Today we visited the Jade Pagoda, which is one of the most famous pagodas in HCMC. It was about a half hour cab ride through some of the busiest traffic we've seen in Vietnam. The thing that makes it busy is the number of cars. The city seems to bond well with bikes but as soon as you put a car on the road it chokes the road and bikes have to fight for their lives for the available space.

The highlight of the day was an afternoon visit to the Cu Chi tunnels. Unlike all the other tours that take you by road we took a tour that went up the Saigon River in a boat. It took a bit longer but it was more relaxing and showed us a taste of the life on the river.

The tunnels are a great example of how brains won over brawn in the Vietnam war. While the Americans were living it up in Saigon the Viet Cong were building an extensive tunnel network complete with booby traps for the unsuspecting American soldier.

Most of the tunnel building was carried out at night and it took 16,000 people about 20 years to complete this extensive network of tunnels. We got to Experience the tunnels in some places and you can see that they were built for people smaller than me.

We finished the day with a great dinner at an authentic restaurant recommended by one of our tour guides. The food was excellent and we fed eight of us more than we could eat for about $30.