Up at 7:30 and off on our tour. First it was to the Cao Dai HQ. Cao Dai is pretty much a Vietnamese only religion, don’t think it’s made it out of there really. Though there are a few million of them practicing it. Basically it’s a fusion of Catholosism, Buddhism and Taoism.

It is also, as you can see, a very colourful religion. The followes wear different colours depending on how far they have progressed in the religion. At least that’s what my book says. Red is for catholocism, Yellow Buddhism and Blue for Taoism.

Our excellent tour guide (nicknamed Jacky by the Americans – who he worked for as translator – and served 3 years in prison for as he was a second leutenant), was a mine (bo boom) of information about the tunnels that the VC used (Viet Cong by the way is a play on Vietnamese Communist)

They had 250km (staggering) of tunnels around this place – 80km or so outside of Saigon. It was the staging area for many georilla attacks. 250km, unbelieveable.

I’ve left that map quite large if you click on it – the dark lines are the tunnels. The red area was an American free fire zone. Basically they bombed the area relentlessly, as often as they wanted, anytime of the day or night. The pink areas show the areas that supported the VC (gave them food etc), as obviously, what was once a lush productive area was reduced to worse than ashes. Worse.. so much agent orange and napalm, the injuries were horrific, utterly, and the birth defects afterwards – just awful. One really hopes that when they were doing this they had no idea that babies would be born in the way they were. Hardly bares thinking of (but we should, I think)

There are so many awful things we learned, it’s a must see if you come here, I’ve heard there are better tunnel systems up in the DMZ (Demilitarised Zone) up by Hue, that we will probably check out up there, but it was an interesting tour – Jacky was excellent.

Mhairi was small enough that she was allowed into the tunnels (which you could not see when it was closed – perfectly fitted entrances – never flooded!)

We saw many of the really nasty traps that were made.. trapdoors with spikes of bamboo to impail yourself on, holes to fall into and have spikes chop your legs of.. traps so that when you open a door a plank of nails (cleverly hinged so that it swings into you if you try to block it) falls down heavily and probably disembowels you..

These guys really knew how to fight. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not glorifying war in any way shape or form – but it’d be close to suicide to have entered their tunnels.. they did ingenious things with very basic materials.

Jacky was saying that they faught – suicide even – because they believed totally in what they were fighting for. Iraq must be the same – I would agree with our guide – that it is impossible to beat an enemy like that – on their own soil with popular support. If there is popular support that is. Looks like the latest constitution vote came through well.. I hope they can know peace and begin to put things back together.. but you can certainly see similarities..

After getting into our really excellent hostel it was time for a relaxing day. I think the shock of this made Mhairi feel unwell ;) (joking joking) but unfortunately she was feeling pretty unwell for the day, but seems to be back in form now anyway. So while she took it really easy and had a good sleep, I headed out with a guy – Chris – for lunch..

Australian – fun guy – used to work in the coogee bay hotel (Apprently a big pub in Sydney) even organising comedy nights etc… Anyway, here we’re having lunch from a roadside eatery. Well, drinkery really. They have this stuff called Bia Hoi (new beer I think it means) and it’s made fresh each day and delivered all around vietnam. And it’s good to drink. And it costs 4000Dong for 2 Litres. That’s roughly 25Cents for 2 Litres. Of Beer. For 25 Cents. 8 Litres for a Euro.

Dangerous place Vietnam, very dangerous.

All in all though it was a pleasant day – catching up on mails, getting washing done (first time we’d stayed put in over a week.. and I only have 2 sets of clothes really ;) ) Mhairi was feeling herself again by the evening.. so we made ready to go on a tour to the Cu Chi tunnles (Viet Cong) tomorrow.

So off on our bus at 7:30 to Vietnam. Well, to the Mekong again where we caught a boat to Chau Doc. The border crossing was unbelievably smooth. Except that the border guard tore a page in my passport. It’s not actually wripped off completely.. but there’s no Irish Embassy in Vietnam (and, to be honest, I don’t much feel like wasting a day seeing if they can fix it up at all). But I’m hoping it’s not going to cause me issues. I think Laos should be fairly cruisey really, and Thailand too, and after that it’ll be back to good old Dublin, so maybe I’ll get a new passport once I get home.. we’ll see. But it does make me a tiny bit nervous should I actually lose part of the page. Does anyone know.. are you allowed to make sellotape repairs yourself? I doubt it.

Anyway, the rest of the trip was pleasant enough, it’s much much nicer going on a smooth river than a bumpy road! Our lovely guide Sun pointed out the boat people doing illegal trade in cigarettes (from Cambodia) and lots of other things that we’d never have noticed.

Our hostel that evening was the first one we needed (or indeed were given) a mosquito net. Yay. Had a short walk up the hill to lookout over the plains (pic above).

