Vietnam: HCM city

 Our last day in HCM was hectic if anything. So many things to do, so little time. So we took a quick walk around the town once we reached HCM after our homestay. Didn't even have time to put our bags down at the hotel! I do think that I could have spent one more day in HCM but all holidays have to come to an end, and I did spend two full weeks travelling, so there was a bit of an urge to go home and prepare for work. In any case, there is a lot of "colonial" (if I may use that word) architecture left in HCM from the Notre Dame church to the post office. Buildings are much better kept here which makes for nice pictures and an even better walking tour.

Post office and the interior. It's very very busy inside. Incidentally though, the best place in Vietnam to ship stuff is apparently at Hoi An - because of it's ancient history as a shipping port. They're said to be much more reliable than other Viet cities - as told to me by my guide.

Notre Dame church of HCM. Couldn't go in because it was close, but the exterior is worth stopping by and looking at.

Another shot of the post office, further away but gives a better look of the size of the building

Reunification palace

Our last group dinner together! Lap brought us to this BBQ place where we had amazing steak and prawns - cheap beers as usual and all of us had a great time. Since it was the last day, most people dressed up! After 14 days of au naturale, it was nice to put on some makeup and look a bit more presentable in photos :)

Night in HCM... very very very busy...

Another paranoma picture of the Rex hotel bar I took with my iphone..... I'm loving this App!

Was quite sad when this tour came to an end. It was a lovely two weeks which I was quite apprehensive about first, but I have come to love this country alot. I've also made many new friends and had some interesting experiences which will definitely make for fond memories in time to come. Ever since my return have been asking raving about my trip and definitely would love to go back again sometime... Gosh.. I really do miss travelling!

Vietnam: Cu Chi Tunnels

Enroute back to HCM, we stopped by the Cu Chi Tunnels for a tour. It was probably one of the more expensive tourist tickets that I had to pay for: 80,000 dong in total. I guess that's what happens when a particular place becomes very famous. Most tourists to HCM pay a visit to Cu chi tunnels - it's like the obligatory tour visit in Vietnam and I guess it does hold its own in terms of historical uniqueness. The cu chi tunnels are a network of underground tunnels that go as far down as 12m underground and allowed the vietcong to employ their guerilla tactics against the American army very effectively. Underground there was even a kitchen and a hospital. The tunnels were very well disguised above ground and even when the americans found out about them later and tried to smoke the vietcong out, they were unable to since the tunnels were not built in a straight line but winding. Even when the american soldiers tried to go into the tunnels, the tunnels were so small and dark that it was just impossible. 

At one of the entrances to the tunnels. It is so tiny that at one glance I didn't think I would be able to fit and I literally just did! This would be like the body physique test or something. If you can't fit inside you're considered big sized? I think all of us had quite a bit of fun going through the tunnels. It was so tight and dark that at some points I was crawling and starring at Iz's back and not knowing where I was going but just crawling... that's how claustraphobic it can get.

One of the pictures of the Vietnam war I took at the HCM war museum. The Vietnam war was unique in the sense that it was covered extensively by many photojournalists and many of whom died in the course of duty. The photos really helped to show the conditions that the soldiers went through during the war and the range of emotions felt by each and every soldier as they awaited for their commands or even during the course of fighting with the Vietcong. The museum has some of the best photos that I've seen - very raw and filled with emotion. Looking through them made me feel that I was sometimes just standing in front of the soldiers are the picture was taken. I'll admit it now, I was quite overcome with emotion just looking at them.

Vietnam: Saigon along the Mekong Delta

 Finally we reached Saigon. I suppose that the politically correct name would be Ho Chi Minh City but Saigon does have a romantic feel to it and yes I've seen Miss Saigon the musical so there was a kind of tragic nostalgia that a newcomer (like myself) would associate with the city. HCM is busy, busier than Hanoi and if we thought road crossing in Hanoi was crazy, one has to embrace death to navigate the traffic in HCM. There were a few times when I did think that I was going to get down by the numerous cars. We arrived in the evening and it was unfortunate that our room was situated at the top level and the lift only went to the level below it, so Iz and I had to lug all our luggage up a flight of stairs. Not very good considering that we had extra levels of luggage after our shopping in Hoi An :) Like any new city we came to, Iz and I went for a short walk around the city and ended up having a drink at the roof top bar of the Majestic Hotel. Supposedly it's a very old hotel which was noted in Iz's guidebook but when we went back to ask Lap about it, he was quite nonchalant about it. I guess he didn't think it was that significant... A nice visit nontheless.

The next day was a trip to the Mekong Delta and our homestay for the night. The delta is so vast and it was amazing while sitting in the middle sized motorized boat and watching all the activity on the delta. The Mekong is also known as the fruit bowl since many fruit types are grown here and there is fruitful harvests all year round. We went to a fruit plantation and I was amazed at the bounty of fruits that they offered - mangoes, jackfruit, chiku, jumbo, cacao plant... I definitely had a whale of a time chugging the jackfruit down. Better for me that no one else seemed to like them :)

We had a coconut treat on the boat. I think that most people loved the coconut water but not many liked eating the coconut flesh.

A paranoma picture I took using an app on my iphone - pretty cool isn't it!

One of the highlights of the delta - having a sanpan trip through one of the smaller rivers where groves of coconut trees flanked the river on both sides.

Visit to the coconut factory where we saw how they made coconut candy. They sell it in many flavours - pandan, ginger, chocolate, peanut, durian. I bought the pandan, ginger and chocolate flavours back to my office for my colleagues to try. They were quite a hit!

On a truck ride on the way to our homestay. On our way there, we made a detour to the rice fields. Mekong's weather and fertile ground allows it to have up to 3 rice harvests a year. This is different from Sapa which only has 1 rice harvest a year.

Ghost house. Locals don't dare inhabit this place as it used to be a prison/torture place for the French.

At our homestay... the liquor of this region is banana wine which many of us had many shots of that night. Plus D still had that bottle of Vodhka that he had kept from Hue and with the cheer viet beers, it was a night of singing, drinking and card playing - this is how we entertained ourselves at the homestay.

Vietnam: Hoi An; Side trip to My Son ruins

I don't know how we managed to sneak in this trip since everyone was so occupied with their tailoring and shopping. Since the whole group was not really interested, Iz, A and I had to sign up with a private tour to take us to the My Son ruins. It was a morning excursion and it was a nice way to explore outside Hoi An instead of staying put and running around town just for fittings. Having to sign up with a private tour, it also meant that we were in a bus full of strangers and it was full! It's a two hour right to My Son ruins and many of the sites were bombed by the US during the Tet Offensive so like most of Vietnams, the ruins are incomplete and many of what is left is rock crumblings. Preservation efforts have also been weak, but now with UNESCO help, hopefully things will turn around.

My Son was built by the Champa kingdom (different from Vietnamese) till the Vietnamese conquered them and took over. Today, no Champa people live in Hoi An, but have been driven very far down south. The complexed is very heavily influenced by Hinduism as can be seen by the statues of Shiva, elephant carvings and there are many phallic symbols scattered around the area. For most though, you need a guide to point it out to you since many places have overgrown and are hard to make out. What is interesting though is that the complex was constructed with bricks and no mortar so the question is how did they make the bricks stick? There are theories but no answers... and it is a testament to the great building skill of the Champas that many of the buildings were very intact right up to the Tet Offensive.

Sanskrit carvings on a rock

Me fooling around. I'm pretty sure I was not supposed to climb and stand these ancient pillars...