SE ASIA : Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

I'm a bit behind in the posts, mainly because I haven't actually stopped since I left Hong Kong and am currently updating my blog in the freezing cold city of Beijing, but for now, Saigon.

As with the first time in Vietnam, the country proved to be a lot of work. It's the sort of place where you have to be aware twenty-four seven that you're going to get ripped off and taken for a ride. The first instance of this was exiting the airport and having some extortionate cab drivers try and charge you 500,000dong, or 50AUDS to go some 6km. Sure it was peak hour traffic and it took a good forty minutes to get there, but even the 200,000 I ended up paying was way to much. Once I finally arrived at the hostel I met up with Kristal (who had been travelling around Malaysia), had a few drinks and spent the night relaxing in Ho Chi Minh City which is such an amazing place. Power cables hang so low you could grab them with your hands and there are so many cords going into the one socket you're sure that the city is going to catch alight. People clap and whistle at you on the street, even had one guy grab my butt, gotta love/hate Vietnam!

The first trip we did was the Cu Chi Tunnels. The tour we went on included a stop at the Kao Dai Temple. Kao Dai is a religion which is purely Vietnamese (well sort of). The religion is a miss match of Christianity, Taoism, Buddhism and Hinduism and has basically taken the best and most believable aspects of the religions and made them a new religion. To me this is a totally far-fetched idea, but it is obviously pretty prominent in Vietnam as the colourful temples are littered around the city. The temples are amazingly intricate, huge buildings with a mass of different colours and worshippers. From here we took a bus to Cu Chi. The Tunnels were insanely depressing and the war is too new to have any sort of objective information given to you, all the signs, guides and videos speak of how the innocent Vietnamese built these tunnels to escape the "American Devils" and trap the "American Killers". In all fairness, the Americans shouldn't have been there but it's a very one sided argument at the tunnels themselves. Kristal and I got to shoot AK-47's and that was an experience!!!!! Our ears were ringing for a while afterwards and it definitely wasn't a cheap thing to do, but where in Australia would anyone with a right mind give me a gun....? Crawling inside the tunnels was pretty scary and a lot of hard work, you definitely wouldn't want to be claustrophobic that's for sure! There was only enough room to crouch or crawl and the tunnels were extremely dusty and dirty. One of the coolest things we did at the tunnels was attempt to fit into these tiny holes (which have been widened!) and we actually did fit. It was a pretty proud moment! The Cu Chi Tunnels was a great day, it was definitely my favourite thing to do in south Vietnam!

My second day in Vietnam was basically a day to just explore the city. We didn't have huge plans, just hit a few of the major sites and enjoy the city at our own pace. Speaking of pace, we decided we'd take a cyclo to Notre Dame Cathedral, we could've walked but were feeling lazy and it was worth the experience, or so we thought. These wanker Cyclo drivers didn't take us to the Cathedral but first to some temple. It was cool but once you've seen one temple in Vietnam, you've seen them all, even if that does sound culturally insensitive. Eventually we did make it to the cathedral but our ten minute journey ended up taking almost two hours, at which point the drivers wanted to charge us by the hour instead of our agreed upon price, hell no! we handed over our 30,000dong and ran. The post office followed shortly and then book buying and the War Remnants Museum. The Museum was really sad and graphically disturbing but definitely a must-see in the city. We ended our site seeing by going to the zoological and botanical gardens, it was good by Asia standards, but still reasonably sad. Dinner, a few drinks and cards is how we ended our time in Ho Chi Minh, it was a fun few days and I do like and appreciate Vietnam but I hate how hard you have to work to like it. Vietnam is no Vacation!

Photos: Cu Chi Tunnels Guide, Me and an AK-47 at Cu Chi Tunnels, Notre Dame Catheral.