Ho Chi Minh City

My first full day in Ho Chi Minh I decided to go for a walk to explore the city. I soon find it was easy to walk miles just trying to see the centre of the city. My first stop was the central market. This was a hive of activity with locals and tourists both scouring the aisles. There was every kind of stall you could imagine, from clothes, to souvenirs, to food, and every seller was hoping to attract your attention. It was an overwhelming feeling walking through the clothes section, this is where the keenest sellers were at work. I had women calling ‘Miss!’, ‘what do you want Miss?’, ‘you want trouser Miss?’ from all directions as I slowly pushed my way through. They would grab at my arm and push clothes in my face, it was impossible to think about whether I wanted anything because my mind was taken over by the pressure of the situation.

Away from the intense atmosphere of the clothing stalls I did manage to find a Vietnam patch to sew onto my bag, which I had been looking for, and bartered 20,000vnd off the price. Not bad, but I still think I have a lot to learn with being able to push them for the best price!

I then headed North up to the War Museum, which is dedicated to the American/Vietnam War. Arriving 40 minutes before the museum closed for a one and half hour lunch I had to rush a little, but this was more than enough time to be impacted by the provoking displays. The bottom floor was dedicated to photographs of demonstrations throughout the world, of numerous nationalities who opposed the American involvement in Vietnam. The second floor began to show many of the victims both after, and during, the war, using pictures from photographers who had travelled to Vietnam to record events. There were remnants of weapons fired by Americans and displays of many guns which had been used. The museum also had a exhibition on Agent Orange, a powerful chemical weapon that still affects generations today. There were a number of boards showing statistics of the many people killed and injured, the amount of weapons and missiles which had been used against Vietnam and the number of Americans who had been involved in the war. I felt there was a very powerful message of Vietnam wanting to make it very clear how unjust and evil they felt the American War was on their people.

That evening I took my first walk into the lovely nightlife, and felt a little nervous as the hostel had warned me against getting anything out whilst walking around due to the area being renowned for ‘snatch and grabs’. I relaxed a little throughout the evening as I enjoyed the buzzing street, full of both tourists and locals, though I still kept a good hold on my bag! After eating I went to find some company, taking advantage of a two for one beer offer as an excuse to ask someone if they wanted the second beer, and as I hoped, got invited to join their table for the evening.

The following day I went on a tour to the Mekong Delta, to enjoy some boat rides and see some of the islands on the river. Each was named after an animal which had a significant meaning in Vietnam, these being Unicorn, Turtle, Dragon and Phoenix Islands. We were taken into Unicorn Island, where at a bee farm we saw a young man holding up a rack of bees (from a honey farm) without any kind of protective clothing! We also got to enjoy some honey tea from the natural honey the farm produced. After this we were taken for a traditional row boat ride, with four of us in a boat and someone at each end doing the rowing. I enjoyed this but did feel for the poor people who were having to row us about, they were both old and young, male and female all working so hard to make a living. In the afternoon we were given a small performance of traditional Vietnamese music before being taken back to the mainland.

After being back at the hostel for a few hours I decided to head out for food, at this point I realised it was raining and was worried I didn’t have a raincoat (this sadly got left behind in Hoi An) or an umbrella. What I should have been worried about was not having any wellies! I borrowed an umbrella from the hostel and stepped out the front door to realise the water was up to my ankles, by the time I was heading down the street towards the bars and restaurants it was halfway up my calves!

As quickly as the flood has come it was gone. The rain had stopped by the time I finished eating and the streets were clear as I rounded a corner towards my hostel. I couldn’t believe it could go from dry, to flooded, to just a little damp all in a few hours!

I decided to squeeze in one more tour before I left Vietnam, so on my final morning was heading on the bus out of town to the Cú Chi Tunnels, a town which was greatly affected by the war and had found a way to survive by tunnels underground.

When we were nearly there I noticed we were passing forests of trees in straight lines, after the visit I realised this was because all vegetation in the area had been destroyed in the war and so all new plant life had to be artificially introduced. The tunnels were a great insight into how the Vietnamese fought back, with a whole world created underground and many boobie traps spread about the town.

That afternoon as I was sat on my hostel bed, a new traveller arrived to check out the room and it turned out to be Scott who I had met in Hoi An! I haven’t yet stopped being amazed at the crazy coincidences that keep occurring along the way.

Before I knew it flying day had arrived, and it ended up being quite an eventful morning. Scott was giving me a lift to the airport, though he nearly didn’t as his bike was refusing to start, while I was getting worried about missing my flight. We did manage to get to the airport in good time, but then I found out when checking in I had somehow missed the information that you need an exit flight from Philippines, so I ended up having to panic buy a plane ticket, of course the internet was going extremely slow while I was trying to do this. To top thing off, I bought a wrap to eat on the plane and three quarters of the way through realised what I had thought was some quite chewy rice paper was actually a thin paper around the wrap, and I had been eating it!