My introduction to Vietnam was a bit of a shock to the system! After Laos and Cambodia, it feels weird being in a proper big city again, at Ho Chi Minh City is big, buy and built-up, not to mention being home to the scariest traffic in the world ever. I am actually scared to cross the road here, and as for driving, well, there's no chance I'd get behind the wheel in this city - it would be worse than the time Juings tricked me into driving to Shepherds Bush by telling me it "wasn't proper London". It's ridiculously hot here too, 36degrees on our first day, and I'm sure it's gotten hotter since then.

We've spent the past few days exploring museums, temlpes and the Cu Chi tunnels taht were used by the Viet Cong during the Vietnam war.
First stop was the War Remnants museum. My understanding of the Vietnam war wasn't that great before visiting the museum, and it wasn't that great afterwards to be honest, but luckily some internet research has now filled in the gaps. What was interesting was reading quotes from the American GI (my favourite: "If it's dead, it's Veit Cong" from a soldier after being asked how successful his operation was - good one...) and to read about the protests against and opposition to the war and America's involvement. America were potrayed in a pretty bad light in this museum, for obvious reasons, but I've not read anything since that suggests they made the situation better either... what's certain though is that the country was pretty badly devastated after the war, from bombs and the after-effects of Agent Orange. Following that we visited the Reunification Palace, and saw the gate that the communist tank crashed through when Saigon finally surrendered to the North in 1975. Took a tour round the museum as well, and saw plenty of grandly decorated rooms and finery, but most interesting was the underground basement with the emergency radio room and secret staircase leading back to the top floor.

The next day we took an organised tour to the Ca Doi temple and the Cu Chi tunnels. Considering how many temples Selina and I have seen lately, it was surprisingly impressive - I think because it was so unlike any of the rest, kind of Gaudi meets Disney! The Ca Doi religion is only about 80 years old and is a mix of Buddhism, Taoism and Confusicism. We stayed to watch one of the four masses that they have daily. Everyone in attendence was dressed in red, yellow, blue amd white robes, it was a brilliantly colourful sight to see!

The tunnels were the main event though, and it amazed me how the Viet Cong had managed to build such an inticate system of tunnels, and how they could spend so long underground in such a small space. Our guide showed us a hiding place used by the VC, basically a hole dug in the ground with a doorway not bigger than a sheet of A4. I tried it out for size, but i didn't fancy pulling the door back over my head again! And my weakling arms made it a bit of a struggle to get out too! There were lots of models set up to show how the Viet Cong lived and worked, as well as demos of the various traps they set up in the jungle. They were all boobie traps that drop you into a hole in the ground when you step on them, all with spikes on the inside designed to hurt in a variety of nasty ways. We actually got to go inside some of the tunnels too - there's a 100m stretch that has been widened for Westerners, but it was still a bit of a tight squeeze! Even I had to walk bent double the whole time, and it was stuffy and claustrophobic down there. It was a good experience though, even if I did vow never to do it again! We also had the opportunity to shoot guns while we were there, but Shah and I declined - I think I'd be happier if I got through my whole life never having shot a gun and being able to say that the only weapons I'd ever used were in Worms!

I spent this morning clothes shopping after the hotel 'laundry service' ruined half my clothes, which to be fair, wasn't that much of a hardship. We strolled round a big department store for a while without much success, before trying Behn Tham market and deciding it was much more our scene! I spent far too much and am now officially sponsored by (fake, probably) Quiksilver and Converse!

No fruit to report, but I recommend everybody tries Vietnamese sour soup if they get the chance. It looks watery and bland, but it's actually very spicy and unbelievably tasty, and is packed with veg and pineapple. Tomorrow we're off to the Mekong Delta to play with boats on the river and see some nature stuff. Sweet...

Will update again soon!

Kimbob xxx