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After the relatively mountain cool weather in Da Lat and pretty laid back atmosphere, Saigon felt quite hot and bustling. They don't lie about the motorbike traffic. The trick is that no one drives terribly fast, so it's really not as dangerous as it might look. Zack would still have to hold my hand as we crossed the busy side streets in the backpacker district, full of a bunch of hotels and restaurants. When we first arrived in Saigon, we were tired from the long bus ride and just wanted to find a room to stay at. We were surprised to discover that the hotels generally had higher prices than Hanoi. We were also surprised that so many of the hotels didn't have any vacancies. We finally settled on a rather dumpy looking place for 10 dollars, telling ourselves that it was only for one night. It was a place that just felt dirty and I didn't want to take a shower there. At 9pm, we lost electricity, but luckily Zack found his flashlight and we made our way out of our room, down three flights of stairs to the street. No other building on the street had lost power. Their was a disgruntled guest, a man of about 40, grumbling "This happened last night! They said there would be power and then this again!" We agreed with the man up to the point where he said "And there's a mosquito in my room and this hotel did NOTHING!" Hmm, so the hotel was supposed to go into this guy's room and catch one mosquito?

The next morning we promptly checked out and moved into a lovely little hotel down a quiet street, strategically positioned next to several vegetarian restaurants (Zack loves fake meat) and a Mexican restaurant. We walked the street and visited the Reunification Palace, the palace that would have been the "White House" Presidential house had the south Vietnamese won the war. We got a thorough tour from an "English speaking guide" (She had a script memorized, but could not answer simple additional questions). We saw the banquet halls, bedrooms, a movie theater, the kitchen, and even the bomb shelter where the president's drab bedroom was located. A 19 year old Vietnamese girl came up to me and asked to practice her English. She looked like she was 14. Women tend to look really young here. We walked back to our hotel from the palace, and discovered that Saigon has some lovely parks with big old trees. Propaganda billboards are also abundant.

We booked a tour for 7 dollars through our hotel to see the Cu Chi tunnels, used by the Viet Cong, early the next morning. The tour was to leave at 7am and return around 2pm. After the tunnels, we were going to visit the War Museum in Saigon. Unfortunately, there was a mix up and we ended up on the WRONG tour in the morning. This tour visited not only the Cu Chi tunnels, but first a Cao Dai "church/temple/mosque," a weird fusion of religions. Somehow this strange religion has 2 million followers. The outside of their church is decorated with what looks like the pyramid eye from the back of a one dollar US bill. Victor Hugo is considered one of the three main saints of this religion. Very strange. The church service, which we observed 30 minutes of, was followed by another long bus ride, lunch, and another long bus ride. We were relieved when we finally arrived at the Cu Chi tunnels.

After buying an entrance ticket for about 5 dollars a person, we were shuffled into a covered wooden pavilion to watch a vide before seeing the tunnels. They had us watch an "educational" video. The television screen was completely too small for an audience of 50 people, so it was a bit difficult to see, but it was quite easy to hear, "The Americans, from thousands of miles away, came and stuck their foot in here....This young girl received an honor for killing 3 Americans..." I'm not a big fan of America, but this was a bit uncomfortable. After the video, we were shuffled along past down a path in the woods. We stopped an looked at life sized models of the Viet Cong, sitting in their hammocks, scarf around their neck. Our tour guide revealed a hidden door entrance to a tunnel buried beneath a pile of leaves, invisible. We saw fantastically elaborate booby traps, designed to kill the enemy, America. We passed US tank, severely damaged from having gone over a bomb. Five Americans were gunned down as they exited the flaming vehicle. Some tourists then proceeded to climb onto the tank for smiling pictures. It was all a big circus. Next, we were paraded to an area where for a little over a dollar tourists can choose from a variety of guns, machine guns and AK47s included, to go shoot. Zack and I doubted the safety of these things, so we stood a safe distance away from the booming sound of gun fire. Finally, it was time for us to crawl down into the portion of the Cu Chi tunnel that our tour guide referred to as "king sized." About 100 meters had been doubled in size to accommodate the growing throngs of tourists. We went down into the tunnel. Zack had to crawl on hands and knees, but I was able to crouch. 30 meters were enough for us. It was terribly claustrophobic!

Next day, we went to the Vietnamese History Museum which is located next to the botanical garden and zoo. As soon as we got into the museum, torrential rain began to beat down from the sky. The storm was so bad that the museum shut down the power, so there was no light to see the exhibit! The museum houses a pretty creepy looking mummy of a woman, hair still attached. Next we check out the botanical gardens and zoo, which turned out to be pretty sad.

The following morning we set out through Vietnam's famed travel bus company, the Sinh Cafe, toward the mighty Mekong river delta. Here we spent a day going around on a boat. We stayed a night close to the border and then set out on our boat ride over the Vietnamese border into Cambodia.

Rachel

written by

zachel on April 14, 2009 from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

from the travel blog: Zack and Rachel's Asian Chronicles

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