Ho Chi Minh City (Formerly Saigon)

A small sample of some Ho Chi Minh City traffic.

Who knows what side of the road they drive on and whose right of way it is.

We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City at around midnight, and hopped in a taxi to our hotel. I’d arranged an eye test for when we got there, first thing in the morning, so we’d decided to get a hotel somewhere between there and everything else. It turned out the hotel was in the middle of nowhere though, and by the time we arrived at 1am, we headed straight to bed.

Attempting to work out how we’d get there, we figured we’d rent a scooter at reception as it gave us chance to do more in the day and work out cheaper. However, I didn’t want to put contact lenses in, so it was over to Diana to do all the riding. I’m not sure if you’re all aware of the traffic in Ho Chi Minh City, but it’s almost entirely moto’s and they’re literally everywhere. But we made it, with only a few flustered moments. My eyes were apparently fine with no change in prescription, so that’s always nice to know. Confident the traffic was going to be worse at around this time, I took over the driving and we headed off to the Cu Chi tunnels.

I can confirm that riding a motorcycle in Ho Chi Minh City is a very different experience to riding around England. That is, within the city itself. The place felt somewhat reminiscent of the traffic in India, in that no matter how wide the road is (or isn’t), there will always be one more vehicle trying to squeeze in. Vehicles with four wheels might as well have their handbrakes on permanently, as the sheer amount of moto’s sneaking around them, like water flowing around rocks in a river, meant they were progressing at such a slow rate they would often miss the changing of traffic lights. Never before have I felt the need to check my blind spots quite so frequently, as you can never know exactly where every vehicle was around you. Anyone at home who complains when a driver cuts them up with a couple of metres to spare, for the love of your blood pressure don’t consider driving here. If there’s a spare inch between you and the vehicle next to you, someone will try and sneak in.

That said, once we left the business of the city, everything calmed down dramatically. Suddenly it was the open road, wonderful openness and countryside, rural villages, the stuff you come to love about South East Asia and certainly the reason I will want to go back to Vietnam after this. A fifteen-day visa free entry just isn’t enough.

It took a little over an hour to get to the tunnels, where we learned of some of the history of the Viet Cong and how they operated from a vast network of narrow, dingy tunnels. During the second Indochina War between Vietnam and the USA, this was how many of the Viet Cong army remained hidden, doing everything underground from sleeping, cooking, planning tactics and building traps and weapons. An incredible feat, with vents hidden in areas that just looked like plants to allow air in, and other methods to baffle exhaust vents and cut down the amount of smoke exhumed from cooking. We were shown the entrance to one tunnel (which, if it wasn’t pointed out, I would never have spotted) and our guide told us we could go in. Looking at the size of it, I just laughed at him, thinking he was joking. But he was serious, the hole wasn’t barely as wide as I was, but the trick was to go in at a diagonal. Apparently this was very useful back in the war, as the Vietnamese were a lot smaller and wirey than their American enemies, and would be able to zip through without being followed.

We were also shown a number of the traps used, most of which involved false floors to impale an unfortunately recipient upon sharpened spikes. Some of the underground rooms were actually a lot larger than you’d expect, with large tables for discussing military plans with high ranking officers.

Ouch...

We were also given some of the food they’d have in the tunnels, consisting of cooked taro and a plate of crushed peanuts in sugar. As Diana and I went to try it, our tour guide quickly told us to stop. A little confused, he then told the two Koreans also with our tour guide they could carry on. He then asked whether we had a peanut allergy, which it seems only applies to Westerners and not Koreans, to which we assured him we didn’t. It tasted quite good, although taro seems to be incredibly sticky and hard to shift from your hands.

The site also had a shooting range, where you could buy a range of different ammunition to fire from various guns used during the war. As tempting as it was, it was extremely expensive for a single shot and a lot of the weapons, being automatic, would probably work out inordinately expensive as a $ per second ratio. We passed and headed back home.

The next day we decided to check out the number of museums in the area, renting the scooter for a second day. First port of call however was to book our bus to Siem Reap, as we would either be volunteering there with almost immediate effect or we’d have plenty to see there anyway. We headed into town and arranged a bus (actually two, a transfer in Phnom Penh.)

Our next touristy stop was the War Remnants museum, an extremely informative, if not somewhat depressing overview of the second Indochina war and its consequences. A whole floor of the 4 storey building was devoted to the atrocities of the USA ‘Agent Orange’ herbicidal warfare attack, a horrifying attack of around 20 million US gallons of a toxic herbicide “dioxin” over southern Vietnam the result of which has caused the death, disfigurement and disablement of generations of Vietnamese people. Extremely sobering, as well as depressing and anger inducing, we looked around the rest of the museum which included information on the run up to the war, the costs associated with it, now defunct guns, weapons and vehicles and post war paraphernalia. All very interesting and well worth visiting, far too much information to ingest in one visit.

Shocking stats...

Our next stop was an attempt to visit the Notre-Dame cathedral, but, in typical backpacker form, we didn’t realise what day of the week it was and it was closed. It was still interesting from the outside, although we have no idea what it was to look at from within.

Looked good from outside anyway...

The last stop for the day was a medicine museum, built in a very traditional style building (although with a lift in the middle of it. Can’t have it all I guess.) An interesting insight into traditional Vietnamese medicine, where we got to dress up as traditional chemists and try some herbal teas.

Various different herbs, minerals and, in some cases, insects used as medicine.

How may I help you?

How to grind herbs

Even a green one for Diana!

This about wrapped up our time in Vietnam. With the rest of the evening we found ourselves a local coffee shop and ordered two ‘ca feh sua’s (Coffee with sweetened milk) with a fancy coffee drip that took far too long for my liking, and worked out what we thought about Vietnam. Definitely a country to revisit in the future, so many beautiful places and lovely people. We’ll be back!

I've never waited so long for a coffee

'Nam.

Onwards to our next country, Cambodia, Siem Reap!

BOO.

For all of our photos of Ho Chi Minh City, see here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/132802327@N02/albums/72157663613681954