Saigon, Vietnam, 19-21 July 2012

We arrived in Saigon in perfect time for the heavens to open and soak us. Luckily, Jo and I still had our fetching polka-dot ponchos from our motorbike tour. A bolshy woman built like a brick shithouse met us from the bus and offered some hotel very close by and a fair price. She then led 6 of us (Jo and I, James and Lisa, and Nick and Gaz) down a labyrinthine set of pathways to a crappy looking place we'd never find, so we said thanks but no thanks and wandered off in the rain. Back on the main street we poked our heads in a couple of places, then the same woman came back and led us into a brand new hotel. Rooms were good and included brekkie so we were sold. It was already 5pm by this point so we arranged to meet at 7 for dinner, and Jo and I ventured off to arrange a tour of the Cu Chi tunnels the following day and our bus to Phnom Penh. For dinner we also met up with three girls that the others had met a few times along the way and who James was smitten with. We had a good few beers, finished dinner then Lisa and Jo headed back and the rest of us went in search of drink. A group of 7 tentative westerners in the street proved to be like chocolate bar at weight-watchers; at one place two guys from the same bar but different floors actually started fighting over us! All the bars we went near were a bloody rip-off though, and offers like "buy 1 get 3 free" actually meant buy a bottle of 50 quid vodka and get 3 bottles of beer free. We ended up in a beer hoi type place on little plastic chairs on the pavement drinking 26p bottles of ice cold Saigon beer, surrounded by dozens of tables of locals and others travellers. Spent quite a while having the craic, then moved onto a little bar, where I had a final beer and left concious that I only had a few hours until I had to be up to get on a tour bus. Following morning I didn't feel great, but no rest for the half-cut, and felt better when two saffer girls in front of us were in a much worse state. The bus stopped about 40km into the 60 to the Cu Chi tunnels at a factory and warehouse set up by the government for sufferers of physical disabilities due to US use of Agent Orange in the war. It made loads of handicrafts and quite a lot of intricately hand decorated vases, crockery and titbits. Was very good to see these people, a lot of whom had no legs, able to lead normal lives. I did wonder what ironic affects the chemicals they used in the factory were having on them though. We arrived in the sweltering area of Cu Chi where the Viet Cong hid and built 250km of tunnels only 60km from the US occupied Saigon. We were shown around by our batty old Vietnamese man of a guide, Ky, who would say "ooh la la", "ay ay ay", and "you can imagine" over and over. Lovely bloke though and very enthusiastic with his war stories (he was a student, too young to be called up to fight in the war). We were shown lots of booby-traps, including a brutal looking tiger trap, and secret hatches used to hide away quickly, barely bigger than an A4 piece of paper. We then saw some weapons and there was a shooting range with lots of guns, all either rifles or machineguns. I wanted to have a go, but there was a minimum number of bullets you could buy, so I gave it a miss for now. We then went into the actual tunnels themselves. There are only a few still accessible, most having collapsed, and the one we went in was made bigger for tourists. Despite this, I still almost got stuck, and was unable to walk in a crouch at all and resorted to walking in a pressup position. We got out and went to try some typical guerilla lunch. This was cassava, skinned and boiled so it was like a boiled potato (and tasted a lot like) with a powder made of ground peanuts, sugar and pepper. The kitchens they built underground were very clever, with the smoke going through three or four chambers to filter out as much smoke as possible before coming out of the ground 25m away from the kitchen itself. We got back on the bus and awoke back in Saigon next to the War Remnants Museum, so we hopped off. There were lots of captured US planes, helicopters, tanks and artillery, and a section on the prisons used against the VC including lots on the torture they suffered at the hands of the French, American and South Vietnamese. As this is Asia, they don't hold back on details and lots of the pictures and stories were horrific. Inside it only got worse, with various sections torture, interrogation of civilians, chemical agents and the various tactics (mostly scorched earth) used by the Americans. There was one piece on former US senator Kelleys actions in the war. I won't go into it, but I don't know how he can sleep at night. We finished our tour looking at the effects Agent Orange has had on the subsequent generations, which had bottled embryos that had been stillbirths. A very graphic exhibition, but you can't shy away from what has been done and so recently. After our harrowing visit to the museum we went in search of a cinema to watch Brave and cheer us up. I had a little map marked up by the guy working in the hotel reception, but he obviously didn't know, so we just walked around asking people. We found our way to a mall, and then discovered it had a cinema in the business part of the building next door. Very strange and wasn't showing Brave so we left. I then took us along a road I had a hunch about and found the cinema we were looking for. But it wasn't showing Brave either. Bugger. So we walked home, now totally knackered. We spent the evening chilling out, then went out for dinner and to the night markets, wandering home through the park packed with couples dancing and little kids playing. The 21st was our last morning in Vietnam. We packed up, ate the crappy breakfast on offer (I say on offer, but the only option was omelette and bread, so the true option was eat or don't eat), then went to post postcards, and take some last pictures, then had a decent lunch before the bus to Phnom Penh at 2pm. Suddenly Vietnam was over all too soon, and although we didn't feel we'd missed out anything, we still were sad to leave as it meant only two countries left and a step closer to going home.