Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City)
Our visit to Hoi An was longer than expected, so rather than endure a 30 hour bus journey to Saigon we splashed out on a domestic flight and saved ourselves some time. Technically the city was renamed to Ho Chi Minh City after the north and south of Vietnam were reunified, but Saigon is the name that nearly everyone still use.
The day we arrived was extremely hot. The air temperature at Da Nang airport, near Hoi An, was showing 42°C. Arriving in Saigon it felt nearly as hot. After cooling down in our air con room we decided to visit the War Remnants Museum. The hotel staff warned us it would be shutting quite soon so we needed to go now and recommended taking a moto taxi. We hopped on the back of two bikes and set off. It was approaching rush hour so the roads were busy, but my driver was a lunatic. I think red lights and oncoming traffic were just an excuse to go faster. We must have set a new record getting to the museum and I reckon that was the cheapest, white-knuckle ride I've ever had!
The museums in Hanoi were pretty rubbish but thankfully Saigon's museum was much better. It was still quite biased, as you would expect, but they better explained what led to the war and the impact it had on the country. The highlight was a photographic exhibition of images captured by war photographers, all of whom were killed in action. The photographs were taken by men (and one woman) who were from a range of nationalities, including Vietnamese.
There was a hall dedicated to the effects of dioxin (aka Agent Orange), a chemical weapon that was used by the Americans to destroy vegetation. However, it had devastating and unexpected effects on humans. The images were harrowing and very saddening. Once again we felt thankful for where and when we were born.
The following day we took a tour to the Cu Chi tunnels, a complex of tunnels used by the Viet Cong to shelter from American bombs. Friends had warned us that this was very touristy but we had skipped doing the tunnels near the DMZ at Hue so it was now or never. Fortunately we had a fantastic guide, he was South Vietnamese, a veteran of the war and fought with the Americans. He was a real character and his favourite expression was "bull shit". Apparently, the museum we had just visited was a "bull shit museum"! During the journey to the tunnels he gave us his account of the war, how the communists had killed his fiancé and taken his family, possessions and career away from him. I learnt more about the war listening to this for an hour than all the museums we had visited!
En route we stopped at a workshop where young land mine victims were given an opportunity to work together and create handmade artwork and homewares. The stuff they had on sale was fantastic, but how exactly could I fit a dinner place mat set, complete with presentation box, in my backpack?
Our tour of the Cu Chi tunnels began with a circa 1975 propaganda video, dubbed in English. They would refer to Viet Cong fighters as "American killer heroes". Much of what was on show were demonstrations of the guerilla warfare methods the Viet Cong used. The large array of traps looked just as deadly as they do in the movies. We got the impression that other tour guides were quite pro-communist, but our guide was more matter of fact and told us stories from his experience of fighting against the Viet Cong. He lost many friends fighting them but had a great deal of respect for their resilience and ingenuity.
The highlight of the tour is actually walking through a section of the tunnels. There are some 200 kilometres of tunnels but today we were experiencing just 120 metres. The tunnel had been widened by 20cm, to accommodate fat westerners, but the height remained the same. Shorter people, such as Nilgun, were able to walk through bent over but I had to shuffle in a squatting position or get on my hands and knees. I know I'm a lot taller than the average Vietnamese but it was hard to comprehend that entire communities lived down in the these tunnels.
That pretty much wraps up our visit to Saigon, next we're off on a tour to the Mekong Delta then to island of Phu Quoc.
