Good Morning Vietnam!

We spent last Friday thru Monday in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (formerly called Saigon) and had an amazing time. Friday we travelled to Cu Chi to see the tunnels used during the Vietnam War. Portions of the tunnels had been doubled in size to allow tourists to crawl in them. Adam and I tried it out. We could fit, but had to walk like a duck the whole time. It amazes me that soldiers would stay in these tunnels for days at a time during the war. Talk about claustrophobia! There was so much history to hear about. They even had a shooting range with weapons used during the 1960s and 70s. I got brave and shot the M60 machine gun. It was very scary! I couldn't imagine carrying that thing around at all times. But, I guess when your life depends on it, it isn't such a nuisance.

one of the original tunnel openings


I'm going in!




tight squeeze

After touring the tunnels we went the the War Remnants Museum. Another very interesting place. Everything was portrayed from the Vietnamese point of view and was kind of hard to just read some of the displays in silence. Many times the captions of photos were bragging about killing US soldiers or destroying US machinery and vehicles. All of the vehicles on display were US Military helicopters and tanks. It seemed that Vietnam was very proud of capturing these things. Adam and I weren't thinking that day as he wore his West Point/Army shirt. One man from England made a comment about how interesting it must be for us to be here after noticing Adam's shirt. We also learned that the streets used to be full of disabled citizens, unable to work, but the government opened a factory and forced all of them to work there in an effort to clean up the streets. Despite the history between the US and Vietnam, the locals were extremely friendly. Kids often waved to us and said hi. Not that two blondes stuck out or anything...

101st Airborne Division helicopter

Finally on Friday we went to the former Presidential Palace, where South Vietnam's first 2 presidents lived.
Saturday we drove about 70km outside of the city to the Meekong Delta. There we took several different boat rides into the canals of the jungle. We stopped at a village with a fruit orchard and had fresh pineapple, dragonfruit, pomello, finger bananas and tea. Then we took a row boat to another little village where they made coconut candy. Our guide let us try some of the local rice wine which was some pretty strong stuff. The local children got out their pet python and put it on Adam's shoulders. Pretty entertaining, but I kept my distance.

in the rowboat with our cute little hats


Adam's new friend

For lunch we had a traditional Vietnamese set with scallop fritters, sticky rice ball, elephant ear fish, grilled squid and banana flambe. It was all very good.
We enjoyed the spa at our hotel and had dinner at a little Italian place in another hotel.
Sunday we walked around the city visiting the Notre Dame Cathedral where mass was going on in Vietnamese and English. Then we walked to the Ben Thanh market. Inside were hundreds of aisles of locals trying to sell their goods, many of which were fake designer purses, wallets and clothing. We found out that as we made our way to the middle of the market, the vendors got more and more pushy; trying to get you to buy something. They would go so far as to block your way through the aisle and pulling on your arms to try to get you into their stall. Needless to say, we didn't stay in that section for long. After a lot of "No, thank you's" we left the market.
We stopped in at the New World Hotel for lunch. This is the hotel that Presidents Clinton and G.W. Bush stayed during their visits to Vietnam.

Notre Dame Cathedral


New World Hotel

Monday we did a little art shopping before leaving for the airport. Crossing the street was kind of scary at first because of all the motorbikes. We quickly learned that there is never no traffic, and it's best to just start walking and let them drive around you. Motorbikes are the most common form of transportation in the city. It was common to see families of 3-4 on one motorbike (or what I would call a scooter). We saw babies and dogs on them as well.
We learned from our tour guides that there is a lot of corruption in their government system. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I didn't realize they were a communist country before we got there. Our guide had personal experiences when his wife gave birth to their baby last year. Because they did not tip the nurses and doctors, the doctor they had been seeing prenatally refused to show up when his wife's water broke. She delivered at the hospital and then she and the baby were put outside on a balcony because they "had no rooms available." After several hours of this, our tour guide got desperate and called a distant relative who had connections within the hospital. His relative paid one of the staff a large tip and within an hour his wife and baby had their own room. It was really sad for me to hear his stories about the unfairness and unequal treatment. I never thought about what the people must go through during their lives living in a communist country, but hearing it first-hand made me realize again how lucky we are to live in such a great nation.

This could be dangerous...