Wish I had longer in Vietnam

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The Lonely Planet describes Saigon as 'a thousand motor-biking bandana bedecked bandits in a giant traffic accident waiting to happen' and I can't sum it up any better than that.

Crossing the road is an adrenaline sport, which I'm sure I could market in an extreme sports pumped up place like New Zealand. The staying alive strategy goes something like this: say small prayer, slowly step out into oncoming traffic, don't walk too quickly or slowly as this allows bikes to weave around you, don't make eye contact with drivers because then they have no obligation to avoid you, reach other side and marvel for 5 mins that you're intact!

I'm now into country number 6 of my trip and still loving every day. The best part is doing and seeing something different everyday. Yesterday, for example, I ate a fried scorpion (tastes like pork crackling), fired an AK47 and crawled through the Cu Chi tunnels of the Viet Cong.

The tunnels were used during the war and have now been widened for tourists. The original tunnels were made much smaller so that only the tiny Vietnamese frame could squeeze through. Inside they are uncomfortably dark, uncomfortably tiny and uncomfortably hot. For the few American soldiers who were sent in there, in pursuit of the Viet Con, I'd imagine it was the stuff of nightmares.

In the War Museum in Saigon there is a picture of one young American solider after he came out of the tunnels and his expression of wide-eyed claustrophobic terror tells a thousand words. The War Museum contains one of the best and most powerful photographic exhibitions I've ever seen. Much like Tuol Sleng in Cambodia it doesn't make a pretty picture. The American atrocities in Vietnam easily compare with the nasty work of the Khmer Rouge and the pictures of the Agent Orange (and other chemicals warfare) victims is particularly harrowing.

My last night in Saigon was sad - not only was the museum depressing but I had to leave all the great people I've met to travel on to Bali. I'm kick, kick, kicking myself for not scheduling more time in Vietnam, but I guess I can't do everything.

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Photos

No green man here
No green man here

AK girl
AK girl

Comments

[olly]

matching ear muffs!
matching ear muffs to go with your shirt! Nice touch! Is that your hair-band around the end of the barrel? Hope your having a good time.x