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Day Fifty-OneCu Chi Tunnels & Reunification PalaceEarly start today as we had to grab breakfast pretty fast & run out the door to catch our bus to the Cu Chi Tunnels. I was really looking forward to coming to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) just so I could visit the famous tunnels. We sat at the breakfast table with a few girls that were staying at the hotel but they were eating breakfast & getting reaady to leave for a new desination. The girls explained that the manger woman of the hotel was crazy & very forgetful but it's an eventful stay & they liked it. They had said that the lady came in to their dormitry room in the middle of the night demanding thier passports even though she had them already - 100% loopy she was!We tried to sort out about paying for the rooms but the woman wasn't having any of it she just kept saying pay me later. We had to change rooms later because we had been put in the wrong room & there was no space for us last night. We didn't mind but I wanted to be sure that our bags would be safe downstairs in reception with us being out all day today & with the woman being as scatty as she was. We finally got collected by a tour representative & taken to the tour office to wait for the bus. It was total chaos & there was that many people all going on trips here & there nobody knew what bus to get on. An old man started to shout for the Cu Chi Tunnels so lots of people started to follow him to the bus, including us.We all started to get on the bus & off the bus drove. After a short distance & when the tour man had checked the tickets properly he shouted stop to the driver. He had forgot to say at the very beginning when we all were following that he was the tour guide for the full day tour & that people on the half day tour would have to get off the bus & walk back to the tour office to wait for another bus. Well that was it, most of the people on the bus got off in total frustration.Hooray we finally had a bit of organisation from the tour company & we were on the right bus. All seated we took off going on a mad one to pick up more people. One couple had just had enough so they demanded to be let off the bus because they weren't happy, so off they got & we continued. I can't begin to tell you about the sights along the way because once we knew we wouldn't be stopping again we rested our heads on each other & went to sleep for an hour or so.The next thing I felt Andy shaking me awake saying that the bus was stopping for a toilet break so we needed to get off & get some fresh air. The tour guide had mentioned that we were stopping a place where the Vietnamese war victims now work because they can't do many other jobs because of their injuries. We had stopped in a car park type of place & were pointed in the direction of the toilets. The place we stopped at was called the Handicapped Handicrafts & I could help but laugh at the name - I thought it was genius, best slogan I have ever heard!We had to walk through the entire workshop to get to the toilet. We could see how they were painting, sculpting & lacquering artistic designs so that they could be sold to tourists like us - unfortunately for them we weren't buying today. Lots of the people making these items had deformities of some kind & outside there was a man who worked there & you could see that one of his arms had been blown off. To be honest it was slightly sad seeing the people dealing with the aftermath of the war all these years later.Back on the bus & we were told that it was about another hour away to the Cu Chi Tunnels so that was it back asleep I went. We had been having rather late nights so I needed to catch up on my sleep somehow. I had been awoken again but this time it was for our entrance money in to the tunnels. We had to give our guide the ticket money as it was easier for him to buy all the tickets in bulk. With our tickets all handed out we went through the entrance barrier where we were given stickers to put on. We walked down this long tunnel pathway & on the other side was the jungle area. All the group congregated round so that the guide could talk to us. The first thing he said was for everyone to say on the marked out pathways because in the jungle area there is a very high possibility that there are still land mines underground & they don't have the technology to scour the area for the remaining undetonated ones left so it would be safer to not wander off. We walked along this pathway & we came to a big mound of soil on one side of the path. We had been told that it was a termite mound which the guerrilla warriors used as a mechanism for breathing in the tunnels below because of all the little holes the termites made in the ground was letting fresh air in but it was well disguised. The American soliders would not have a clue that termite mounds would be helping the people underground breathe.
I am sure that we would be learning a lot more about the tactics of survival during the war. Even from a few small minor bit of information that we had just been told I was extremely fascinated how the Vietnamese didn't need fancy weapons. These people knew the ins & out of their land & how to use the surroundings & naturistic life to their advantage - these people were very intelligent & 100% under estimated by the Americans.We continued to follow the guide where we were taken to a bamboo hut which had lots of bench seats, a tv screen & some diagrams with a map. In here we all sat down & there was a man talking & giving us more information about the network of tunnels, how the people lived in them & how they hid from the Americans. I was so fascinated by it all that I wanted to hear more & more. After the man had finished speaking a short film was on the tv for us to watch. The film showed old film from the war & the people in the war. It was helping to give us an insight in to what life was like during the war.
Once the short documentary was over the group followed the guide outside. He proceeded to take us further in to the jungle area until he just stopped. He asked the group why we think he has stopped in this particular place but none of us had a clue. When nobody could tell him the answer. He then bent down to the ground to his feet & he lifted up this small rectangular piece of wood which was on the ground & hidden with soil & leaves. No one could belive their eyes, never in a million years would we have spotted that whilst walking through the jungle alone. Once he had lifted the lid up he began to tell us that these small holes in the ground was where the Guerilla Warriors entered the tunnels without anybody knowing. They used these small holes against the enemy as they popped their heads & guns out of the tiny holes in order to kill the American Troops. None of the Americans could find these holes or traps. How can an American General go back to base without any of his troops because they were all dead & explain that he never actually seen anyone shooting or where the shooting was coming from.
