Ho Chi Minh City

Next stop was Ho Chi Minh city or Saigon as it is also still known in Vietnam. For a bit of a change and a chance to see some of the Vietnamese countryside we decided to take the day bus rather than the overnight sleeper. After so many night buses we worked out that after waiting around all day for the bus to leave and then sleeping most of the next day due to not sleeping on the bus we would be better off travelling in the day.


The bus follows the only major road in Vietnam (Highway 1) and as we headed south along the coast for much of it's journey it offered us great views of the beaches that Vietnam is becoming famous for. Finally the road turned inland towards HCM city and as we drew closer the sights began to change from the rural, sleepy towns to more factories and high rise buildings. After 12 hours we finally we arrived in a large, modern bustling city unlike anywhere else we had seen in Vietnam. Even though Hanoi is the capital, HCM city is definitely where the money is and far more westernised than the rest of the country which was evidenced by the fact that for the first time we had not been given chopsticks with our meals.

Being the professional sightseers that we now are, we knocked off HCM city’s main sites in our first day. First on our hit list and the one to leave a lasting memory was the War Remnants Museum. As you would guess many of the sights in Vietnam are centred around the two major wars in their history; the war against the French that ended in 1954 and of course, the infamous Vietnamese war against the Americans. We had already seen a war museum in Hanoi that mainly focused on the French war (which they also won) and so now it was the turn of the Vietnamese war to get the museum treatment.

The museum was not as you would think it might be, a celebration of winning another war against an opposing force but instead it concentrated on the atrocities that the American forces inflicted upon the Vietnamese people. To do this, most of the exhibition displayed photographs that were taken by the hundreds of photo-journalists who documented the goings on in this very different war. The museum also included aircraft, helicopters and all sorts of ground vehicles either captured or left when the USA left defeated from the country. We spent nearly 2 hours walking around the building looking at these incredible pictures and reading the captions. The pictures ranged from aircraft in bits mid air about to crash due to a friendly fire incident, to torture of Vietnamese VC soldiers by American troops, to a picture of American soldier picking up the spine and still connected head of a dead comrade. They also had a display of photos to show the affects on people of Agent Orange that was used by the USA to de-forest the country. Many of the pictures were of severely disabled people which was bad enough but just to really bring it home, they also had a presentation in a glass box of two foetuses preserved in formaldehyde that showed the horrific abnormalities created as a result of Agent Orange being sprayed all over the Vietnamese landscape.

The museum (as you would perhaps expect) was very one sided and only showed the American atrocities. There was no mention of the tortures used by the VC on American POW‘s and it did not show or talk about the killing and torture of the Vietnamese who were accused of helping or colluding with US forces, but being their museum and their country I suppose they did not have to.
The museum successfully communicated two key facts to us both - the affects of chemical warfare on both sides and the cruelty that humans can inflict on fellow humans all in the name of war (or in the Americans case, protecting trading routes and stopping the march of communism).

Today there are 5 million disabled people in Vietnam and rising due to the use of Agent Orange, with soldiers in the USA also suffering from its side effects. The areas where the chemical weapons were used are starting to grow back but the birth deformities continue as the poisons got into the food supply and ground water.
This is a must see museum for all visitors to HCM city, just don’t expect many laughs.

With three days to entertain ourselves and having already done the city in one, we booked two trips. The Chu Chi tunnels and the Mekong Delta. I think so far we have been lucky with the trips we have been on as we have read about lots of scams with tour companies. Unfortunately, the Mekong Delta trip was where our luck ran out. We spent a total of 7 hours in a bus (there and back) only on arriving to be pushed around four separate “shopping” experiences and only saw a handful of boats in the floating market, then to be told that the really good floating market was another 16 km away and not possible in one day!

The Chu Chi tunnels was billed at a must see by everyone we spoke to and it did not disappoint. The Chu Chi tunnels are 200km of underground tunnels that surrounded HCM city and was used by the army to fight both the French then the Americans. They are situated around 60km outside the city and was basically the reason the VC beat the Americans out of Saigon. The tunnels were not only used to transport troops and equipment around the area without being seen but were also home to entire villages, hospitals and weapons factories. Most of the tunnels have now collapsed but for a few which have now been modified and widened for tourists to climb through. Even with them being widened they are still extremely narrow, necessitating you to crawl through on hands and knees and at a depth of 10m below ground it is similar to being in a hot, humid coffin.

Also on the site was a shooting range and for $15 you could buy 10 bullets and shoot your favourite weapon. Being the worlds most deadly weapon I have always fancied firing a AK47, not knowing when this skill will come in handy. With the smell of gunpowder in my nose I stepped up to take hold of my weapon and fired the first shot. OMG (or words to that effect)!!! Even with ear defenders on the noise was incredible, however not as loud as the scream from behind me from Emma who was as equally caught off guard by the immense noise. When people say I think I heard a gun shot, they are lying. The sound of a real weapon cannot be mistaken for a cat knocking over a dustbin. All in all, it was a great day out for all the family, especially if you’re a member of the NRA in the USA who we saw had even brought their own ear plugs. So I hear you ask, did I hit the target with my ten shots? No, not even close….I think the target must have been off!

The visit to Ho Chi Minh city brought an end to our amazing time in Vietnam, so next is Cambodia and Siem Reap, the home of Angkor Wat.