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We arrived in Saigon quite late at night, I had met a few girls on the bus down from Nha Trang so we got checked into a hostel and booked onto a trip to do the Cu Chi tunnels the next morning and then went to get a meal and back to the hostel for bed. The next morning we got up and got the mini bus with our tour guide and the rest of the people in the group. Our tour guide was a half filapino half vietnamese who had lived in America and thought for the Americans during the war so he had lots to tell us. We got shown a video about Cu Chi and a tour and then we got to go into the tunnels and climb through them for 120m. It was very small and hard work crawling hands and knees through the dark candle lit tunnel. After this we headed back to near where we was staying and got some lunch then to do some shopping (I needed to get new earphones). I had mentioned about the astonishing amount of traffic on the roads in Hanoi, well actually that was nothing looking at the roads here. They have seperate lanes just for scooters and bikes it is crazy the amount wizzing round and funny to see them all lined up at the traffic lights.
The next day me, Ata and Fran went on a one day trip to the Mekong Delta. We travelled for 3 and half hours to get there and went on a boat through the floating markets, then we stoped off at little villages, we got to see where they make honey, rice and cocunut candy.. This was way too touristy and all they really wanted was for us to by the products. Next we stopped off for lunch and chilled out in the hamocks after. They had bicycles at the restaurant so we went for a little ride down the lane and then got onto a little boat where a Vietnamese lady rowed us down the quiet little river back to our main boat.
On our 3rd day in Vietnam we visited the War Remenants Museum, a deffonate eye opener into what the country suffered and was put through during the war. It was hard to take in what the Americans actually did and how they could stoop so low. The pictures taken by journilists were pretty horrific of people being tortured. It also showed the effects of Agent Orange, during the war the U.S milatry sprayed nearly 20,000 000 gallons of chemical herbicides and defoliants on the country, not only meaning that thousands died but thousands of others were born with birth defects. The museum showed pictures and told stories of people affected by agent orange which I found upsetting.
My last day in Vietnam I got to meet back up with the pals from Thaintro that we left when we went to Malaysia so this was a happy reunion. We got a subway, aha yes they have a subway in Saigon and then Robbie, Dave and John went to the War Remenents museum and I went for a haircut and a manicure. The haircut was extremely cheap but the most expensive I could find and it turned out to be not too bad.
The next day we left in the morning for Pnom Pehn the Capital city of Cambodia. We got there in late afternoon and had a nap before going for a meal. The day after we got up early to visit S-21. This was pretty gruesome. S-21 was once a school but was turned into a torture prison by Pol Pots' people during the late 1970's. Many people were tortured here and kept in cells and then taken to the killing fields 20 minutes drive away to be executed and thrown into pits. We got to walk through the old classrooms that were made into torture chambers and prison cells. A few of the rooms had mugshots of every single person that had been bought there to be tortured these included pictures of women and children aswell as men. One of the buildings had the barbed wire covering the whole corridor this was to stop prisoners commiting suicide. It was pretty hard hitting stuff and to believe this happened only 30 or so years ago.
Our tuk tuk driver then drove us the 20 minutes to the Killing Fields. We walked in and in front of us was a huge stupa (a large glass and concrete tower). This contained 17 levels at the bottom it has some of the clothes that were found from the people who were bought to be killed here. The rest of the levels are made up of mostly skulls of people of all ages and sexes and then bones and teeth. There were pits around the fields containing hundreds of bodies in small spaces. We got to a tree in the field where babies were held by there legs and hit against the tree till they died and then tossed into a pit. It's quite scary to imagine all this and the victims as they were drove to the fields blind folded not able to do anything. Pol Pots was an evil man and I am shocked to learn about this happening. It has been an eye opening few days learning about the history of both Vietnam and Cambodia.
I am now in Sihanoukville in a quiet chilled out town by the Beach, it's called Serendipidy Beach.
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