We spent 4 days in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). We spent the first day walking around the city. There are millions of motorbikes, which can make crossing the road quite hard. Chris and I were put to shame by three 4 year old kids. We were cautiously crossing the road, step by step avoiding all the bikes and these three school children just boldly walked out into the middle of a roundabout while all these motorbikes were driving around them, and they made it to the middle quite safe and completely unfazed! We first went to the Reunification Palace, which was the presidential palace. It cost 50p to get in and with that you got a free English speaking guide (although it was debatable as to whether it was English she was talking because I only made out a few words here and there). The palace doesn't look much from the outside (an old 50s style building) but inside there are some impressive rooms. There is a helicopter on the top floor complete with landing pad! There is also a deep underground network of rooms which was used during the war, as a bomb shelter and a place to organise troops etc. We went to the War Remanents Museum, previously named "American and Chinese War crimes Museum". It basically shows many pictures from the war taken of troops and civilian victims of war, and the effects of those that were poisoned by war weapons such as napalm and Agent Orange and left with permanent scars or disabilities even today. It is actually quite horrifying to see some of the pictures and the crimes committed by the American troops on innocent Vietnamese people, including women and children. However you can certainly tell that history is always written by the winning side (That being the communist north). There is no mention of the crimes committed on civilians by their own Vietnamese troops from either the communist north army or the South government troops (who America were supporting). It makes it sound like the war was between Vietnam as a whole and America. The next two days we did tours to the Mekong Delta and The Cu Chi tunnels. One guide told us that he tried to escape the country 4 times and each attempt failed and he was caught and put in prison for 3 months by the communist troops, he said Ho Chi Minh would always be Saigon to him. Another guide told us he was in the south government army and many people call the war a Liberation of the south or a war against America but he sees it as a civil war. It was very strange to be in a country where war has been so recent that so many of the people around you were involved in the war in some way and have a story to tell, but all the Vietnamese are happy people and always have a big smile for you. The trip to the Mekong Delta (9 dragons) was brief, we only did a day trip and I think travelling through to Cambodia on a 3 day trip through the Delta would have been much better but unfortunately we were going in the opposite direction. It was a bit of a tourist trail but we got traditional music and the chance to try some Banana wine which tasted like whisky, and we went on a little boat through the smaller rivers. The main river was 3km wide, and there is lots of industry, they farm rice and make coconut sweets. We made sure we didn't lose our guide though as he told us that "all you westerners look the same" and if he lost us he wouldn't be able to find us. Our final trip was to the Cu Chi tunnels and the Cao Dai temple. Cao Dai is a religious sect that tries to bring together western and eastern religions. We went to the huge temple in Tay Ning. The temple has lots of colour and a big human eye as a symbol all over the building. All the women and men wear white and we got to view a ceremony. It is unlike any religion I have ever seen before. There are 2 million Cao Dai worshippers in Vietnam out of a population of 80+million. We went past the road that Kim Phuc (we just happened to go past they haven't made that into a tourist site just yet!) ran into, where the famous photo was snapped after a napalm bomb fell on her village during the war she is known as "the girl in the picture" a very famous picture from the Vietnam war. The Cu Chi tunnels are a network of underground tunnels used by the Viet Cong (communist guerrilla fighters). Lots of fighting took place here and there are huge craters left from the bombs. Many of the tunnels are still intact although we did get told they had widened them for tourists so they can get through them. The tunnels were quite claustrophobic, especially as there was a big group of us all stopping half way through the tunnels to take a photo which caused a bit of a traffic jam (not too good when you are stuck underground in a small and hot tunnel). I can't imagine what it must have been like for the fighters to have been stuck in the tunnels for months and months. There is also a shooting range on the site and you can shoot a gun if you want to, hearing the guns going off in the background was a bit eerie. You got to see all the traps the Viet Cong made for the American troops. At the start you watch a video, an introduction into the tunnels and Viet Cong soldiers, again you can tell history is written by the winning side! The Cu Chi tunnels are definitely a must see on a trip to Ho Chi Minh.