Sensational Saigon

As soon as we crossed the border into Vietnam, my illness disappeared and I fet strangely at ease. The more time we have spent here, the more I have begun to realise that it just reminds me of China.... Home sweet home!

Saigon is a fantastic, bustling, chaotic city of motorbikes, pho and Bia Hoi, with a rich, if tragic, history. We spent the first day wandering around, soaking up the atmosphere and visiting the incredible War Remnants Museum, which documents the war-ridden past of Vietnam, and focuses on the American phase of the Vietnam War (1959 - 1975). It displays the factual history of the wars, accompanied by heartbreaking stories of individuals affected. I was (embarrasingly) moved to tears by the pictures of mothers and their children born with defects resulting from Agent Orange and other chemical warfare. Despite their circumstances, each photo somehow portrayed an element of hope or happiness and told a deep and moving personal story. In addition, the museum exhibited models of the tiger cages and graphic descriptions and pictures of the torture methods and traps used. The only downside of the museum as a whole was that the explanations and displays are quite propagandist, and you can't help but feel that you are being told a very one-sided story, which is perhaps unnecessary given how tragic and upsetting the reality is.

We also visited the Reunification Palace, with its beautiful landscaped gardens and impressive range of government reception rooms. The architecture of it is quite interestng, as after the unification, the palace was rebuilt to resemble severval Chinese characters as you face the building (eg: 口 kou (entrance, gate) and 中 zhōng (central)).

We also took a tour to the Cu Chi tunnels, about 50km away from Saigon - this is the easiest and cheapest way of seeing the tunnels, although it did not help my recent irritation with tours in general. Ultimately, it was a very interesting tour spoiled only by th eunnecessary stops at handicraft factories and the fact that every tour goes at the same time, so the tunnels are hugely crowded in the morning, and presumably compeltely empty in the afternoons... Our knowedgeable guide, "John Wayne", was able to show us many of the Viet Cong traps, and demonstrate how they worked. As we searched for the entrance to a tunnel in the undergrowth, the additional sound effects (read: loud explosive sounds) certainly heped us begin to imagine just how terrifying it would have been during warfare. There is a somewhat gratutitous and hugely noisy shooting range, where tourists can purchase bullets and fire guns used in the Vietnam War, and while the noisiness of it all did lead us to wonder how all soldiers involved were not rendered deaf, it essentially seemed a bit tacky.