Cambodia. The tunnels included meeting rooms, kitchen’s, triage areas and so much more. They were built on 3 different levels and were only 80cm wide and 90cm tall. The 1st level was for fighting and escape and the 2nd level was for living, storing and cooking whilst the 3rd level was a trap and often led nowhere. The further down each tunnel you went the thinner and smaller it became.
We walked through an area full of trees in the dripping heat and stopped in a leafy opening where our guide cleared away some leaves on the ground to reveal a small- very small
- trap door which was the entrance to one of the tunnels. We tried to lower ourselves in but most of us couldn’t fit in fully. Down below, the tunnels are pitch black and are always built in zig zags so as to make it difficult to be shot at or even followed when in them. To avoid American aircraft above from detecting the smoke from the kitchens they built many small staggered compartments which the smoke travelled through and so when it eventually reached the surface it was nowhere near the actual tunnel or kitchen. They also made shoes which would leave a shoe print going in the opposite direction to that in which they were going so as to confuse the Americans.
In order for tourists to experience these tunnels they have widened them a little. They were zig- zagged and were 120 metres long with exits every 20 metres. We did 20 metres and it wasn’t comfortable we were squeezed in and bent over double. It was claustrophobic and unbelievably hot down there and it was hard to imagine what it must have been like during the heat of battle with weapons, injured people, complete darkness and
gunfire above. The conditions were very bad underground with scorpions and other such dangerous creatures lurking below. At night they followed the tunnel, which lead to the Saigon River so they could get some fresh air and wash without ever being seen. But the most amazing part of all of this was that the tunnels were right next door to the U.S Army’s 25th Infantry Division. As we walked through this area we were shown different barbaric traps involving trap floors, sharpened Bamboo and or crocodiles and what made it feel even more real was the firing of automatic rifles and other guns in the distance. It was hard to imagine the sheer terror some of the American and Australian soldiers must have felt in this hot and strange country where the people fought a war in ways so far removed from their own. And so it was that we stood on the firing range with ear phones on and a powerful AK47 in our hands. It was so loud that it really hurt your ears and I just couldn’t imagine what the sounds of war must be like. We tried to aim at the target way off in the
distance but couldn’t even see the bullet once we had pulled the trigger. It was an experience we just had to try.
We’ve had a really relaxed trip in Vietnam and we’ve not visited any museums or temples but once in Saigon we knew we had to visit the War remnants museum. It basically catalogues the events of the wars with both France and America in great, no holds barred detail. At times it left a really horrid feeling in the pit of my stomach and some pictures were just too terrible to look at. This was really the first war where media were involved in picturing and recording the action and so the pictures are harrowing to say the least. It is hard, when you look around and read the details, not to judge the soldiers and some of their awful actions but even harder to read about the American governments unethical and illegal tactics with which they fought this war without feeling a sense of dismay. The Vietnamese, however are a race of people who have faced 100 years of war and repeated attempts to invade them and yet they are still a happy, friendly and hardworking
people and although they will never let the memory of the war and their experiences die they are willing and able to move onwards and leave the past behind them without bitterness or self pity.
HCMC appears much more developed than anywhere else in Vietnam. It has modern shopping malls, coffee shops, fast food restaurants (it does not to have a MacDonald’s) and many people peddling their wares day and night. We even watched all of the famous Vietnamese being photographed on their way into a Gucci product launch. There is a huge indoor market and a night market too which are both directly outside of our hotel. The night market stall holders are fun and enjoy having a laugh. They are particularly interested in touching our arms. One girl was touching our arms and when we were chatting to her and she told us they touch our arms because they are so large she then said she wanted fat arms like ours. Hhmmn?? They are also more beggars here than in other parts of Vietnam mainly the old and disabled and there are many disabled people here including lots of amputees which we are guessing is either linked to
the war and or the unexploded ordinance bombs or UXO. They all leave when you say no thanks though and don’t hassle you in a bad way.
Vietnam has been a great place to visit and we would definitely recommend it and even come back again. Yes it’s hot, hectic, humid and very busy but it’s has character and spirit and friendly people.
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Paul J
non-member comment
Great blog
That was an excellent blog entry, one of the best ones yet- and it sounds like you are really getting into the trip now and enjoying yourself. More than can be said for the girl in the photo doing your feet, that looks like she found it a horrible job. You look pretty bored by it actually. Not heard that Weird Al song in years.