Saigon!

We took our last sleeper bus to Saigon from Mui Ne which took around 5 hours and we arrived quite late at night but i INSTANTLY loved it!!! Very strange for me because i'm certainly NOT a city kinda gal as most of you know!!! We were determined not to be ushered into a guesthouse like in Hanoi and be scammed into paying loads for our room/internet/laundry/food or whatever else they could think of to charge us for - so we scurried away from all the touts to look around for ourselves. Only this didn't really work out as we just couldn't find a cheap room anywhere so yet again we ended up crawling back to this really persistant woman who i'd been kinda rude to earlier. Haha!! She promised us a 'very nice and clean room for 7$' so we went with her and were taken to a silk shop!!! We climbed the stairs and went through their living area upstairs to a tiny room which was quite sweet.... and she was true to her word.. it was very clean.. AND had a bathroom so we took it!

We went for a walk around - Saigon doesn't have the unfriendliness that I felt in Hanoi and I didn't feel that everyone was out to get our money. They were smiley and happy and so friendly. The city was just buzzing with action and jam packed with shops, bars, street vendors and MOTORBIKES!!! People call it 'Motorbike City' and i can certainly see why... i cant believe i thought Hanoi was bad...!! This was ten times worse!!! Apparently there are over 4 million motorbikes in Saigon ... and another little fact for you... 30 people are killed per day in Vietnam in motorbike accidents. The roads were crazy in Saigon... to cross the road we were told to close your eyes and walk... and now i know why. We did this and it works!!! They just seem to weave around you.. but it's bloody scary i tell u!!! Whilst we were having a look around we found a park thing.. where some teenagers were playing with these wierd shuttlecock things but kicking them with their feet from behind!! It looked so good.. and they were all very talented... at least they're not sitting around drinking & smoking on the streets too!! There were skyscraper buildings all around and lovely little cafes on the streets.. also... everywhere was decorated for xmas which instantly made home feel not so far away...!

We went for some food... there is an amazing choice in Saigon and I was so happy to see some street vendors so i knew i could eat for cheap again!! The Vietnamese food was lovely (but i was still missing my no.1 - THAI!). But the Vietnamese noodles with tofu & veg were lovely with chilli & soy sauce!! That night we booked a guide for the Cu Chi Tunnels the next day and decided to go back for an early night... only by the time we got back all the shops had closed and the shutters were down and we just couldnt remember where it was! We ended up down some proper little backstreets where all the locals were sitting around with their doors open watching tv and eating. Every house was the same! The whole family sitting around eating Pho (noodle soup) & god knows what meat & other traditional culinary delights! Looked disgusting to me. As we passed they would all look up and give us the biggest smiles!! I loved this moment... i felt a million miles away from England..!!! But it did make me think of my lovely family and miss them immensely. LOVE YOU!!!

Finally we found our shop and realised that there was a buzzer outside so we buzzed and the sweet old smiling lady from the silk shop let the shutter up to let us in! We walked up though the part where they lived.. they were all having a big old munch and watching tv too!!!

The next day we went to the Cu Chi Tunnels, north west of Saigon. It was out of this world! During the war, the Viet Cong used to hide out in these TINY tunnels which they constructed themselves underground. The tunnels at one point were more than 200km long and stretched right out to the Cambodian border.

On our way here we visited a handicapped arts & crafts centre where we walked around a workshop and saw these Vietnamese people making beautiful pots/plates/pictures/jewellery using cracked eggshells to do these amazing designs! They were so talented, the desings were so intricate and pretty. We didn't buy anything, to their disappointment but they were really pushing it!

We arrived at the tunnels after a 2 hr drive during which our guide told us his life story, oh yes, and a bit about the war! He was excellent though, i learnt a lot from him. It was surreal to hear stories through the eyes of an actual survivor who had lived through it. It's hard to believe that this brutal war only ended just over 30 years ago.

