Same Same, But Different

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Arrived in Ho Chi Minh City and checked into Kim's Guesthouse. It was a bit more expensive than we had hoped at $9 for a triple room, but after walking round an Asian city for 1/2 an hour with a seriously heavy rucksack on your shoulders you're prepared to pay that little bit extra just to put your bag down!

First impressions of Ho Chi Minh City were that of the legendary saying in Asia - "Same same, but different". After spending too much time in Bangkok, and also passing through Phnom Penh we had kind of seen it all before. The only thing that I will mention is the amount of motorbikes on the streets. It's ridiculous. The only way to cross the road here, even on a pedestrian crossing, is to take a deep breath, take your life into your own hands and step out in front of them. The technique is to walk slowly and steadily and maintain eye contact with the oncoming traffic. If all goes according to plan they just flow around you. We have had a few near misses though!!!

The main reason for being here is to see the War Remnants Museum. The museum itself has been open since 1975 and shows numerous exhibits and artefacts on the effects war crimes committed by foreign forces on the Vietnamese people. During the Vietnam War, 3 million Vietnamese were killed (2 milion of these people were civilians), 2 million people were injured and 300,000 people are still missing. After studying the Vietnam war at school I was prepared before arriving (unlike S-21 in Cambodia), so it didn't have quite the same effect, but was still very harrowing. In the courtyard there are a number of U.S. tanks, aircraft and heavy artillery that were recovered. Inside were a number of exhibits showing the types of weapons used by the Americans. These included Nail bombs, Napalm and porobably the most horrendous of all, Agent Orange. Agent Orange is a toxic chemical that was either used in the form of a bomb, or literally sprayed over the jungle from planes. It destroyed over 2 million hectares of forest and countless people were affected. The chemical is known to cause cancer and various other diseases and disabilities. It was not just the short term effects however, once the chemicals got into the water supply and earth, future generations were also affected.

It just really highlights the "We came, we saw, we liberated (and left one fucking big mess in our wake)" attitude that the Americans took. The worrying thing is that I feel it may be happening all over again as we speak.

There was also a large exhibition of war photography from various different photographers, whether they were travelling with the American, North Vietnamese or South Vietnames forces, these pictures are upsetting, but truly amazing. I would definitely recommend anyone to visit for this exhibition alone as it really gives you quite a personal idea of what life was like for the soldiers.

There was also a recreation of the Tiger Cages. The Tiger cages were located on Con Dao Island and were created by the Saigon Regime. They were used by the Saigon Authorities to imprison 'stubborn' political prisoners. There would be up to 15 people in one cage, the prisoners were regularly beaten and tortured and fed very little amounting to malnutrition and general bad health. When you look in through the peep holes in the doors of these cages you see that they have positioned a waxwork of a prisoner on the bed which really does give you quite a shock and helps you to understand the dire living conditions these people had to endure.

We were also going to visit the tunnels here that were used by the Vietnamese during the war, but we heard that there are better examples up in Hoi An so we decided to get out of the city as quickly as possible in search of somewhere more quiet and book an open bus tour up the coast with 5 stops in total to the following: Mui Ne Beach, Dalat, Nha Trang, Hoi An, Hue and finally Hanoi.

Unfortunately our companions wanted to get straight to a beach therefore fastracked directly to Nha Trang meaning that we had to part company. It's been a pleasure chaps, had some great times. Enjoy Vietnam and Laos and we'll see you in the South of Thailand in September.

Oh and by the way - Paul, you smell!!!

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Comments

[Gareth Neville]

...step into my office would you
another quality read my boy. I've been thinking about this and I think when you get home you should put all of these blogs together into a travel guide/book. Now, as you know, I've been in the publishing business for sometime now so would be more than happy to help you out, not to mention my sales experience that I am sure would come in very helpful. I'm thinking 25%, quite competitive really!! :-) All's good back here, it's my last week at work after the weekend, then following the yellow brick road to make my fortune! Had a bit of a sesh on tuesday, Ellie, Duncan, Lucy, Knowlsey, Tank and Glen all came up to the hut for a few bottles, we all managed to keep our clothes on, unlike the weekend. had shane, lucy, sally and me back at mine doing tequila drinking games that left shane and I completely bare-bum naked! ..........am I turning into a naturist? Hope not!! Getting my tattoo soon, next weekend I think! Off to Latitude festival for the saturday, it's only up the road in Southwold (suffolk), looks pretty cool, it's all quite acoustic and chilled out, poetry in the woods and things like that. Anyway, think about the business plan, I could make you a very rich boy!! he he Miss you mate but glad your having such an awesome time. x

[mum]

LOVEYOULOVEYOULOVEYOUXXXXXXXXXXMUMMY

[Kayla]

Been there ... still there ... lovin it!
Haha, you haven't experienced anything until u live here. Take it from somebody who knows, just moved here last year and fell in love with the place, though happy to take vacations from time to time! Tell ur friends to visit, and that Vietnam is so totally misunderstood.