We made the best of our short stay in Ho Chi Ming City (formerly Saigon) by taking an organized tour to the Cu Chi tunnels of the Viet Cong a couple of hours north of the city ,then coming back to the city to go to the War Remnants Museum.

Both excursions, rather than answer questions regarding the war just posed many more! The emphasis, particularly at the museum is on the damage the Americans did both in casualties and materially to the infrastructure and village life. The Vietnamese call it the "American War". It has been however many years since reunification of the North and the South and our relatively young guides in Vietnam have no direct memories of the war and seem very optimistic about Vietnam's ethos of looking forward not back. 

The tunnels are shockingly small and claustrophobic. The tiny openings to the outside world are impossible for even small westerners to squeeze through so, in an effort to cater to tourism, one has been enlarged. Even though many Australians served here during the war, any remaining bad feelings are towards USA involvement. 

Cu Chi is probably one of the only places in the world that tourists can actually have a go at shooting military weapons. We both had a go at an AK 47 and were deaf for a good while after wards!

The traffic, was, if possible, worse than Hanoi but we managed to cross roads as needed unscathed. Friendliness and helpfulness coloured our time wandering the streets. Food was divine and our last meal in Vietnam just had to include their fabulous spring rolls. Nothing in Australian restaurants have equalled those delicate spring rolls!