So once again we cross another border and journey into another country. Our time in Cambodia has certainly been short but very sweet. We enjoyed the sights and sounds that the cities had to offer and apart from our uncomfortable entry into the country, things have gone without a hitch. The journey here was smooth and organised but we did get to see some strange sights along the way. Synonymous with life in rural areas of Cambodia we saw several bamboo carts being pulled by oxen, along the major road to the Vietnam border. However, they were so used to their journey that the people driving the oxen felt at liberty to just fall asleep in the heat of the midday sun. The oxen lumbered their way along, without any directions from their owners - not like falling asleep on the M25 we suppose, at least we didn't see any multiple oxen pile ups! Our bus was a fairly simple affair but once we saw the alternatives on the road, we were grateful for small mercies. Mini buses do a roaring trade with the locals, carrying upto 15 people in a vehicle meant to carry 10. The others were perched on the roof or the sides of the bus, wherever they could hang on, amongst the luggage and mopeds that were also strapped to the roof! Having a seat all to yourself suddenly seemed like a luxury. Even some of the normal cars took our breath away. Whilst waiting to board the ferry across the Mekong River we peered into one car to find 8 people inside - and the driver was sitting on someone elses knee! Now we are in Vietnam, which has a whole other reputation to offer. Ho Chi Minh is the major city of the south and probably the most commercial city in the country. It was previously known as Saigon but changed to HCMC after the city was taken by the North Vietnamese in 1975. Most of the locals still call it Saigon though. A mix of all the cultures that have had an influence on its development over the years it is a sprawling metropolis, though with a slightly less chaotic feeling than Bangkok. The roads however are another matter. If such a thing is possible, the roads are even more mad than Bangkok. There is absolutely no lane disclipline - or even such a thing as sticking to your own side of the road. The millions of mopeds are like a plague of locusts and just go wherever they want whether that be against the flow of traffic or on the pavement. Crossing the road is a life or death exercise. The trick seems to be to just start crossing and hope that everything misses you. As you would expect many of the things to see and do are focused around the Vietnam war. We have visited the War Remnants Museum which provides some of the story behind the events of the time, but it is so one-sided as to be useless as an education tool on the chronology of events and we found ourselves walking away with many simple questions that the exhibits failed to answer. There were literally thousands upon thousands of photographs, most of which depicted the scenes of battle and the before and after effects to the countryside of Vietnam. One strange sight in the museum was a couple of jars with deformed foetuses inside which were pickled, showing the effect of the chemical agents used in the war for deforestation. We're not talking embroyonic size here - they were full grown babies. Very gruesome. The museum also had a good stock of military hardware such as helicopters, planes and tanks. The Vietnam war had it's roots way back at the end of the Second World war. Before that, Vietnam was a French colony (as was Laos and Cambodia and the whole area was know as Indo-China). Japan took control of this whole area during the second world war and at the end of the war when Japan was defeated, British troops were given control of the south of Vietnam and the Chinese troops had control of the North of Vietnam in accordance with the peace treaty agreed in Potsdam. Britain gave back control to France very quickly but the 200,000 Chinese troops decided to stick around. Ho Chi Minh, the Vietnamese revolutionary leader disliked the Chinese even more than he disliked the French and so fought to get the Chinese removed in an uneasy alliance with France in return for France agreeing to loosening it's controls over Vietnam but still be a French protectorate. Once this was achieved, Ho Chi Minh turned against the French and formed a group to oust them althoether. Fighting with France continued until 1954 when the Geneva peace agreement divided the country into a North and South part along the 17th parallel. The north was communist controlled by Ho Chi Minh and nationwide elections were due to be held in 1956 but this never materialised. So begain further infighting with the north keen to take control of the south. America provided financial assistance to the south to stop the impending invasion but by 1964 became embroiled militarily and so began the Vietnam War which would last until 1975 although America would cease it's war efforts in 1973 when 'peace' was declared. So the next stop on our history tour was the Cu Chi tunnels about 35 miles north of Saigon. The area is close to the border with Cambodia and so the North Vietnamese communist Viet Cong (VC) would launch raids from North Vietnam, crossing into Cambodia and Laos and pop up just north of Saigon, where they built a network of tunnels over an area of about 160 square kilometres. In this way they would evade the US forces in the rest of south Vietnam. The supply route from the north to the guerillas when they were in the south was the famous Ho Chi Minh trail and this also took it's route into Laos and Cambodia and hence both of those countries were dragged into the war as the US needed to stop the supply and so bombed Laos and Cambodia. Some of the tunnels themselves are still intact and we were able to crawl through them. They are very small as most of the Vietnamese are the size of hobbits. Some of the more elaborate ones were upto 300m long and built over three floors, containing bunkers, kitchens, water wells and living quarters. Air vents are positioned and camoflaged every 100m of so but nonetheless it was extremely stuffy and hot. In fact, the tunnels were originally built in the war againt France between 1945 and 1954 and were only expanded by the VC during the Vietnam War. The tunnels and the areas around them were covered with some gruesome traps including bamboo pits which soldiers would fall into and become impailed. Most of the tunnels were destroyed in the 1966 offensive by the US which saw the whole area carpet bombed and defoliant used to remove the cover of jungle which the VC used to hide in. They were never really rebuilt as it had taken almost 20 years to build them in the first place. Interestingly, this period seems to be the most adventagous for the US forces as shortly afterwards in 1968, the VC launched a massive attack of 70,000 troops on the south in January 1968, known as the Tet offensive (Tet being the name for New Year here). The US imposed serious damage on the VC and with the Cu Chi tunnels largely out of action, the VC were at a weak point. The US supreme commander requested an addition 206,000 troops in order to finish the job. However, political pressure in the US meant that he was denied the troops and in fact, US military numbers began to be drastically reduced and US President Lyndon B. Johnson announced that he had ordered a complete cessation of "all air, naval, and artillery bombardment of North Vietnam". With the US gradually withdrawing, the South Vietnamese were forced to look after themselves against the North who were funded by China and the USSR. The war then limped to an end in 1973 with the signing of the Paris Peace accord. However by 1975, the North Vietnamese were on the offensive again and this time, marched all the war to Saigon, with minimal resistance. Saigon fell on 30th April 1975 with the storming of the Reunification Palace. We visited the Palace which is in the heart of Saigon and it has been left largely as it was on the day the tanks crashed through the iron gates. We were able to visit the (ex-South Vietnamese) President's offices and war rooms in the basement, along with his private quarters. The palace was rebuilt in 1962 after it was bombed as part of an asasination attempt on the President. The whole place is totally 'sixties' as it hasn't been updated since then - it's a bit like the 'baddies' hideout in an old James Bond film. North Vietnam united both North and South Vietnam on 2 July 1976 to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Today though, the city seems a little more relaxed and commerce is again beginning to thrive as the governments economic reforms to loosen their grip on the economy is beginning to bear fruit.