Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City?

The bus down from Saigon was sweet. Aircon was good, seats were comfy. Wasn't so good for a couple Vietnamese girls tho - one was throwing up into a bag, and the other kept scuttling past to the on-bus toilet. We got dropped in District 1 round 7pm and first priority was to find somewhere to crash for the night. We just started looking when we bumped into Joslynn and Stacey (the canadian girls) again. They were looking for accom as well, so all four of us started checking some places out. They locked one in pretty much straight away. Stacey was sunburnt as (lobstered up real good) from the day before in Mui Ne, so i think she was just keen to find somewhere and dump her stuff. We carried on looking. This random old-ish white dude asked what we were looking for, and lead us round to another side street away from the madness, where there were a bunch of other places. Kim's Hostel offered free wifi, hot shower, aircon and free breakfast - so we locked this in. Pretty sweet for $16 per night. We were pretty hungry by now, so we got a feed and went for a wander through district 1. On our way back to the room, we bumped into Joslynn and Stacey again. They were checking out other pads, as they regretted locking in their first one - they were looking for a place with a bath, so Stacey could soak in it. They eventually moved into a place across the road from us.

First proper day in Saigon, Al and I went to check out the War Museum here. We grabbed our legit free breakfast and had a yarn to the couple guys there (Malaysian dude and a Finnish dude). They gave us a rough circuit of sights to check out in town that day. So we had a rough itenary to run by. Joslynn said that she was keen to tag along with us the night before (so Stacey could take some time out), but instead her and Stacey went to try find a medical clinic. On the way to the war museum, this hawker was walking along next to us. He amdired the size of my arms, so asked if i wanted to carry his load for a bit. We obliged. Damn, those things are heavy. He reckoned they're around 40kg, man, it felt like it.The War Museum was intense. Pretty eye-opening stuff in there. A little Vietnam biased tho - it definitely left you with the feeling that Americans were in the wrong, the bad guy. We didn't see the whole museum as they kicked everyone out at 12pm. We managed to cover most of it, so we didn't bother going back. We took a long wander back to district one, passing a few other sights around Saigon. It was midday, so the sun was pretty intense. Real hot and sweaty walking round town, so we stopped in this local convenience store to get a drink. They sold NZ Natural Icecream, so i felt obliged to buy one. Was real average - the ice cream had icicles, and the cone was chewy and soggy... oh well, can't expect much more. The canadian spotted us from the taxi, so jumped out and chased us down. I'm pretty sure they were stalking us, but apparantly the clinic was right by where we were. Made plans to meet up that night for dinner and check out the night market. Asty managed to finally get hold of some decent earphones. Sennheiser CX215, decent set of phones. He was stoked, after his previous "sony" ones started falling apart as soon as he took them outta the packet.

Met up with Joslynn and Stacey for dinner. Heard the run down from the doctor, Stacey's sunburn was classed as second degree burns! She did a good job at getting herself sun burnt. Was pretty bad - she had a huge blister on her shoulder. She had put on SPF 60+ on in Mui Ne - didn't no the numbers when that high! Didn't seem to really do its job. We checked out the night market, was pretty small compared to the day market, but still worth a look. The girls were looking for loose clothing that Stacey could wear. We realised our mistake in taking girls to a clothing night market, they'd even warned us. Luckily we were able to locate some beers. they pretty much saved us. Alex did manage to score himself a Rolex tho - fake, but A-class imitation.

Day 2 was an early start. The bus came at 8:15am to take us out to the Cu Chi tunnels - the old attack tunnels the Viet Cong used during the war. Met these two Dutch girls, Fredderika and Anna, at breakfast who were doing the same tour. We piled onto the already full bus, but manages to find seats. I managed to lock in the shotgun seat next to the driver. Opened my eyes to a whole new experience of driving in Vietnam cities... We stopped off at this craft/art making place. Pretty cool, but we just wanted to get to the tunnels. Randomly, Anton (the aussie guy we'd met on the boat in Halong) was there, dressed in a suit... We were like "what's with the suit" and he was like "I wanted to get a photo of me firing an AK47 in a suit. How sweet would that be?"... beauty.

We got to the tunnels and our guide, Slim, joined us up with another group for the introduction and video. The guy who took us through the intro was actually a Viet Cong veteran. He'd spent time in the tunnels and was shot twice by an american machine gunner on a helicopter, once in the shoulder and once in the foot. Most of his family, except his dad, was killed in the war. Sad, but awesome dude. The tunnels were tiny. First, we were asked to spot a hidden entrance. Was pretty well concealed and the entrance was tiny. There was no way I'd fit in there, Alex managed to squeeze in tho. Some of the traps the vietcong had were intense. The bamboo traps (covered holes in the groud with sharp bamboo sticking up from the bottom) were pretty scary. wouldn't wanna step on those. But some of the other traps they had were brutual. They had ones similar to bear traps; ones that were rollers with spikes, so that once you stepped in it, you were spiked all over as you fell through; ones that fell from doors; ones that were hidden in rice fields... all sorts of brutual traps man. We were then taken to where we could shoot some of the guns that were used. Minimum purchase of 10 bullets, at either 20,000 or 35,000 dong a bullet. bit pricey on the budget we've got left, so we didn't fire any. In fact only one guy from our whole tour did. The guns are all mounted, so you can't actually pick it up and hold it. not worth it. After that, we were finally able to crawl through a part of the tunnels, which they had widened out for tourists. 100m long. It was still prett cramped in there. Needed to duck-waddle through it, was a killer on your quads. Soem of the Viet Cong spent 20 years in those tunnels. I was over it in a couple minutes. We popped out and the guide provided us with some snacks that the Viet Cong used to eat - boiled tapioca root. Not that tasty, similar to a really bland kumara. they gave us this crushed peanut/salt dip which kinda saved it... just. That was pretty much the end of the tour, they lead us back to the bus through the souvineer shop.

We're back in district one now, heading to a water puppet show tonight, before we get on a 10 hour day bus to Sihanoukeville in Cambodia tomorrow morning at 8:30.

Cheers Vietnam for an awesome two weeks. Definitely a special place. Food is awesome, people are awesome, and history here is awesome. Definitely see myself coming back.