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Hi Everyone!
We are caught inside during a torrential downpour so figured writing our blog was a good way to wait for the storm to blow over! We got caught out last night when it started to POUR and we were soaked. It doesn't just drizzle like in Calgary, it pours. It is hilarious to watch all the motorbikes pull over and take our their ponchos and then just continue on, I don't know how they do it!
We started off this morning with a breakfast of champions. We had iced coffees (with sweet and condensed milk instead of just regular!!) and then split eggs and toast and banana pancakes (complete with chocolate drizzle). Then we were off the Cu Chi tunnels.
The tunnels were used by the Viet Cong to fight the Americans during the Vietnam war. The tunnels were all dug by hand and are very very small. Our tour guide was really funny and informative and at one point said "Americans like McDonalds and that is why they could not fit down the tunnels, because their asses are too fat!". So because all of us tourists want to see what the tunnels are like, they "westernized" one series of tunnels. Now you might be imagining us ducking down and walking leisurely through the tunnels but oh you would be wrong. The tunnel was still incredibley small and you had to crouch down and duck walk just to make it through. Now combine that with complete darkness and dampness and you should have a clear picture of the two of us. We only made it 20 metres and had to take the short way out (along with everyone else minus a few brave souls who went to the end), I (Heather) was a wee bit claustrophobic. The Americans never did defeat the Cu Chi guerilla fighters. It was interesting to learn how the Vietnamese fought against the very advanced American weapons. They would gather all the bombs that were dropped and then ones that didn't detonate (our tour guide said they didn't detonate because they were made by China) and would disassemble them and use the explosives to make their own land mines and other weapons.
Just to give you a more accurate representation of how the traffic looks here, we learned today that there are over 3 MILLION motorbikes on the road in Ho Chi Minh City, who I think has a population around 7 million!
Okay thats it, we are signing off!
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