The Mekong Delta & HCMC

From Saigon one can take a trip into the Mekong Delta. We decided on a 2 day, 1 night trip. First stop: My Tho to see this beautiful pagoda.

Here, they have both male and female monks. It was so tranquil here I would have loved to have stayed for a while.

Even better, they had the biggest Buddha I have ever seen!

Shortly after, we got onboard a boat and headed off into the delta,

stopping on various islands, like this one that made coconut candy.

All made by hand.

Oh, and they also made rice wine.

Everything here is so 'set up' for tourist including the honey bees.....

............... and snake, which you can hold for a photo.

Back on another, smaller boat to another island.

Through the beautiful palms.

Not being a big boat person I was glad to get off.

This island was all about the fruit and local music, where we were entertained by our guide.

On arriving in Can Tho we realised we were the only ones who had opted for the stay in local bungalows. The only way to get here - by crazy scooter.
(I think I now know why 10,000 people got fined in Hanoi for not wearing helmets last month. It's because you look ridiculous in them! - K)

Crossing the road with my eyes closed.

Up a dirt track to...............

................... a very cute little bungalow.

The inside was basic but cosy.

The view from the balcony was lovely.

The family who owned the bungalows also cooked dinner. We were able to help by rolling the spring rolls.

The meal was incredible and we met some awesome people too.

Later on the Father brought out his rice whiskey! Oh Dear!
(This was pocheen brewed in some shed somwhere. Potent, rather rough, but with the same effects as its legally brewed cousin! - K)

We were also invited in to see his son being 'cupped' to draw out the illness (he had a cold).

Ony the brave ones tried it themselves!
(I looked up "Brave" in the Vietnamese dictionary. It said "Verb. Pronounced stoo-peed. Individual or group action or activity following consumption of rice wine" - K)

An early start the next day and a trip to the very local market, across a small river....

............ in an even smaller ferryboat!

The hub of all activity selling all the day's provisions.

The dress code in SE Asia for all women seems to be pj's. Some just look like them but I am sure some actually are pj's.

Everyone so happy and friendly.


Back to the Mekong and we got on a boat by a very dirty harbour.

Sailing up the river we were very soon in the middle of the famous floating market.

Where all life is lived on the back of a boat.

The fruit & veg etc were traded from the back of the boats.

Everywhere we looked, all we could see were boats full of produce.

It is always the little things that demonstrate the biggest differences in a place. The men, when hot, always tuck up their shirts like this. Everywhere you look sometimes all you can see are mens' bellies. It became a bit of a joke amongst some of us travellers.

Further up the river we went to see how rice noodles are made.

And to a fruit farm with a monkey bridge!
(Spot the monkey! - K)

My favorite - the mango!

Back in Saigon we met up again to go out in a bar called 'Go2', not cheap but it had a pool table.

The girls thrashed the boys! Yeah!
(Not sure that you can call it a thrashing when it went down to the black, and one game of doubles took almost an hour! - K)

We loved our stay in Saigon. It was so easy to be here and everything we needed was so close. The bars sell wine that is not too bad.

The local children provided enterainment.

I was even able to brush up on my sales technique by learning from these tiny local girls.

I think this says it all. Saigon was full of history and sat in a beautiful area but all in all it was pretty crazy!

Ho Chi Minh City & Cu-Chi Tunnels

We started out on a walking tour of HCMC. I had remembered how difficult it can be to cross the road here, but even I was shocked at the level of scooter traffic! Apparently 30 people are killed per day on Vietnam's roads. We were not here long before we saw our first accident. The essence of crossing the road successfully is to start walking very slowly across, do not wait for a gap (as there never is one), and the traffic will magically avoid you as long as you do not do anything unpredictable. These main attractions do have Tourist Security men dressed in green overalls to help us poor confused tourists cross the road. (They're like lolipop men dressed in Paramedic's uniforms. Probably two essential skills for such a job! - K)
Outside the Post Office in Ho Chi Minh (Saigon), Vietnam. Built when Vietnam was occupied by the French in the early 20th Century.

Inside the PO - The French sure know how to build beautiful buildings.

And they did not stop there - Notre-Dame in Vietnam! Amazingly all the building materials were imported from France.

Finally, the Opera House.

The Vietnam War is obviously the biggest, recent historic event here. A truely crazy war that lasted (in various forms) for nearly 30 years from 1946 to 1975. Essentially it was fought between the North Vietnam, supported by Communist China, and South Vietnam, supported initially by the French, but mainly by the American Government (who publicly came into it only in 1965). The US government said it was crucial to stop the spread of Communism across Asia and literally used any means possible, although it was really initially more to do with rich metals which the Frnech were trading with the US. It was actually started by North Vietnam and the French. North Vietnam wanted to put an end to French colonisation and the French wanted to retain their empire and the resourses Vietnam brought them. The US government decided to join in after the French ran out of funds and then commenced one of the most brutal, unpopular and unneccersary wars the world has ever seen. (Pic at War Reminance Museum).


This kind of sums it all up really. The museum showed just how incredibly horrific the US governments methods of warfare were. The US government commited many war crimes during this time and even went against international peace agreements. No one wanted them there, not even the American people who finally successfully protested for the American government to pull out of Vietnam in 1973. (You'd think we would have learned more from this?)
North Vietnam finally ended the war in 1975 by capturing Saigon but by then the communist support from China/Russia had more or less fizzled out.

Vietnam has great food but as a Shushi fan this little place was my favorite - just prefect to get over some of the horrid photos seen earlier.

I am not sure if it is just that the Vietnamease know how to have a good time or they have really bad taste or both but there idea of decorations are usually pretty odd. A bit like Blackpool on steroids.

The war left many people handicapped and struggling to survive. As a result, many organisations have been set up to help them, like this one where the folk make pictures and bowls and other crafts by inlaying egg shells or mother of pearl into wood and lacquring over it.

About 1 & 1/2 hours from HCMC are the Cu-Chi tunnels. The tunnels were a very important base for the North Vietnam (Viet Cong's) offensive against the US Army.

Kilometer after kilometer of tiny tunnels were build underground to hid the Viet Cong so they could plan and iniciate attacks right under the US Army's noses. One of the most brilliant aspects of them was that, since the Viet Cong were so much smaller than the US troops, the US troops were too big to follow them down the tunnels even if they had wanted to. Kenny kindly demonstrated the size of one of the entry/hiding holes.
(There were 200km of tunnel in the complex, containing whole villages, along with gas sealed doors to prevent chemical attacks. Cunning tactics indeed! - K)

The VC had limited weapon compared to the US so they adapted animal traps to catch them. Very horrid looking things that usually involved being impailed in some way. Due to their inginuety and stealth the VC managed a very successful counter attack on the US Army and were able to gather up many modern amunitions from it.

This museum describes how the VC lived out here for so long and so successfully. They managed a clean water supply, ate lots of tapioca and had a very good escape plan from both gas and capture. They even had ways of containing smoke from cooking fires so as not to give their positions away to US observer aircraft.

Of course the visit is not complete without a trip down a tunnel.

Much easier for me than Kenny!

You can go in quite a way if you wish. Me, being smaller, decided to follow the tunnel as far as I could go.

It became so tiny in places that even I was on my hands and knees! They tell you after, that they have had to make this 'tourist' tunnel bigger then they would origionally have been to fit our fat bellies.

The end to another very interesting day, but I am ready to explore something other than the grusome past of SE Asia now.

Let the next one be a 'Happy Tour'!