Yesterday was spent lounging around most of the day. We've had a lot to take in these past few days in Saigon - like a newborn baby experiencing the world for the first time - and we felt we deserved a day of rest. Our Intrepid tour officially 
started yesterday and so we needed to change hotels ready for that. A brief meeting in the evening brought everyone on our tour together including our tour guide, Nguyen. Lee and I are the only newcomers as the rest of the crew are simply carrying on their tours from Cambodia. We are with them only for the Vietnam portion and then we leave them again as we head to Japan and they continue on to Laos. But all of the guys (mainly 
English and American, with 2 Danish and no
w 3 Aussies, including us) seem great and we shared dinner last night with a bunch of them.This morning the entire group ditched our Intrepid guide (yes, we told him beforehand - we're not that rude) and took a private tour through the Cu Chi tunnels, which the Viet Cong had built starting in the 40s with the French invasion only to be completed in the late 70s at the end of the American invasion. Absolutely fascinating, an extensive network of over 250km worth of underground tunnels including booby traps, which measured no more than a metre in height and smaller in width and went to a depth of up to 10m. Imagine hundreds of soldiers being cramped in one of these tunnels for the entire day without l
ight and very little air, coming out only at night (wearing entirely black clothing, of course) when the bombings stopped. I just cannot fathom what times would have been like then.So I come to the present. I have been sitting in this internet cafe for 3 1/2 hours and my eyes are tired. It's still very hot and very humid every day but we are slowly acclimatising. Tonight we'll probably catch up with the rest of the Intrepid crew for some drinks and tomorrow is our last day in HCMC as we will be catching a train in the evening up north to Nha Trang. I'm excited!
The computer I'm on is quite slow and it doesn't seem to like letting me upload photos so I'll get onto that the next time I blog.
Peace x
Photos:
1. Our group
2. One of the nasty booby traps
3. Bet our poor guide wished he hadn't volunteered to take a group photo of us
4. Anders in one of the tunnels - just a little too big
5. Deep in the tunnel.. So sweaty, so uncomfortable
1 comment:
it brings back so many of our Vietnam memories, being constantly on guard because you might get ripped off, the people and traffic everywhere. I bet you thought footpaths were for walking on, not for sellers and motor bike parking. Memories of the Mekong floating markets and the tunnels and the welcome respite of sitting on the rooftop of the Rex hotel sipping cocktails. It is easy to forget that when you are bartering for that special deal that in the end you are negotiatng over cents as 150 dong is about a cent.
Ah Na Trang, a lovely beach, well a real experience just walking along it. And I hope you enjoyed the train trip, more memories
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