Good evening from Ho Chi Minh!
As I write I'm in a taxi on my way to meet up with the lads again after a great afternoon and early evening!
We arrived in Saigon at lunch time and after we had eaten and checked in we walked across the city to the War Museum. On the way I was amazed by the amount of people walking around looking at mobile phones! They were all playing Pokemon Go, the latest craze, and there were literally hundreds of people at one spot in a park!
The War Museum was as horrendous as it sounds. We spent around 3 hours reading a range of information and real life stories of the horrific things these people have been through! It really is heartbreaking to read the affect of the war and see images that should never even exist! The worst part for me was seeing the damage caused by Agent Orange, a chemical dropped to kill forests that has worked its way into the water systems and vegetation and now causes birth defects. I was most touched by the photographs of people the same age as me, born decades after the war but still affected! Throughout the whole museum I struggled to understand how the Americans managed to get away with such atrocities, including high profile figures I have heard of today! I hardly took any photos in the museum as it simply wasn't appropriate but I did take one of some stats I found unbelievable. "During the Vietnam War:
- 3 Million Vietnamese were killed (2 Million Civilians)
- 2 Million People were injured
- 300,000 people are missing
I also took a picture of a letter to President Obama from a 23 year old girl in Vietnam. In her letter she asks for US help to identify the areas in which Agent Orange was dropped. These areas are still largely unknown and consequently the people continue to suffer. How can this be possible!!?
So it is now Tuesday morning and I'm sat in a lovely little coffee shop enjoying a croissant for my breakfast.
After the museum yesterday afternoon I decided to treat myself to some theatre. It wasn't planned and I simply stumbled across a stall selling tickets for the AO Show, a show sharing Vietnamese culture through dance, music and acrobatics.
Going to the theatre when travelling is something I really enjoy doing and it seems to always be relatively cheap. I like watching the performers from other cultures and learning about the place through the show too, something I was also able to do in Kuala Lumpur.
The show was brilliant and was just what I needed before joining the lads for pizza and then beers as usual. Martin and I then joined the hostel bar crawl and after feeling awful for around a week I was actually up for a few drinks and a good time! The bars we went to weren't the best but I did find it hilarious that on 7 separate occasions throughout the night I was stopped and asked for a photo because I apparently look like Niall from One Direction! It actually got a little surreal and after a while it was Martin that wanted to head back to the hostel! Before I went to bed I was able to FaceTime Tara who was having a bridesmaid dress fitting! 11 days to go now!!
Today I woke up feeling good and decided that I would explore the city on foot before our Cu Chi Tunnels half day tour this afternoon. Leaving Martin in bed I walked across the city at around 9:30am to the Independence Palace and enjoyed observing many locals exercising on the public gym equipment in the parks on the way. It seems like a really good idea and the majority of the people using it are pensioners! In a stark contract people my age were all glued to their phones catching bloody Pokemon!
The Independence Palace, which I can see from my coffee shop window, has played a crucial part in the history of Vietnam. I walked around looking at images of the many important meetings and events that had taken place in the very rooms in which I was stood. I always find it hard to believe when looking at things like that but I guess times have changed from how they once were.
I'm going to finish my coffee here and then head to the Saigon Notre Dame Cathedral. Maybe I'll have a chat with the big guy and see how he is... It's been a while :)
Bye for now...
Tom x
Hello from Cambodia! Country number 37 for me, which now means I have visited 15% of all the countries in the world! :)
When I went to visit the big guy at the Cathedral yesterday I was really disappointed to find that he had shut up shop! I had, because of my coffee, missed the morning opening hours by half and hour so had to appreciate the beautiful red brick building from outside. Opposite the Cathedral was Central Saigon Post Office and I took time to send another postcard to my beautiful God Daughter Lara, carrying on something my own Fairy Godmother has always done! I just wish I had kept them all!! Sorry Elaine!
When I got back to the hostel I had a quick change before boarding the bus to the Cu Chi Tunnels with Martin and Scott. We had booked on the half day tour and didn't realise it was a good 2 hour drive away from Saigon! On the way the bus made a rest stop at a special workshop for people affected by the dreaded Agent Orange, previously written about above! The people working, creating beautiful pieces of art from duck eggs, paint and varnish, we're all disabled in some way. Many of them had visible disabilities beyond comprehension but it was good to see them being able to work, earn a living and be happy.
