Saigon is such a huge city. Masses of people and motorbikes. Apparently there is one motorbike for every person (9million), there's just a constant steam of them down huge roads, terrible to cross. We have learnt the Vietnamese way of crossing roads that looks so easy. What you have to do is walk very slowly out into the road, looking at the traffic that’s storming towards you. It sounds suicidal but it works, the motorbikes see you and they swerve around you. If you freak out and run you're far more likely to be hit. Bit scary and gets your adrenaline going but it's the only way. We crossed this huge 6 lane road yesterday and this older white guy was watching us cross from the other side. As we reached the pavement he muttered 'here goes' and started going across.After the 10 hour bus journey we reached Saigon at the early time of 6.30am. We are getting quite used to the journeys and buses, and finding out all the tricks. We got on the bus, one of the first, and got a seat each (if the bus was full and someone needed to sit next to one of us, then we would have moved), but turns out it wasn't full at all, and I had the seat behind empty so I could put both seats as far back as I liked! Even though I must have had the best seats on the bus I still managed to get no sleep whatsoever. Arriving at 6:30am we scanned the lonely planet as to which area we should be in, and after asking about 8 hotels it seems like we could not get a hotel cheaper than $10. We settled for an air-con room plus fan, TV, balcony, and bath tub!!! A sweet little family own it and stay in the downstairs quarters. When we want to enter and leave someone is always out to open the gates for us. There is high security as Saigon is meant to be sooo bad for thieves. As guy and even girls pass you on their motorbike they slash your bag, camera hanging on your arm, and even snatch sunglasses off your face or head. The girl in our hotel told us to careful of the mafia! Nice, but we haven’t witnessed anything remotely close to this, but as we wear our bags on our fronts, maybe they know we are being cautious.We decided not to have a few hours sleep (like we would normally have) as we would never wake up, thus wasting half the day. We wanted to see a few things whilst in Saigon so we planned out our day carefully in an order. Our first stop was the Reunification Palace. We entered at the same time as a tour and got shuffled along with them. We thought that a guided tour must be included in our ticket until near the end of the tour, the guide decided to question our presence in front of the whole tour group. God was it embarrassing. Some American guy asked the guide if we needed to pay any money, and the guide said there was no need, so the American said we can pay him instead. Needless to say we both wanted to do him some harm.The Palace itself was built in the 60's and certainly looked it. It could have been a very nice train station. Lots of cheap marble etc. We were told all about the history and what happened all throughout the war. It is kept today as it was left in '75. We next found our way to the War Remnants Museum. This fascinated me. All sorts of photographs taken throughout the war. It was very harrowing, Hundreds and hundreds of images of the war, civilians being tortured and killed. What were most horrible and hard to look at were the pictures of all the victims of Agent Orange. Not just the war victims, but the children of the victims had allsorts of defects. Real shocking. You see people around the streets of Saigon with disabilities who are begging and these are probably the children of Agent Orange victims. The museum was one sided but not necessarily unfair. What I enjoyed about the museum was all the planes and tanks that were displayed outside. I'm not sure what it is, but I find them real fascinating.
The other thing in the museum was the tiger cages (not for keeping tigers in). This is where the French kept the Vietnamese as hostages. In a tiny cell they would keep 14 people. Each having to take turns by the 30cm x 30 cm window. There were also torture devices, including a guillotine which decapitates the victims.
After this we decided to head to the market "that shouldn't be missed", well if I could go back, I would sure miss it out. It’s just full of the same thing over and over again. Maybe we have just been to too many markets recently. So after this we went on a search for some squash for our Richard. His last before we reach Australia. The other thing to do whilst in Saigon is visit Cu Chi where the tunnels are, which the Vietcong made to hide from the Americans during the war. All together they stretched 220km and the ground in which they were made is very hard and very difficult to destroy. They were a very important part of the war effort for the Vietnamese. On our trip we got the chance to see, and to even enter the tunnels. The entrance to the tunnels was just a little tiny square in the ground, I went inside (just) and a lid was placed on top. It was very very dark inside, when there was light (lid was taken off) you could see straight in front a narrow tunnel. It was so narrow I doubt I would have even to fit through, the Vietnamese could as they are so tiny. Later on after seeing all the different types of traps they used to protect themselves, we visited another tunnel that had been widened so we tourists could enter to have a feel of what it would be like. We even had crawl on hands and knees through a widened tunnel. It was pitch black even though there we lights placed at a bend (but often covered by the person in front). The leaflet about the tour was misconceiving a little as we thought we were going to go to a shooting range as well, but it turns out it's on site and you have to pay an astonishing amount for 1 bullet! Needless to say we didn't shoot, although we both wanted to. This has been our final destination in Vietnam; we would love to come back. Such a nice country and we have both really enjoyed our brief visit. Next we head to Cambodia staying at Phnom Penh (the capital) to begin with.