Ho Chi Minh City

After Nha Trang, we made our way down to the most famous city in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). This time we took a day bus instead of a night bus and it took us 12 hours to get there (Vietnam is really long and the buses are really slow and inefficient). I had really quite looked forward to Ho Chi Minh as it has a lot of history (war museum, Cu Chi tunnels etc) and it is one of the most famous cities in Asia, but in the end, I really didn't like it. There were simply too many motorbikes; more motorbikes than I have ever seen in my life and it was just impossible to go out and do anything because It was so stressful. I nearly got run over (the guy actually mounted the pavement and ploughed straight into me – I had to jump out of the way, and I was quite shaken afterwards!).

Bikers with masks on

Also, it was a really polluted city, everybody there wears masks and I can see why. It was hot, and just going out the hotel and crossing the road to the shop was exhausting. Add to this, the constant noise of horns and people constantly hassling you, along with throngs of backpackers sitting in bars and getting wasted on the dollar beers, and you have a good idea of what Ho Chi Minh was like. But enough of the bad points, there were some good things about visiting the city. We got to learn a lot about the history of the Vietnam war (or the Armerican war as they call it in Vietnam). We went to the war museum, where they have old captured American military planes on display in the car park. I found this fascinating because I've never seen real war planes I the flesh before – they had tanks, helicopters, planes and all sorts. And you could look inside them, touch them etc, there were no restrictions. Then you go in the museum and it is one of the most graphical and disturbing museums I have ever visited.

They have lots of pictures of people who were injured and killed during the war by the Americans. The images are horrific – lots of pictures and stories of mothers and children who were slaughtered by the Americans – just like the Nazis did to the Jews, in the most inhumane ways. They had one story of an American general who ordered a whole town to be pillaged and all of the women and children were murdered and beaten to death. Some kids tried to hide in a well and they found them and disembowelled them. I was just gob smacked that Americans had done this and so recently as well! I really had not realised how brutal they were and how in the wrong they were to go to war with Vietnam. 

The general in charge of that particular slaughter later went on to be come an American senator! Of course, there are those who say the museum is very biased – it only shows the Vietnam side of the story – however, you just can't argue with the pictures we saw. The worst part though, even more horrific than the room with the war photographs, was the agent orange room. The Americans sprayed the Vietnamese countryside with toxic chemicals – the most toxic known to man – called agent orange. They said it was to destroy the crops, but it was so deadly that it is still having ramifications to this day – with millions of Vietnamese now disabled or with cancer as a result. It carries on in the genes, so children and children's children will continue to have problems in years to come. The pictures were really disturbing – lots of deformed people, and one display even had real foetuses in jars. 

So yes, that was an enlightening and disturbing day.

The next day, we had a lighter day (just) and visited the cu chi tunnels – the tunnels that the Vietnamese built and hid in during the war. They were very impressive.

We all got to go inside them and they showed us all the death traps that were used to trap and kill the Americans. At the end they showed us a video talking about the brave soldiers who killed the American enemy. When we got into the tunnels, we could go as far as 300m along them, and at some points you had to lie on your back to get through because they were so small. I got out after 100m because I felt faint and claustrophobic but Jemma did the full tunnel. At the other end, they had guns that you could fire with real bullets (AK47s etc) but Jemma found it distasteful and anyway we didn't have enough money so we just watched. It was very loud.

The next day we did a final tour of the city, which took us to the Chinese quarter (just some old markets) and some temple (seen one temple, seen them all – yes I'm coming to the end of the trip now – can you tell?) and then we went back to the room and just watched TV because we had had enough of the city and couldn't bare the stress of it any more. I went and picked up 2 pizzas from pizza hut and we just ate them in the room whilst watching Desperate housewives. And that was the end to our Vietnam adventure. I was so relieved to leave Ho Ch Minh the next day and was really excited for Cambodia. Although I had really enjoyed the rest of Vietnam (especially the seaside bits), some of the people, the night buses and the traffic had stressed me out and I was ready for calm.