Follow the Ho Chi Minh Trail, Follow the Ho Chi Minh Trail, follow the, follow the, follow the, follow the, follow the Ho Chi Minh Trail! Good Morning Vietnam and all that! Do you know how hard it is to find a Vietnamese man named Charlie?
Arrived fairly late into Ho Chi Minh City on the 20th July 2009 after 2 leisurely weeks at the Hilton Arcadia Resort, Phuket. So we had to get ourselves back in the groove of travelling. Not much fuss getting through immigration as our visas and passports were all up to speed. Got a free map on our way out before sharing a taxi with “Flash Gordon” (maybe it was a look-a-like) to the city.
The backpackers places all seem to congregate in one area and Ho Chi Minh City is no different to any other city on that score. After traversing the millions of motorcycles and scooters on the road (there are 9 million people in Ho Chi Minh City and 5 million motorcycles), honking and beeping their merry way, we made it to the hotel. Chanh was the manager there and he was real friendly! Funny little places they have in Vietnam. Tight stairways and narrow houses, but the stretch out backwards and upwards. We headed straight out for dinner Awesome Indian food where the breads and BBQ stuff were cooked outside in what appeared to be a steel drum tandoori! The garlic naan and new food item – onion kulcha – were delicious. We had quite a nice room, but there was a noise that drove me insane. Whether it was amplified by my inner ear post diving and plane riding problem I don't know, but I threw a bit of a wobbly and was pacing up and down in reception for a while. I then managed to put 1 ear plug in and by turning to the side, was able to drown out the noise and sleep OK. We moved rooms the next day, but were woken up at 5am by the bloody muslims singing and stuff in the park. 5am. Get some sleep!!
One thing to note about Vietnam that is in some of my favourite movies, like Good Morning Vietnam and Forrest Gump is that it can rain. A lot. Our first full day and we didn't know quite what to expect, so we were about to head out and explore when it started raining, so we waited a bit and bit the bullet and headed out. After all, that's what we had traipsed pack-a-jacks this far round the world for! We didn't get very far before we decided to stop for lunch, it went very dark and there was an almighty, grumpy thunderstorm which knocked out the power and was very loud. Anyway, we carried on walking / aquaplaning for about 20 metres before jumping in a taxi – after I had rescued Jenni's lost flip flop floating down the street... We headed for the War Remnants museum and drove through water that was lapping up on the pavement. Crazy rain!
We paid our 15,000 ding dong to get into the museum and headed in. The parking lot had American planes and helicopters just sitting around. I guess they didn't clear up everything after themselves! It was nice to see a side of the conflict that is not one depicted by Americans in the movies. Yes, a lot of people died in the war – on both sides – and they were brave soldiers, but the US really didn't know what they were letting themselves in for! It was good to read the history of the build up to the “American war” with the French colonising and losing control and trying to get control back, and America stepping in and the communist north trying to infiltrate the republic south. We learnt more when we went to the cu chi tunnels... The war museum contains left over pieces of the war that people have donated. Many pictures adorn the walls taken by photographers killed in the war, their last rolls of film in some cases. Some of the pictures and stories of what American soldiers did were quite horrific. There were samples of guns, ammo, clothing, posters denouncing the war, even a sewer pipe where a family hid whilst US senator John Kerry hunted them down (I think that may have become more prevalent when he was running for office!) It was an interesting visit and kept us out the rain for a while.
Next day we took a trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels. Cost of the trip (2 hours each way by coach) was $5 each, plus entry fee to the tunnels of 75,000 dong. About £3. So a pretty cheap trip. We drove Northwest out of Saigon and were treated to stories from our guide about the war and so on. Once at the tunnels we watched a documentary made in 1967 about the Cu Chi area and how the people there were fighting the war, we also saw maps of the area and a model of how the tunnels were constructed. The tunnels covered a vast area of 200 kilometres, we only saw a tiny portion, but I can see why the US troops struggled.
We were shown fox holes – a 1.3m deep, 0.6m wide hole in the ground, covered by leaves and dirt that a VC (Victor Charlie, Viet Cong – Communist fighter) would hide in, spider holes that had 3 tunnels in – 2 of which were probably booby trapped dead ends! We then saw the trenches, some booby traps that were very cunning and pretty lethal if you got on the wrong end of them, a leftovesr tank, a firing range where you could shoot M16 or AK47s for a charge. It rained again, and Jenni and I were the only ones to bring protection, we were a little smug! (I mean, having seen the previous day's rain why wouldn't you bring a raincoat or brolly?) We then got a chance to go in the “international” tunnel – slightly bigger than the original, with a few (dim) lights added for our comfort. Even then, the tunnel was pretty small and claustrophobic. They were up to 3 levels deep, laden with traps, hidden exits and ways out to the river. We learnt how they cooked secretly, how they went to the toilet, showered etc. Very interesting. The Americans underestimated these guys at their own peril.
We took a day to bum around, check out the local area, the Ben Thanh market – it's in everyone's guidebooks, but it was pretty ordinary. The sun actually came out too!
We were up early for a trip to the Mekong delta. A minibus took us for a leisurely drive down to the delta area, which took a couple of hours. We jumped on a boat and headed out onto the brown and murky Mekong river. There were water hyacinths floating along like debris and many boats going along the huge river. Our first stop was on Unicorn island where we got to try some honey tea, we even saw the bees up close! The tea also had some pollen in (makes a man strong – like viagra apparently). Along with the tea we tried banana, lotus, peanut brittle and ginger – the peanut stuff was nice. Additionally we were visited by a snake – a Python that was just lying in a cage nearby. I touched it, but I really do not like snakes!
We moved on, walking along the island, seeing how people live here – some 80 million people in the delta area. We got to a restaurant place and were given some local tropical fruit – pineapple, pomelo, rambutan, longans and papaya. Even the pineapple was ruined by adding chilli salt to it! The fruits weren't that great! Local musicians then gave us a demonstration of their talents before we headed off to experience a rowing boat along the delta's narrower waterways. It was similar to the Okavango delta, but muckier, more uncomfortable, a lot cheaper and we got to wear a vietnamese pointy hat!
Next came lunch on another, smaller island after a ride in a horse and cart – we skipped the fish! After lunch we headed back to base. Reasonably priced at $10 each!
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