Ho Chi Minh City is great! They have paved streets, neon signs outside bars and restaurants, and get this they even have a pizza hut and subway! When our bus dropped us off we turned around and the first thing we saw was the pizza hut logo. Its funny how when you are out of the country awhile anything in a new city that is American you instantly love. For example if you were at home you may never eat pizza hut and not like it all.. now you have been in a foreign country for a month and you see pizza hut and you instantly love it! I love pizza hut in any country so it was a win win for me! Of course we gave in and had it one night. The first night we found a little guest house, settled in and explored the city.
The next day we ventured out in search of the market. It was one of the better markets we have visited. Designer knock off shirts and jeans for cheap, along with the usual tourist t-shirts. There was just about everything you can imaine. Later that night we walked around looking for a cheap place to enjoy a beer. Its amazing how many bars have prostitutes sitting at the front when no one is there. Its funny because at every guesthouse we have stayed at there are signs in the room telling you they are not allowed back in the room. You can always tell them because they are dressed extremely scandalous compared to how the rest of the asian culture dresses. Another easy way to tell is when there is an old man sitting at a table with a few asian girls who dont look a day over 18.
The next day we started out taking a half day tour of the Cu Chi tunnels. The tunnels were used by the Vietcong during the war. The tunnels original started in 1948 when the French still occupied Vietnam. By the end of the Vietnam war over 200km of tunnels were established in Cu Chi alone. On the tour they showed also us a variety of boobytraps used by the vietcong. It was amazing how brutal some of the traps were and the damage caused by a hole in the ground and bamboo. They also had a firing range where you could shoot off guns used in the war. Of course I was stoked till I got in line and saw the price. 1 bullet= 35000 VND... In other words $1.75 per bullet with a minimum of 10 bullets.... $17.50 for ten bullets.. what a joke!! Back home you could buy 100 bullets for that price! So my day of shooting an M-16 will have to wait. We actually got to go into the tunnels too. Teala made it about 5 feet before she freaked out and ran back above ground. I continued on crouched down, almost in a crawling position. I feel bad for any soldier who had to go down in those things. It must have been frightening as hell. You cannot see anything unless you have a light, its a maze with turnoffs every 20 feet and its almost 100 degrees with an excrutating humidity. I did manage to get Teala to come down to take a picture with me before we had to leave!
After the tunnels, the tour bus dropped us off at the Vietnam Memorial Museum. Right out front they had a bunch of tanks, helicopters, jets and other military vehicles used during Nam. The museum was quite a learning exerience. They had a whole section dedicated to journalists from 11 different counties covering the war. Their pictures and stories were pretty amazing. Most of the journalist on display died durig the war. I think the most eye opening was the damage we caused during the war and the effects that still are still causing damage today. Our government lied about the amount of chemicals, like agent orange, we dumped in Vietnam. It wasnt until the 90s that the real numbers came out, they were about 10x the amount we said in the 70s. They had an entire section dedicated to chemical warfare and it was quite disturbing. The pictures of children still being born today with deformities. Some of these pictures were bad enough to make you sick.
The next day we were set to leave at 3pm. We had two goals: Last minute market shopping and go to the post office to mail stuff out since we were running out of room in our packs. We (Teala) got our last bits of shopping in and then found a ride to the post office. Our ride was a bike outfitted with a cart on the front. Check the pictures out, it was pretty interesting but sure beat walking with all our stuff the mile and a half to the post office. We packed the souveniers and some clothes we dont need into the box and shipped it to Korea...Thanks Kim! After that we hopped on the bus to our next destination... Mui Ne!
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