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An early morning flight brings me to the emerging economic hub of Ho Chi Minh City... also known as Saigon!
The city runs a continuous soundtrack loop of mobile phones tweeting, horns honking, screeching metal doors signalling the beginning of another business day. Even in the wee hours the chaotic traffic only ebbs slightly, and soup steams from streetside cauldrons all day and all night. HCMC is nonstop, a city of pilgrims seeking fortune and open 24 hours for the next big thing. Wherever you go, you have to cross the manic street eventually and the survival tip seems to be "step into the street and walk slowly across so drivers can see you and drive around you"....either that or wait for a local crossing the street and creep behind....
The heart of central HCMC works in Districts 1 & 3, where stately tamarind trees shade fading French colonial buildings and narrow Vietnamese shophouses. High-rise hotels jostle with towers of commerce near Saigon River. And everywhere, HCMC residents are on the go. High-society families and poverty-stricken street kids are part of the masses in a city where beauty and ugliness are caught in the same blink of an eye.
Apparantly the city has the most determined thieves in the country and you are constantly warned to be aware. Drive-by crooks on motorbikes can steal bags of your arm and sunglasses off your face, and pickpockets work all crowds. Cute children crowding around you selling postcards and newspapers aren't as sweet as they look! Taking cyclos during the day is generally safe but not so at night.
I stayed pretty local to the Ben Thanh Market and the city's main shopping district. It's just a hustle and bustle of street venders with stalls selling everything from clothes, teddies, cheap jewellery & knocked-off perfumes, all fighting for your attention. Also where i bought my new Chanel watch... genuine of course... :-). Bargain hard is the name of the game here. Anything they ask for, half it and work your way up to a mutual price. Usually about 40% of what the originally ask! As i walk the streets of the markets the pungent smells of fish & rice & lemongrass are floating through the air from the nearby roadside cafes & restuarants. Again all fighting for your attention and business, pulling you into their establishments.
Took a cyclo tour of the city, stopping off at the War Remnants Museum & Reunification Palace. Documenting the atrocities of war, the War Remnants Museum is unique yet brutal but an essential visit. On display are retired artillery pieces, a model of the tiger cages used to house Viet Cong prisoners, and a heartbreaking array of photographs of the victims of war - those who suffered torture as well as those born of birth defects caused by the USA's use of defoliants (Agent Orange)...not for the faint hearted.
The Renunification Palace has been left just as it looked on the momentous day Saigon surrendered in 1975. Around the area is long gardens covered by shady oak trees. These are now the streets in which pedestrians and traffic use on a daily basis.
It was a bright and early start the next day....visit to the Cu Chi tunnels. Probably what I'd been looking forward to most in Vietnam. The 200km of tunnels became legendary during the 1960's. The network, parts of which were several storeys deep, included innumerable trap doors, specially constructed living areas, storage facilities, weapon factories, field hospitals, command centres and kitchens.
It's possible to actually ascend into the tunnels...and of course I did! I was pretty damn horrified when i got down there though. The tunnels have been made slightly larger for tourists to have a quick sample of what it was like. I was pretty much claustrophobic after about a minute and a half. I only crawled about 20 metres but i couldn't wait to get out. Its dark and damp with hardly any air. Feeling along the walls is the only way of directing your way through. At one point i could hear a couple of german people up in front but i had just come to an opening of another 2 passages and couldn't determine which direction they were in, never mind which way i had to to go to get out. All i knew was that one tunnel would have an opening in about 5 metres and the other 2 would be about another 20 metres...i wanted the first!! My body fit in with about half a meter in diameter around me left. At the opening they're bigger but as you get down under ground it's pretty awful. Considering these narrow passageways were half the size they are now, I gained an empathetic, and claustrophobic awe for the people who spent weeks at a time underground. But these simple passageways & old fashioned traps definately played a huge role in Vietnam winning the war over America. Actually feeling pretty breathless thinking about it now...
Let off some steam by going to the shooting gallery. The whole time in the tunnels and walking around the area we could hear guns going off but didn't quite know why...thought there had just been another invasion.... but as we were drawing closer to the chilling sound of gunfire we realised it was a shooting gallery. 10,000 dong for 5 rounds...yip, me and Lynne were def up for a bit of gun action. Everyone else crapped out...even the boys! It was too loud apparently and hurting their ears... So off we went....aw, what a buzz! Who knew pulling the trigger of a gun could give you so much satisfaction....that probably sounds terrible but it was awesome. It was absolutely deafening but thats what the lovely big leather earmuffs are for! Lynne took her last shot as i took off my ear guards and it did hurt! I was standing about 2 metres away from her and it wasn't very pleasent! I now know how people can get trigger happy...obviosuly i was shooting at steel barrels and drums but it was a very cool experience...
Later on a few of us went out for a nice dinner and talked some politics....sorry, that was the name of the cocktails we were drinking! Walked down designer avenue on the way home and passed Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Chanel..... Unbelievable. Never expected to walk down such a pretty lantern & fairy lit street of designer shops in Vietnam...just goes to show you! Would have ventured in and made lots of purchases but didn't want to bring the tone down with my flip flops and 3/4 lengths.... :-)!
It was pretty late but we thought there would be a few bars open on the way home.......not a sausage! Luckily when we did get back there was a little street vendor selling beers...so she pulled us up a plastic table and a couple of plastic chairs...the ones you sit on at play school...yes thats how small they were. Funny though! That funny, we ended up on the same street corner the next night with a few more recruits to the gang. Luckily all heading to Cambodia the next day! We all had the pleasure of staying in Chau Doc, the border town before heading to Cambodia by boat....but thats another long, but interesting story.....
Cxxxx
Ps.. think all my pics from Hoi An are uploaded now. Most of Saigon should be up soon...but as i keep saying.. technology ain't the best here!!
Pps... how could i forget.... we went bowling in Saigon on our last day. It was mad... zebra print sofas, funky shoes - was such good fun. And even better was the 2 out 3 wins for me...
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