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Ho Chi Minh City is busy!! Motorbikes everywhere. From the bus station it was a causal 45 minute stroll in rush hour with all our bags. It still makes me laugh seeing a family of 5 on one motorbike. Our hostel was in district 1, just off Bui Vien street - perfect for bars, clubs and food.
Within 5 minutes of being in Bui Vien street, I was offered sunglasses, books, marijuana and cigarettes, and several guys cycled past with some kind of rattle selling drugs and prostitutes. All of life's essentials on your doorstep!
Spent a day walking around a few parts of the city and sampling cafés and bars. Went to the War Remnants Museum - information about the Vietnamese war between North Vietnam (supported by the Soviet Union, China) and South Vietnam (supported by the US and other anti-communist allies). The museum did not paint the US Government in a good light; it displayed a lot of propaganda materials used throughout the world against the US involvement. There was a big section of the museum dedicated to the victims of Agent Orange - gases used by the US throughout the war to burn leaves etc in the jungle to make it easier to fight the Vietcong. There are still thousands of children being born with disabilities as a result, pretty brutal.
We also took a day trip to the Chu Chi tunnels. During the war the Vietcong built a network of underground tunnels stretching over 200 kilometres used for hiding, food supplies and hospitals. We got to see some of the remaining tunnels and crawl through a 100 meter length tunnel that had been built bigger than the actual ones - that was hard work! We also got shown a lot of the tactics used by the Vietcong soldiers and saw a load of their traps.
Walked to the post office that was designed by Gustave Eiffel - I'd heard he wasn't bad at designing things so thought I'd check it out! Visited a few markets for a bit of haggling too.
When we weren't sight seeing we spent most of our time in Bui Vien street! Onto Mui Ne next!
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