We saw entrances to the tunnels which they used to conceal with leaves and soil. He knew exactly where they all were but i would have fallen straight in one if i hadn't of known... We were allowed to get inside this one... it remains exactly the same size as it had been 30 years ago whereas the ones that you can go through have been widened for the likes of us Westerners! It was scarily small and pitch black. God knows how they managed to move through them.. they must have been very skinny! I actually got stuck in this one.. trust me... it was quite deep and i just didn't have the strength get myself out!! It was very embarrassing!! Mike had to get me under the arms and literally pull me out!!! hahahah!! the whole group was laughing!!

We were allowed to crawl through the wider ones but they were still very claustrophobic and scary... god knows what they were originally like to crawl through when they also didn't have the comfort of side lights down there! They used to spend weeks down there in hiding. Mike felt terribly claustrophobic so we made a quick exit - there are exits all the way along in case you want to come up. I really wanted to crawl through the whole way but i knew it would upset Mike if i did it without him!!

We were taught about how they contructed them and how there was a kind of 3 tier network, the first 3m deep, the second 5m deep and the third 8m. They made a deep well underground to ensure they had a water supply when they were down there and they hollowed out long bamboo shoots which they ran through the soil up to the surface to allow air to circulate underground. They constructed traps which they made inside the tunnels and in the jungle surrounding in order to capture or kill the US soldiers when they came. These were deadly and really vicious contraptions. Got some good photos of them!

After this we went to the shooting range where me and Mike actually shot an AK47!!! Oh my god it was SOOOOOO loud!! Thought i burst my eardrum...!! AND i had earmuff things on! God knows how they used to shoot these things all the time with no protection for their ears...but i suppose that was the last of their worries!

We then had some Vietnamese tea (like green tea) and ate some manioc which we dipped into crushed peanuts! Tasted like potato and is also grown underground. This is what they used to eat (with rice of course!) to keep their stength up... very nice too! But hardly a nutritious meal. We also saw a documentary about the war, the layout of the tunnels and the vicious attacks that took place. Also we saw how they made their uniforms and the smokeless stoves.

When we had finished here we asked to be dropped at the War Remnants museum. Well... this was absolutely horrific and I found it really quite upsetting. I am glad i now understand more about the war and what this country has been through and i have a whole new appreciation for the Vietnamese people.

There are loads of old peices of weaponary on display like unexploded bombs, tanks and old fighter jets. There is also a heartbreaking collection of photographs of victims of teh war taken by about 150 war reporters of different nationalities who were killed. I was amazed that these reporters managed to get so close and involved whilst taking their pictures AND how the soldiers allowed them to take the photographs. There were some horrific pictures, one of a man carrying a corpse through a field - the dead man is completely mutilated. The soldier was holding the victim's arm all all else that was attached was his head. You could see the terrified look on his face. There were pictures of children, women, babies and even pregnant women lying in groups, dead, after the awful massacres which took place. One in particular was Son My massacre in 1968.

What really upset me was the Agent Orange victims. Agent Orange is a toxic chemical that the US sprayed onto over 2 million hectares of land to kill/destroy all forestry & wildlife. When these chemicals were breathed in by people they were extremely dangerous and caused some horrific birth defects in babies. There were some truly horrible pictures of babies/children with completely deformed faces/heads/limbs and some with no limbs at all. There was even a tank which contained the deformed corpses of babies who had died and whose bodies had been preserved. I assume these were babies whose mothers were killed whilst carrying them.

We also saw teh detention camps and prisons as well as teh torturing methods used to exterminate prisoners physically and psychologically. We saw a model of the tiger cages where people were kept for days with barely a few grains of rice and old gone off fish. They hardly fed then any water either. Apparently if anybody dared to complain about the treatment of people in these prisons, they would take, not only them, but their family too and put them into these prisons where they would be killed.

Their methods of torture were absolutely disgusting. It's hard to believe a person could actually do these things to another human being. They would pull back peoples fingernails burn them, amputate limbs/fingers... even eyes.

I was feeling completely sickened after we left. Whilst we were walking around later i kept noticing all the deformed people on the streets begging and it got me thinking about their lives & what horrible things they may have been through. Poor people. They still smile.

We booked onto a Mekong Delta tour for the next day to lighten the mood! It was great!.... more about this in next blog.

xxxxx