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Vietnam – Ho Chi Minh City
Arrived on the 15th October (Thursday) First thing we had to sort out was our visas. Luckily the country let us in, so off we went to collect our bags. We had arranged with the hostel we had booked too pick us up from the airport….good job too!!! The journey was mental, it was pouring it down. The streets were flooding, there were motorbikes/scooters everywhere on the roads as well as crazy car drivers. You have never seen anything like it, as for the high way code!! Screw that…it doesn’t exist here. We can gather that they drive on the right side, however it’s more of a free for all!!! No one sticks to the right side, they even drive the scooters on the pavement!!! The drive to the hostel took about 2 hours, which was meant to be a 35mins journey.
Finally we arrived at the hostel….My My Arthouse. A really nice hostel, a lovely friendly family ran it. They even had their own travel company so we were pleased. By now it was pretty late so we decided not to go back out to crazy town until morning!
16th October (Friday)
Today was spent exploring the city, the lady at the hostel had given us a tourist map with all the sites to see. So off we went to figure out this crazy city. Our first experience of crossing the streets was scary, but we lived to tell the story! Started with the war museum, here we saw a lot of tanks, fighter planes etc. Inside the museum was filled with the history of the Vietnam War. This is not a nice place if you are an American. It was very anti the Americans, however it was very interesting and we did learn a lot about the war! After the museum we carried on out your. Next was the French Built Post Office, an impressive building. We planned to go to the Palace next, however it didn’t open till 1pm so we stopped for some lunch.
1pm we visited the Reunification Palace, a massive building built in 1966 to serve as South Vietnam’s presidential palace. We took the hour tour of the palace, looking around the different floors. No one lives in the palace anymore, but all the rooms are left how they were. It even had a cinema and a casino on the entertainment floor.
As soon as we left the palace, the havens opened so we spent the next hour undercover at the entrance with all the locals, waited until it passed over before heading back out. Once it slowed down a bit we made our way to Notre Dame Cathedral, built between 1877 and 1883 by the French. The rain continued so we headed back to the hostel to get ready for dinner.
17th October (Saturday)
Today was an early start. We had booked onto a tour, which picked us up from the hostel. A 2 hour coach ride took us to Tay Ninh, where we visited the Cao Dai Great Temple. This temple is the headquarters of one of Vietnam’s most interesting religions. Cao Daism is a religion that contains elements of Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Christianity and Islam, only 2 million practices the religion in Vietnam (a population of 80 million). They take part in 4 daily ceremonies 6am, midday, 6pm and midnight. We were lucky to have the chance to see the midday ceremony. A very interesting ceremony, was great to see them practice such a different religion. The temple itself was fascinating, full of amazing detail and bright colors. After the temple we were taken to a local restaurant for lunch.
Back on the coach for an hour before arriving at the Cu Chi tunnels…this place was awesome!!! We loved it. Ryan got the chance to fire a M16 assault rifle, which mad his day! The noise was incredible, we both lost our hearing for a good 5 mins, took a day for Ryan’s to get back to normal. We also both braved the tunnels, Ryan managed 40 meters, and Kimmy crawled 60 meters. It was easier for me as I’m small hehe….the tunnels were incredilaly hot and tiny!!! You had the chance to crawl 120 meters but no way, half way was enough! During the tour of the tunnels we got to see a lot of the original and copies of the traps made by the gorilla soldiers to kill the Americans. The gorilla soldiers were the ones who lived in the tunnels as well as the locals of Cu Chi. A very interesting story of how they survived.
18th October (Sunday)
Yet again another early start. Today we were taking the tour to the Mekong Delta. Took a 2 hour coach journey to where we then got on a very dodgy boat…with no life jackets!!! Unstable seats which weren’t even fixed to the floor. A very smokey engine and the Mekong Delta water was very wavy and not clean…brown coloured!!! The boat planned on taking us to 3 of the islands, the first island we saw coconut candy being made and even got to try the different flavors. They also make banana wine and snake wine…our first site of the cobra snake in a bottle!! Back on the boat for a short hop to the next island. Here we got on some very unstable bikes (brakes not working) cycled around the town for about 45 mins. Before stopping for some lunch. After lunch we hopped back on the boat (at this point the weather had turned so the boat was rocking even more than earlier). When we arrived at the final island we changed over to smaller canoe style boats, where 2 locals row for you. 4 people to a boat and we were taken through a narrow stream which goes through the island, passing a lot of locals and their mud huts! Stopped off at a little village for fruit tasting and traditional music and dancing, tried some dragon fruit…similar to Kiwi fruit but white with black seeds!! We were then taking to the bee farm, where they showed us how they made their local honey. Got to try some honey tea as well as some banana wine…I also ate some ginger thinking it was dried pineapple….YUK!!!! One crazy local brought out a massive python snake, some of the Australians were brave enough to hold it around their neck!!! No thanks…..After the snake we were taken back to the boat to make our way back to solid ground!!
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