When we arrived at the tunnels we made our way around what is now a very touristy place. I found it difficult to imagine what it would have been like with people taking part in Guerrilla Warfare on the very land on which I was stood. The first sight we had of a tunnel was extremely well hidden, which I guess was the whole idea! The entrance was simply a rectangle whole in the ground around 30cm by 50cm, just big enough for me in to! After learning a little from our guide I lowered myself into the tunnel feet first, put my hands directly above my head to hold the lid and went down. It was extremely cramped inside, I couldn't move in any direction or even find the actual tunnel to crawl through once I had lowered myself down! I quickly pushed back up and climbed out! I have no idea how they did what I had just done whilst trying to fight etc!
We were then shown a demonstration of the traps that the Vietnamese used
to attack the U.S. Troops! These were very brutal and there is no doubt that they would do you a lot of harm, that's if they didn't kill you!
Our last activity before entering the tunnels was to fire a gun! I chose to shoot a M16, which to me was just a bloody big gun, and went down to the range with Scott and our instructor. We shot 5 bullets each and all missed the target! To be honest they were that fast that I couldn't even see where they went!!
It was then finally time to enter the actual tunnels, something was a very nervous about as they were a lot smaller than the previous ones in the north! The 3 of us managed to get ourselves right behind the guide and the rest of the tour group followed. As we lowered ourselves down into the tunnels for the 100m underground journey it was extremely hot and fresh air was sparse! We had to crouch in a kind of frog position and waddled our way through to the 20m point along thin and windy routes. This was the first 'escape point' but all 3 of us continued on!
It wasn't actually as bad as I thought it was going to be but looking back I think it was adrenaline that got me through! At the 40m point Martin called it a day as his knees were hurting from being in the 'frog' position.
Scott and I followed the guide to the 60m and here he told us that the next bit was extremely tight and that once we set off we had to go all the way to the end, another 40m.
At this point all I could think about was Tara! She had visited the tunnels before but didn't venture through them. She had said that she would be 'very impressed' if I made it through to the end so I was determined to do so! I took a deep breathe, turned onto my back and slid down the shoot on my bottom to the next level! It was a very tight fit but once down there it went back to how it had been before. It wasn't long then until we were climbing back up and the guide greeted us at the end with a "Well Done!"
I was really really chuffed that I had managed to make it to the end as beforehand I had convinced myself that it wasn't something I needed to do. I have no idea how anybody, not even the small locals, could begin to have lived down there! Never mind trying to fight a war from down there!!
After a while it was then time to return to Saigon! It was a long 2 hour bus journey back and the traffic on the way was simply horrendous! It was chocker block all the way and I was astonished by the sheer number of scooters and motorbikes on the road! It was a continuous sea of movement all the way back to the city and incredibly I didn't spot any accidents!
When we got back we were starving so after a much needed quick shower we went out for our final night in Vietnam!
As we were travelling today we decided that we didn't want to eat anything local for dinner in an attempt to avoid having the s***s on the bus! I'm pleased to report that this was a successful mission!
I had seen The Hard Rock Cafe on my morning walkabout so we decided to head there. We enjoyed a great meal and then the fun started! Just after we arrived the band started to play and they were bloody brilliant! They sang all songs that we knew and all songs that we could sing, so we did! It wasn't long before the two of us were up on the stage, yes the stage of The Hard Rock Cafe in Ho Chi Minh, singing Angels by Robbie Williams! Another English girl in the audience filmed us and actually it didn't sound that bad! Yet again as I sat down the lead singer from the band thanked us and said that I was Niall from One Direction!!
We enjoyed listening to the rest of the first set and as the bar got busier we were really chuffed with our last night out! When the band took a break the lead singer came over to talk to us and she managed to persuade us to do another song. We decided on our mash up of Stand By Me and Beautiful Girls which had gone down well in Phong Nha. We were up there again in no time and the crowd loved our different version of both songs!
After enjoying a few more songs by the band we decided to pay and head home. This morning we had to get up at 6:00am to get the bus out of Vietnam and into Cambodia, country 37!
The journey has so far been very easy and the border process was pretty simple too! At our last stop I changed $100USD into Cambodian money and now my wallet won't shut as one $100 note exchanged into 45 Cambodian notes, crazy!!
So as we drive along a very straight road towards Phnom Penh I'm going to sign off. Out of the window I can see clear blue skies, local villagers sat by shops and fields as far as the eye can see. I'm looking forward to a week in Cambodia and it's now only 10 days until I get to see my gorgeous girl!
Goodbye for now!!
Tom x