Sarah & Richard's Travels

We've just had four nights in Ho Chi Min City checking out the sights and organising what we were up to next. HCMC is way more relaxed than Hanoi, there seems to be less traffic, there are less people badgering you to buy stuff all the time and it just feels like a slower pace of life. It also looks quite different to Hanoi with less trees around and less of the colonial architecture.

Our first day was spent organising a cycling tour of the Mekong Delta and next day we went out to the Cu Chi tunnels which was a huge VC base during the war. There was around 250km of tunnels altogether - a huge system - and they were continually building and expanding them all by hand...with just a pick and a bamboo basket to take out the clay and fill in the bomb craters or dump into the river. There were three levels of tunnels up to 12m deep and they were designed with chambers on different levels to avoid different scenarios of water and gas attacks, which were tried several times.

They did everything underground from making weapons with unexploded ordnance to sewing uniforms and cooking. Cooking was only only once per day in the very early morning so that steam escaping the tunnels (which came out a long way away from the actual cooking site) looked like steam rising in the early morning. When we saw it it you wouldn't have been able to tell it came from a huge vent as they camouflaging was so good (they had an operating kitchen to show us where and how the steam came out).

The tunnels were absolutely tiny and us westerners could hardly fit down. They've made one of the entrances and tunnels wider so that us tourists can get inside ok, but otherwise they are tiny! An aussie guy tried to get down one of the entrances that hadn't been modified only to struggle getting his shoulders out! They had exit holes every 25-30m in case of attacks so they could escape quickly and they were really well camouflaged. They had some pretty gruesome traps involving lots of spikes. They were pretty much all camouflaged by leaves and jungle etc and involved someone stepping on them and falling into a hole with a load of spikes at the bottom, on the door or to catch them under the arms - nasty. But the Americans did just as much if not more damage to the Vietnamese as well.

The jungle we saw around the tunnels is all still growing as Agent Organe wiped most of it out. There's a shooting range on site where you can shoot AK47's and a load of other guns which is a bit sick, it just doesn't seem right. Imagine putting something like that at one of the concentration camps in Germany or Poland.

We found this great coffee shop one day which is open all day and has a mini gold glass cinema on the top floor so went and ad dinner there and watched a movie one night. A nice way to chill out. Vietnamese coffee is really good although a bit strange - they drink it really strong (it's almost black even with milk) and instead of fresh milk they use condensed milk (unless you specifically ask), so it's ridiculously sweet. They serve it in mini plugers that sit on the top of your cup which is pretty cool though you have to wait awhile before the water goes through and you don't get much liquid! I have developed a like for it over ice though with condensed milk, it's strong and not as sweet as when it's hot. The Vietnamese seem to sit on the streets throughout the day enjoying their iced coffees.

The Mekong Delta

We arranged a cycling tour through Sinh Balo tour agency for three days cycling in the Mekong Delta which was awesome. It was only us and two American ladies plue the tour guide and driver, so it felt like our own private tour. On the first day we drove out of HCM towards Ben Tre where we jumped on a boat and were motored along to an island in the middle of the Mekong where we were dropped off and walked a short distance through the jungle to a family's house where a feast of tropical fruit was waiting. WE tried Dragon Fruit and something else which had a shall and inside was like a lychee though tasted really sour and wasn't too good as well as the usual pineapple and watermelon - yum! WE also tried some type of crispy rice bread which was kind of like a poppadom but made with rice and rice flour, it was very light and pretty good. The house was very simple and like most other Vietnamese houses we've seen with a big room at the front which has photos of the elders and a little shrine thing to buddha and then a separate sleeping room with a hard bed frame but no mattress. Some houses are just one room with everything in the same room.

From there we walked a bit further seeing mroe little houses amongst all the fruit trees and got into a little sampan to be rowed on one of the small tributaries back to the main Mekong river. It was so quiet and peaceful going through the water with the trees all around and no sound but the paddling. We saw a snake on the river bank and one shot across the water in front of us which was a bit scary!!!! I don't like snakes. Then it was over to lunch where we had this huge Elephant Ear fish which was served whole and standing up. Luckily the waitress prepared it for us and served it inside fresh spring rolls which were yummy - I didn't want to attack that thing! After lunch we went back to the mainland and finally started cycling on a little path through the jungle and all the tributaries of the Mekong. Everytime we passed a house we would have a chorus of Hello's (in English) from all the little kids along the way, many of them screaming it from the moment they heard us coming until we were long out of sight. Some of the kids were pretty funny. The houses around the Mekong all looked to be really close to the river, in some cases around half a metre or less above the river and they didn't seem too concerned about it flooding which I thought strange. Some houses were made of concrete, but others were just bits of corrugated iron with dried palm leaves as their rooves, very basic. After a couple of hours we arrived at a port and took another boat over to an island where we spent the night in a basic guesthouse. It was literally built over the river with bridges and stilts everywhere and the beds were just like army stretchers and of course no hot water for showers :(. But it was pretty cool to just be looking straight over the river and having all plant life around.

Next day we rode for around six hours aroudn the island and then back on the mainland. Back on the mainland we cycled through gorgeous rice paddies with palm trees in the distance, lots of cyclists and motorcycles (eek) zooming past and again the chorus of hello's from all the kiddies. We cycled througha brick making area and all the locals were making them by hand. They'd be delivered mud from the rice paddies which the women would put through the machine to turn into the correct shape. These would then dry out in the sun for 3-4 days before the men would put them into a kiln and fire them (using rice husks as the fuel) for around a month before they were ready to be loaded on a boat that would come up the river. It was a long, labour intensive process and I don't think they earned much money from the sounds of it. All the brick kilns were lined up on the landscaped and looked like giant beehives sticking out from the ground (except for the black smoke they were emitting). WE had a late lunch at a local restaurant and it was just in time because it absolutely bucketed down with rain after that! It rained solidly for around three hours and when we were being driven from lunch to the hotel at Can Tho the water was still coming down and was flooding all the streets and low lying buildings. In places it would have been a few feet deep! Check out the pics we'll post...

Next day it was a trip in another sampan to the floating markets which were pretty cool. It kind of reminded me of a rough and ready, not so pretty version of Venice with all the buildings lining the river and then all the boats, big and small going here there and everywhere. Each boat had a stick mounted with the item they were selling be it watermelon, pineapple, sweet potato etc etc and they'd drive around in the boat and yell out when they wanted something from a passing boat. Most of the boats come here to stock up and then go to smaller markets in the villages aroudn the Mekong to sell on what they've bought so the market is at it's best from 6.30-8.00am, it was great to see. From there it was through the tributaries again, watching life float by; people washing clothes, thier hair, rowing past, selling produce, repairing paths or getting stuck under the bridges because their boats were too large and the river too high! We had some more cycling before heading back to Can Tho for lunch after which we left the tour and got a bus to Rach Gia.

This bus ride was around 2 1/2 hours from Can Tho to Rach Gia and it was the crasiest drive we've had so far! It was raining and the driver was going really fast and over taking with inches to spare (the road could just fit two cars going in opposite directions) and coming right up behind cyclists and all but run them off the road! I was gald it was a short bus ride!!! Unfortunately we didn't have a map of Rach Gia to find a hotel that was recommended, but what do you know, we found it very easily, despite it being a 1/2 hour walk or so...everytime we have a map we get lost, so I think it's now time to ditch the maps altogether and hope we go in the right direction!