The guide asked if anyone fancied trying to get down the hole & of course I couldn't miss that oppourtunity. The hole was so tiny & in width it was no bigger than the guides foot & the length was only that bit bigger. Using my hands & arm strength I lowered myself down in to the hole. In order to get right down I had to bend down with my arms in the air till I was completely in the hole. Inside the hole you could see the start of the tunnels & they were very small indeed. Inside the hole I was very claustrophobic & certainly wouldn't have liked to be stuck down their for years on end. To get out of the hole I had to raise my arms in the air first & then to stand up, you needed a lot of arm strength to pull yourself up & out of the holes.
Moving on the next thing that we were taken to was the traps. We were shown typical examples of traps in the ground which had been made by the Vietnamese to either kill or seriously injure the Americans. There was one trap that rotated right around & if you stood on it then you were likely to be a gonner as whoever fell would be landing on big massive spikes sticking out of the ground & directly below the trap. These spikes would pierce your skin in an instance. There was lots of booby-trap methods which were used & the effectiveness of them was unreal. If I was an American solider I would have been afraid, very afraid. The tour continued & we where taken to opening of a tunnel that had been excavated so that you could fully see what the entrance would have been like & the actual size of a working tunnel.
Further on from the tunnel we were taken to be shown a big massive US tank which was used in the war. To be honest we weren't particular interested in seeing it as the ones in the War Musuem in Hanoi where well better. There was a black couple from London that had proper rattled my cage & got me angry. As we stood there the woman was protesting how disgusted she was that people were happy & smiling whilst climbing over a tank that had killed hundreds of people yet, her boyfriend lit up a ciggeratte, hung it from the side of his mouth like he was trying to be an American solider & then proceeded to climb all over the tank like a prat whilst his brain dead girlfriend satisfingly took pictures - We had to walk away before I said something.
The next area we where taken too, all you could hear was almighty loud bangs. They were the loudest bangs that I have ever heard in my life. It wasn't long before we realised that we where in the area where you could actual fire real life guns. There was mass amounts of people all queing up getting ready to pay to shoot guns. It was ridiculous! They were charging £1 per bullet with a minimum buy of 10 bullets. You could shoot anything you liked from an AK47's to a M16's. It was crazy & the guns probably had property of the United States of America blasted all over them. When we looked around we weren't surprised to see the stupid London couple from earlier queing up like firing guns was going out of fashion.
Fed up being stuck in a farce of shooting guns we took ourselves off to buy ice-cream. We happily sat on a bench in the sunshine whilst we waited for the rest of our group to finish off either shooting guns or mooching around the little gift shop. Once everybody had been gathered together again it was time to be taken to the tunnels where the public could actually have a go at climbing down. This was the part that I had been looking forward to all day. As we had done our research about the tunnels Andy had the brain wave of bringing his head lamp on the tour so that we could use it whilst climbing down the dark damp tunnels.
There was a little straw cover over the tunnel entrance & we all had a choice of how far we wanted to crawl through the tunnels. We were warned that they were very small & people with heart conditions where advised not to go down. There were 3 distances that you could go. A short distance of 10 meters which brought you to an exit, a distance of 30 metres & then a distance of 60 metres. We hadn't come this far to wimp out & we where going the whole distance for sure!
We decided to wait & be the last people in the tunnel so that we could take our time & not be rushed. We could also use the head lamp to have a good look around at the tunnels. Right that was it, we were inside. We had to climb down a few steps so that we where underground then the tunnel began. They were very very low & narrow, you could immediately feel the heat as soon as you crawled inside. It was unbelievable to think that families & hundreds of people lived in these tunnels for years. We crawled further & further threw & it was beginning to get deeper & more narrow underground. At one point we where nearly on our stomachs pulling ourselves through. I have to admit that it was really claustrophobic, tight, sweaty & somewhat scary. We had finally made it through the whole 60 metres of tunnels.
With climbing through the tunnels as the last part of the tour we where then taken back to the car park & back on the bus for the 2 hour journey back in to Saigon. We were glad to get back on the bus because it had air conditioning. With climbing through the tunnels we were hot & sweaty. Anyone who climbed through would have been stinking like us. On the bus we got chatting to another couple who where lovely. He was from London & his girlfriend was Swedish but she lived in London too. We chatted about where they had been travelling too for the past year & how they found Australia. Before we knew it the bus had arrived in Saigon & was kicking us of.
