We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) after a long journey from Siem Reap, and was shocked by the number of bikes everywhere.

Walking down the street is a nightmare, as basically people park their bikes across pavements, drive down payments, sit and eat dinner on pavements, and pretty much anything else they fancy doing to make it impossible to walk down the street.  Therefore you basically have to walk in the road, which is not that easy as bikes are swerving around everywhere and the Vietnamese love to drive the wrong way down roads. 

Eventually you get used to this and do as the locals do, which is walk slowly across the street so the bikes can swerve to avoid you.  If you run they won't see you in time and you'll probably get hit. 

Funnily enough though you don't see many accidents, even though bikes turn corners or pull out without looking, so it's the responsibility of the driver behind to miss them.  They call it organised chaos, but I guess it works for them. 

Saigon was liberated in 1975 after the Vietnam War (or as they call it here the Anti American War or War of American Aggression), when the south was finally liberated from French, American and South Vietnamese armies, though we're not too sure from what we've read whether they wanted to be liberated or not. 

It seems once the Americans left the South Vietnamese Army was pretty weak, though whether the south wanted to be a part of one communist country or not is something that is missing from the museums we visited and information we read. 

One thing you do notice about Vietnam is that there is probably the least American influence here compared to the rest of South East Asia, as you struggle to find the normal fast food restaurants and other influences, but we didn't really get a feel of whether or not there is any hatred there now.  The Vietnamese do seem to be the friendliest and proudest of the South East Asians too, and after visiting some of the sights in and around Saigon you can see why.

The first place we visited was the Cu Chi Tunnels.  Cu Chi is a district of South Vietnam 70 kilometres from Saigon, and was the location of several military campaigns which played a large part in the American's withdrawal from the country. 

The extensive tunnel system is over 200 kilometres long, and was made up of three stories, the top story being living and eating quarters and the other two for movement.  Each section was 90 metres long and would contain a kitchen (with a three-tiered chimney system for leaking smoke out above) and living quarters, as well as traps for anyone entering the tunnels who didn't know them.  Each section would have a person in charge who knew where all the traps were, so they could lead the Viet Con through their section.

During the war against the French the tunnels were tiny so that the French could not fit in them should they be discovered, but during the American War the tunnels were made larger, though at the end of our tour we crawled the 90 metres through one of them and it was still really small and claustrophobic. 

We made it out after a few minutes and were drenched in sweat, so you can only imagine what it must have been like to live in these things, and especially how hot it must have been for the women cooking.

We also saw how they hid the smoke from the cooking with the three-tiered chimney and small holes covered in foliage, and also the air holes for breathing and how they hid the smell of the tunnels from dogs, by putting American uniforms or soap by the tunnel holes.

Also the guide talked us through and showed us some of the traps used against the Americans, and although they were basic and often made out of natural sources, they were still absolutely brutal. 

Strangely though after all this you have the option of shooting machine guns, including AK-47's and M-16's, though we thought this was a bit inappropriate and gave it a miss.  The Americans and Aussies couldn't wait though, but that didn't surprise us! 

During all this a woman dressed like she was homeless walked by and let off an almighty fart, which caught the attention of us and a few others in our group, though she happily just smiled and let off another almighty fart and carried on by.  It turned out she was actually in another tour group, so didn't have vagrancy as an excuse! 

The next day was spent at the Re-Unification Palace, the old government headquarters where the tanks rolled into in 1975's liberation, before we headed off to the War Remnant's Museum, a gory look at the wars in Vietnam.

One thing that became apparent is the total one-sidedness in the opinions about the war, as you are inundated with facts about the Americans using Agent Orange and brutally killing women and children, which obviously did happen but there were atrocities on both sides we're sure.  At the Cu Chi Tunnels the day before we'd heard disapprovement from the Americans on the tour as we watched a video rewarding Viet Con with the title, American Killer Hero.  Don't think we would have watched if it was about the English.

Saigon, for all it's business and pollution is still a great city.  The next day we headed off to Nha Trang.