Today was another early start as we headed off for a half day trip to Cu Chi tunnels, about and hour and a half from HCMC.

Our guide, Gem (finally, a girl!) first took us to a local village to show us some crops growing including peanuts and bitter melon, the latter apparently stops you getting cancer.

Back on the road you noticed lots of rubber trees, the locals usually come to collect the rubber between 7-8am inthe morning from a diagonal cut in the bark, and will get about $2/litre of rubber. The trees last 30years or so but don't produce rubber for first 5years. Quite interesting I thought.

We the hot to the tunnels to learn more about how the Vietcong (VC) resisted the Americans in the south of Vietnam. Tunnels were built at 4 levels underground so the people could eat, sleep, get water and even fight there. These tunnels were quite amazing and ingenious in their set up and were dug by hand, around 150km over a period of 20 years. We were allowed to go in a tunnel to see what it was like for a distance of 60m. The tunnels for tourist have been made bigger, from 40cm in height to 60cm. I still had to crawl through them if course. It was pretty cool. Our guide also showed us different traps and weapons that were used during the war, mostly made by the Vietnamese people.

After a few hot hours there we headed back to HCMC. Exhausted, we had lunch and then stayed in for a few hours watching a movie to escape the heat. We headed out to an Indian restaurant for dinner and walked around a bit and stumbled on a street where all young Vietnamese girls gang out trying to get a western man! Lots of dirty old men around...!

When we hot back to the hotel we watched another movie, a kids one called 'Up', was really good!

This was our last day in Vietnam and overall I have enjoyed it. It's an amazing place and has many contrasts. The traffic in Hanoi and HCMC is the most crazy i have ever seen! Crossing the road is a mission! It is much quieter out of town and there are water buffalo like everywhere in Asia! Food was great most of the time and I do love the soups. Would definitely go back to Hue and Hoi An. Farewell Vietnam!