We had decided that we would only be staying in Saigon for 2 nights so we best had make the most of sight seeing as hopefully later we would either be booking the bus to the border to cross in to Cambodia or we would be going to the floating markets on the Mekong River. We decided that we would head to the Reunification Palace to have a look around before grabbing some tea & deciding our next plan of action for our travel plans. Using the map we navigated from where the bus had kicked us off to where the palace was.
As we approached the palace, when looking at pictures of the war it looked virtually exactly the same as it did back in 1975 when the US Army stormed the gates & took control over Saigon bringing the war to an end. We paid our small entrance fee & we had to be scanned before we were allowed to enter inside. Behind the big massive gates leading out on to the road there was a huge fountain infront of the main door. Inside the ground where fighter planes that were used in the war.
We walked up the main doors of the palace & inside was magnificant. You couldn't enter the rooms as there were barriers that you couldn't cross but you could look in to the rooms. There was a room for all occassion. There was a sitting room, a dining room, a conference room, bedrooms - this place was huge. It was great to think that this was the control centre for the South of Vietnam during the war. The further we walked around the more rooms we got to see. There was even an old cinema room on the top floor, this place was amazing.
We walked in & out of every room that we were allowed to enter before making our way back to the ground floor. When entering the palace we hadn't actually realised that there was also a basement area that you could check out so we headed down to see it. Down in the basement there were lots of smaller rooms. There rooms had what looked like old fashioned call centres with the telephones. There was a radio control room, a filing room & this pretty much had not changed one bit - it was great!
Out of the basement & we entered a room which had lots of old photographs on the wall & in big albums that you could look through. We spend quite a bit of time going through all the old photographs as it was really interesting & fascinating plus we where getting to learn the South side of things from the war. There was lots of old pictures of the palace but it really hadn't changed at all & it was amazing to see the pictures from 1975 which recorded the events of the Palace being stormed.
Looking at my watch it was nearly 6pm & we hadn't had much to eat since breakfast so we decided that it would be a good idea to try & hunt some decent food down real soon. On our way back from the palace we popped in & out of different travel & tour agencies to see what they were offering in terms of going to the Mekong Delta to see the floating markets & then taking us through to Cambodia or the option of just taking us straight to Phnom Penh in Cambodia. We must have been in & out ten different places before our brains where exhausted. We decided to head back to the hotel, have a rest & re-evaluate the situation, possibly check in our guide books before making a decision.
We got back to the hotel & the crazy lady was asking for my help with something to do with her computer. Whilst Andy had gone to sort out about putting our bags in the new room with us having to change rooms I stayed in reception & helped the crazy lady. After we had a rested in our new room & searched through our books for the best option to take, we had decided that if we could find the right price then we would spend a few more days in Vietnam & do the Mekong Delta. In the guide book I found the address for the most famous travel agency Sinh Tourist (which used to be Sinh Cafe) so that we could go & speak with them to sort out our plans. Back out the hotel & the Sinh Tourist was on the same main street from our alley way so it wasn't far to go at all.
Inside we went to the counter & spoke to one of the many representatives there about our plans. They had a tour which took you to the exact same places that we wanted to see but we weren't sure about being stuck on a tour, we wanted to do things for ourselves. We got the information leaflet from the man & he confirmed the price to us. We decided that we would go for food, discuss the itinerary & then come back to the travel office.
Further down just of the main street we saw a little dingy street cafe. As we were so tired at this point we just sat down & tried to order some food. Nobody could speak English at all & they certainly didn't have an English menu or a clue about what we were on about. In the end we stood up & went over to other people's tables where they were eating & we pointed at the food they were eating. Sure enough we got what we had pointed out & the food was the most delicious food that we have had in weeks. With the discussions of our travel plans continuing the food sure didn't last long on the plate & when we went to pay we couldn't belive the price. It had just cost us £1.20 for two big massive plates of food.
Back in the Sinh Tourist we had made a decision that it would be cheaper & easier for us to go on the Mekong Delta tour with them than it would be doing it ourselves. Plus the tour including the border crossing to Cambodia & 2 nights accommodation so we couldn't complain. We now just hoped that the Sinh Tourist lived up the excellent reputation that it has earnt over the years.
Back in the hotel we had lots to sort out as we were due to leave at 7 am the next morning. We went to the reception desk where the crazy was & we asked could we pay our room bill. For some reason she was on a proper mad one & she was only charging us for one nights stay & the nights stay she was charging us for was cheaper that in should be because I had helped here earlier on with her computer. She really went on a mad one then & started to try & give us free big bottles of water. We have to admit that we weren't complaining at all so we paid the price of 1 night when we actually stayed 2 nights & we took our passports back & headed to the room. She was one crazy lady that we rather liked & she had taken a shine to me!
Back in the room it was time to get packing & sorting ourselves out as here we come to the Mekong Delta tomorrow. Whoop whoop.......................
- comments
jacks and badge once again brilliant reading, this explorin is tiring me out cos i feel as if im doing it with u 2, luv and miss u both extra zillions xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx