Sunday 20th March

Off to the airport at 4am for the flight to Singapore at 6.40. Quite a pleasant flight with an excellent breakfast, in a full plane. Flew from there to Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, arriving at about 4pm local time & were met & taken to the hotel, passing the Liberation Palace on the way but feeling pretty tired.

Went along the street, found an ATM & then a small cafe & had a great meal with 2 beers for about $11. Across the road the night market had started so we went over & walked past all the stalls & the open cafes where the food was being cooked in the street & knew we were back properly in Vietnam.

Monday 21st March

Jane had a good night's sleep but d*** found the bed too hard, although he still didn’t get up until 8.30. Breakfast was rather a disappointment but the fascinating part was the restaurant was quite full but very quiet. Most of the people were senior or middle aged Brits, we think & were frantically communicating in sign language with the occasional odd low grunt. There must have been more than 20 of them in a party.

We walked around the block & back to the market hall where Jane bought 6 bone spoons after a bit of negotiation with the young stall holder. From there we went into a Halal cafe for a coffee & sat next to the window. To our surprise, outside on the pavement sitting in a plastic bag was a white duck gently quacking away, so Jane took a photo of it. 5 minutes later it was a late duck, as the owner cut its throat & drained the blood carefully into a plastic cup before putting it in boiling water & plucking it thoroughly all in the time it took to have a coffee. The locals like their food to be fresh!!

d*** went back to the hotel & Jane made a more comprehensive sweep of the market hall. She returned with 10 fine silk scarves from a stall at about $A8 each having bargained hard & found an ANZ ATM which gave her more cash.

In the afternoon we joined a tour to the tunnels at Cu Chi about 70 k west of Saigon, dug by the Viet Cong in their war against the French & then the Americans. It was a long tedious drive there, via the compulsory pit stop at a small factory making lacquer ware with mother of pearl & eggshell features. We bought a couple of small plates to show willing & then went on through villages & large rubber tree forests to the site of the tunnel complex. This was quite interesting although d*** found the walking somewhat tedious. The entrances were tiny concealed trap doors, as apparently the average local female weighed 30kg & the average male 35kg, so that they were tiny by western standards & could travel easily through the tunnels. A lot of locally made booby traps were set out like something from the Middle Ages & they recycled everything they could to make weapons from unexploded US bombs & shells. It was a strange experience climaxing in a crawl through a short length of tunnel for about 7 minutes. Not something either of us would gladly repeat in a hurry. The return journey was even slower & we were pleased to get back by 7.30. Had a good dinner at a cafe down the road & went to bed exhausted at 8.45.