The next day we were supposed to be heading onto Ho Chi Minh but elected instead to extend our tour by one day and go do a ‘homestay’ instead. It was worth doing, though I think we were unfortunate that instead of being 2 or maybe 4 farang at the homestay, there were 9 of us! Still, it was just 6 of us for most of the day.

Upon arrival (and green tea) it quickly descended into drinking. Or ascended.. whatever, basically it was a rice-wine we were drinking. Our hosts were celebrating the anniversary of their grandfather. And they were doing so in style. They drank out of shot-glasses. The thing was, if they offered you a drink you pretty much had to accept. Now, you had to match what the other person did, so if they drank the whole thing in one go, you had to as well.

1) Choose the person you are going to drink with
2) Drink a portion of the glass (usually 50% or all)
3) Hand glass to your drinking buddy, and have them finish
4) Repeat, and repeat, and repeat (with different people in the room).

So by 2pm we were all a little merry – though I think they’d started at 8am or something so were fairly trollied. At 4 we made an escape to have a wander around the village area. Here you can see Mhairi crossing a monkey bridge. So called because you bend down while crossing to hold the handrail, and you look like a monkey or something! The other pic is Mhairi, Elizabeth and Stephane (a French & Canadian couple we met on the bus) swimming in the mekong. Dunno how clean the water was, but it was refreshing that’s for sure.

The one nasty experience here was when I just stepped off the path to relieve myself quickly, but I stupidly didn’t look where my feet were going (not that I’d have seen anything perhaps), and fairly (well, very) I’d irritated rather a lot of red ants, who proceeded up my legs and had a nice little munch. The saying ‘ants in your pants’ has a whole new meaning for me now :)

This pic is not of the ants that went after me (which were really red)… but I thought this was kinda cool – they’ve captured a worm!

Then it was back on the tour, clockwise from top left.. rice factory, a floating market (the stick sticking up from the boat shows what they’re selling!!), Mhairi (in trad garb) and our guide Sun, and finally, a wee Vietnamese boy with a cool t-shirt

Then it was on to Ho Chi Minh, I ate 3 ice-creams when we stopped for a break. I’ve missed good ice-cream, and thanks to the Americans the Vietnamese developed a taste for it!!

And now in Saigon, and just having a chilled out day, it’s nice to just stop for a few days. Our room even has a fridge, which is soon to be full of tonic if I can find some!

There’s a slideshow of Angkor Wat here and a short video of the traditional dancing here

After getting back from Kratie spent the night in our hostel, and the next morning boarded a bus to Kampot which is on the south coast (pretty much). Our aim was to get down there early enough to go to the Bokor Hill station (an old French resort – casino etc – all abandoned) but our ‘3’ hour bus ride ended up taking 6 (this is usual) so we ended up chilling out for the afternoon (well I did – had a nice chat and a cuppa coffee with an American x-pat now coffee house owner).

It’s a pretty lazy sleepy kinda town.

My Americans friends favourite pasttime was watching the river go slowly by (it reverses direction twice each day with the tide! – it’s an inverse tributary of the Mekong (my brother Matt’s words ;) Still, a lovely evening, sent a few mails, caught up on my news.bbc.co.uk and my Irish Times. That evening we went to the Rusty Keyhole restaurant on advice from the Lazy Gecko restaurant in Phenom Penh. For the bbq ribs. I can now recommend this to anyone, it was a yum and extremely filling dinner!, and chatted away (over 7% beer) with Dan and Nell a lovely English couple.

Next morning at 8am it was off to Bokor Hill station. On the left hand side of the truck is Mhairi, Nell and Dan

I stayed in the back of the truck up onto the highlands, but once up there I capitulated and moved into the cab. As my Grandpapa says ‘any fool can be uncomfortable‘, not that it was foolish to go in the back of course, I just preferred the comfortable front! Getting old I must be.

It was nice and cool up there. I think you have to be here in the humidity and heat to really appreciate our colder climates. Honestly, just walking up a hill the other day I was utterly drenched in sweat after about 10 mins. Sorry, just thought I’d share ;) but it makes me appreciate and even long for the freezing house in ChCh where I have to get from bed into down jacket in one quick move!

So yes, Bokor – used to be a posh French resort when they were the colonial powers here. You can see the catholic church in the distance.

Apparently there’s a wicked New Years Eve party in the old abandoned (complete with bullet holes) casino. This building (which I climbed onto the roof of) was in a film called ‘City of Ghosts’. Well, so we’re told at any rate.

Then it was back to town, and as we wanted to get moving again – this time to Vietnam, we caught a taxi (150km for $30) back to Phenom Penh. It was worth it just for the comfort factor too. Tried to get moola out of one of the three ATMs in the country!, but no joy, still, we had enough dollars left to make it to Vietnam. Or so we hoped.