So, after the war remnants we caught a night bus to Nha Trang. Beachy place.. We decided not to stay for more than a day, but did hire a motorbike. Death on a stick you might think (I did) but it was fine (did let Mhairi drive though!!) I’m such a wuss sometimes, did have a wee go though.. and will do more I’m sure.

So we drove 40km out to Doc Let Beach. Nice place, until it started pissing rain. Serious thunder storm really. The place was *slightly* spoiled by the vendors trying to sell crab and shrimp. However, thankfully, we gave in eventually, and did buy some. And it was delicious.

I did kinda loose it slightly at one point. And pointed out to the lovely (but overly persistent..) lady selling shrimp, that we’d just taken a 10 hour night bus from Saigon, that I’d had about 3 hours sleep, that we’d just biked 40km, my bum was sore, and that I just wanted to be left in peace for a few minutes on the beach… but that we *would* come and find her and buy some shrimp later (thank you very much) She was pretty cool about it really and did leave us be… I think the desperation was showing!! :)

Actually, one of the reasons I only got 3 hours sleep was that I was busily finishing (simply could not put it down) Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Cannot wait for the last one now..

Shortly after lunch it started raining. Now when I say raining I mean the ‘I’ve been outside for .5 secs and now am soaked to the bone’ kinda rain. Comical.

We got *slightly* lost on the way back into town.. well, actually quite lost.. Mhairi was *amazing* driving.. really, we were going through flooded roads ‘n everyfink. Fairing quite well for our first foray on a motorbike I think.

Once we made it back into town.. we hired a cyclo driver – to cycle slowly along in front of us and guide us back to our hotel (our maps were (totally soaked) and lacked the detail needed to get back to where we needed to be)

Dinner and beer never tasted so good!

There are some pretty disturbing images here, apologies – skip if you want to.

Today started off nicely – up early and took a moto to the UK Consolate, where I showed them my neatly wripped passport. I was told there was nothing they could do (expected) and they could give me a form to write for a new one to Kuala Lumpa but that was it. She questioned whether I had had any problems with it so far – I said no… But anyway, I guess I’ll just go on and hope that I can get into Laos and Thailand (and home) without too many issues – hopefully I can get a new one when I am back in Dublin.. hopefully (and yes, I will remember to transfer my NZ residency visa!)

So after that I headed on to the History Museum. Mainly becuase I got disorientated and thought I was heading towards the Reunification Palace.

The museum was interesting, though I kinda lost track of the invasions and uprisings. For pretty much the last 2000 years someone or other has been trying to take control of this country.. mostly without success! Even the Mongols got repelled 3 times.

This pic is of a mummified vietnamese woman that was discovered in Ho Chi Minh a few years ago (she’s 80 odd and was born in the 1800s I think it was)

There was a lovely water-puppet show though, that was worth seeing. Apparently it takes 3 years to learn the art of doing it.

After that I took a moto back to the reunification palace (but it was closed until 1pm) wandered about (again taking the wrong turning – walked a good km around the block!) before settling down over lunch to read Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Mhairi very kindly swapped two of our old books for a $3 photocopy of the book.. and she’s not seen very much of me since to be honest!

Then we met up and went to the war remnants museum. It was, even more so I feel than the killing fields, a horrible exhibition of the utter futility and devasation of war. You *really* won’t understand until you come to this place and see for yourself. At one point (and you’ll see the pics if you want to) I was just standing in the room, and everywhere I looked it was just another picture of something horrible, something that shouldn’t ever be done to anyone. Some pics I didn’t take, mostly the ones of the burns (to they face, the eyes the body) – from phosphor and napalm.

We saw the deformities that a generation of children (Esp of VC fighters) were born with.

There was an exhibition (and tribute really) to the corageous photographers who tried to capture and bring back images of the war – so many of them died.

The two pics above are of a South Vietnamese soldier fleeing from his tank that the VC blew up with a mine. The second picture is a second explosion from another mine. There’s no third picture..

There were so many pictures which dealt with the torture that was performed on the enemy. I’m quite sure the VC did awful things too, but I guess you’d hope that our beackon of civilisation wouldn’t do things like dragging people behind their tank until they died – or looking quite the way this guy does picking up a bombed body.

Mind you, what with Guantanamo, and this practice of rendition? I think that’s what it’s called when you take someone away and hold them secretly in a country – and one that allows torture.. well, I wonder if we’ve learned from our mistakes. And it makes me kinda angry that it seems there’s so little we can do about it.

Sorry to ramble, it’s been a fairly shocking kinda day.

There was also a section on the propoganda, and the protests that went on around the world, and helped to bring about the end of the war. One of them showing that it was big military oriented corporations that were making billions from the war, and wanting it to continue (not that that happens any more of course… Iraq was never about the oil).

Sheesh, sorry, this is supposed to be a travelogue not a political diary!

Well, finally there’s a pic of me beside a tank. Big old things.

I would reccommed this museum very very highly if you ever make it to Ho Chi Minh. It made me feel like I ought to try and do something a little more useful – or devote some of my time to doing something good.. we’ll see.

Actually, on that note, mum and dad have been making wonderful progress in Uganda on the university. Even have students being taught at the moment. I know it’s pretty uncool to be super proud of your parents – but to build a university from scratch and have the first batch of students – all within 2 years.. well, maybe good things can be done.. (dad also takes a pretty good picture!) Can’t wait to see family again in a little under 2 months time.

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!