we left bright and early from phnom penh to catch our bus to saigon (now technically called ho chi minh city but rarely used). an attempt of the vietnamese to reclaim the once french colonial city. the border was less stressful than that of cambodia but still an experience. the bus guide collected all of our passports and visas (which you have to obtain in advance) and placed them inside a plastic grocery bag in one big lump sum. inside the airconditioned immigration building we all waited in one big group waiting for one of two agents to call our names. kinda like bingo. roel was dead last...we were both starting to get a little worried by this time. haha at least i have two passports i keep in different places. we were probably there for a little less than two hours. part of the journey involved the bus having to cross one branch of the mekong river on a small barge type ferry. amazing use of every square inch of space available. they probably had almost a dozen people inside the car nevermind the people in the trunk.
once we entered vietnam we could immediately tell the different standard of living (generalization of course). two lane highway in each direction (never more than one in cambodia), proper signage and stores, etc. but still a far cry from anything westerners are used to.
we arrived in saigon early afternoon. the bus dropped us off in backpackerville and our hotel was about a 20 minute walk from there. we are relatively proud of ourselves with finding it without having to ask for any directions. we spent a bit more than we were budgeting for but it was worth it ($33/night). it was more of a mini hotel than a hostel or guesthouse. in fact it was called saigon mini hotel.
we spent the evening wandering the streets and eating local cuisine. it is marginally more expensive than cambodia stops but not bearly as bad as we had been told. you can still get your fried noodles or rice or pho for under $2.
the next day we headed for the main attractions in the city. the reunification (or independence) palace and the war remnants museum. the former was the last strong hold of southern vietnamese and US troops before viet cong (communist north vietnam) stormed the gates. interesting to note that leadership in south vietnam wasn't much worth fighting for. the palace has been frozen in time and is open to wonder for a few bucks. beautiful ballrooms, bedrooms, meeting rooms, casino room, etc from the 70's. they have repaired the gates that the tanks rolled over. it was where the leader of south vietnam resided. there is much more of a history of this building and land which i don't claim to remember exactly so i won't try. worth a read though.
meeting room for government committees:
we then headed to the war remnant museum. completely overwhelming. i don't know when i have ever felt so little. i identify myself as canadian but in the museum i felt as though every vietnamese was looking at me with piercing eyes. i speak english and am as white as snow...i'm as good as american and technically am i suppose. all i could do was keep a few steps back at each exhibit and try to say i'm sorry as best i could without saying anything at all. there were vietnamese people talking to the pictures and even one woman hitting and yelling at a us soldier featured in one of them. he was holding up a head with a partial body of a vietnamese civilian in celebration after a successful grenade launch.
they had us fighter planes and helicopters on display.
the museum also had information on france's brutal ruling of the country and recreations of their prisons, etc. picture of a guillotine used into the 1950's.
check out this link for information about this amazing museum. warning, graphic content.
then again what do i know? i'm just a tourist passing through raising the same questions that have been asked for centuries. who knows maybe they won't even let me into the us after this post. ha
the next morning we took off on our cu chi tunnel tour. the cu chi people lived north of saign and were primarily a farming people. the americans considered them a threat and tried to exterminate the whole lot. so what did they do? they lived underground in a huge network of tunnels for twenty years. yes that's right. 20 years. if they didn't have an opinion on the war before the attacks they sure did afterwards. fascinating stuff. definitely a highlight of the trip so far. how they cooked, bathed, went to the washroom without seeing daylight. up to nine meters underground. farming above ground at night. we got to go through 50 meters of actual tunnel (not the replica tunnel set-up for obese americans visiting). can you sense my resentment?
i could duckwalk most of the way but at one point i was on my hands an knees. i made sure i was first in the group of about 20 because i couldn't handle being trapped on either side in the dark.
a shot of roel behind me:
i tried out a foxhole that most of the people couldn't fit in. a group of older chinese tourists were very impressed that a white man could fit. i had to have my arms raised to slide in. approx 1.5 meters deep and less than 1 meter wide. the opening was tiny. i did get all the way in and they could have put the cover on.
in the afternoon we took it easy and explored more of downtown saigon. i should mention that the vietnamese glad (along with hammer and sickle insingia) are everywhere. i would also like to mention that we have walked nearly everywhere (other than to the tunnels which are a ways out of town) rather than opting for taxis in order to see more of saigon.
this is a shout-out to our friend jan back in van! jan, notice the nice rooftop bar. a big bottle of beer 50 cents!!!
at night we went to the only gay club in the city. we wren't sure what to expect but it was filled with young locals wearing their fancy new knock-offs sipping way overpriced drinks. i was the only white person there when we arrived. the music was very electronic and not so fun so we left after one drink and went to a bar that advertises itself as being gay friendly. good hiphop and pop music and mixed crowd including female prostitutes.
interesting note: in bangkok the locals spoke to roel in thai. he gets many stares as he is light skinned, well dressed. they are trying to figure out who he is as they think he is famous. you should have seen the heads turn - like dominos falling over! also got many intersting looks as at times people thought he was my boy for hire. it may have depended on who was walking in front! no confusion in cambodia as they look a bit darker usually. everyone in vietnam is speaking to him in vietnamese and think he's showing me around. the locals have a really good laugh when they find out he only speaks english and is actually chinese/filipino. they usually end up pulling over a friend and explaining the situation and they inevitabley find it equally funny. it's funny for us to and we all crack up. haha
toodle-loo
Wow..again some amazing adventures, thanks for the great read! I found myself almost hyperventilating while reading about you crawling through the tunnels, a huge nightmare for me!
ReplyDeleteCrystal