Ho Chi Minh

The plane ride was to easy, one hour later we were at the airport in Saigon, population 6 million. Caught a meter taxi into Pham Ngu Lao the backpacker ghetto of Saigon. All the usual amenities there,hotels, guesthouses, mini hotels, bars, food stalls, restaurants serving Italian food, chemists, second hand English language book stores, souvenir stores. Got a room in a mini-hotel up a side alley away from the traffic noise as Vietnamese tend to get up very early and backpackers don't especially after a night on the Bia Hoi.

Which brings me to another more important topic, cheap beer. Cheaper than bottled water in fact. Around most cities there are Bia Hoi stalls which serve fresh beer for around 3500 Dong (10000 Dong is $1 NZ) for a litre bottle, its not very grunty but you can still get pissed for under 2 dollars.

The next day followed a walking tour in Lonely Planet that visited an Art Museum/ Gallery, the City Museum, the War Remnants Museum which housed many photos and stories from the Vietnamese point of view, after effects of agent orange etc. Also visited the Reunification palace which was the highlight for me, had a guided tour around and found out much of its interesting history. Also saw a nice church , some Pagodas and nice buildings.

The next day was the 4th of Oct, which is my birthday, spent it out on a day trip to the Cao Dai head temple and the Cu Chi tunnels. Was an ok trip, spent along time in the van though as traffic and roads in Vietnam are bad. The amount of scooters on the road is crazy and you see accidents everywhere. The Cai Dai temple had some quirky architecture, and the sect itself is an interesting bunch, believing in one god, with other religions sort of being disciples of the one god, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammad etc. I'm not a big fan of religious stuff, but still found it interesting enough. Got to watch as everyone showed up in robes for the lunch time mass, (they pray four times a day).

After that we had lunch at a commission restaurant (expensive out of the way place that pays the tour company to take us there). After that it was into the van and Off to the Cu Chi tunnels, which I found to be very interesting, they have turned a section of the VC tunnels into a museum/ tourist attraction. Watched a video that was anti- American, made Val squirm a bit even though she is only first generation Yank. Then went into the tunnel which has supposedly been enlarged for tourists, I still had to crawl some of it. Saw a cool diorama and had explained to us what life was like in the tunnels. There was at the peak 250km of tunnels in the Cu Chi region, a couple of big American fire bases were right on top of parts of the tunnel system. There was also many of the spike traps and the like on display. There was even a shooting range with a selection of rifles for tourists to shoot, was a bit steep at $1.60 US a bullet for me though.

Had a nice drive back into the city, through the insane traffic at dusk. First time I've seen a motorcycle traffic jam. That night Val took me out to a three course meal for my birthday, which was nice of her.

Next day Val headed up the coast to Mui Ne and I stayed in town for another day to get my shit together and stock up for the next leg. Brought a couple of new shirts, some toiletries, traded my Lonely Planet S.E.A for a Laos edition and booked a bus to Mui Ne.