Arrived in Ho Chi Minh City at 4.30am by overnight train. Had to leave the hotel at 6.45am to drive to the Cu Chi Tunnels which was really interesting. They basically built villages underground to protect themselves from the Americans during the war. The tunnels measure 250km in total. We had a chance to crawl through some of the tunnels which was a bit scary and really hot!! This photo shows a typical entrance into the tunnel network…..

and this one shows how they ventilated the tunnels.

Not really sure how I managed to get in (or get out!) of here……..

At the end of our time at the Cu Chi tunnels, we had a chance to shoot some guns so couldn’t pass out on that!! It was a lot of fun, might get myself an AK47 at some stage – joke 🙂 It was mounted too so you didn’t get a load of kickback on your shoulder.

Heading back to HCMC and visited the War Remnants Museum. It was very disturbing but something you should see, rather than you’d like to see, if you know what I mean. There were a lot of photographs of the war, some were quite brutal and really unpleasant but then I guess war is. Also a lot of pictures of the lasting damage done by the Agent Orange bombings. There was one particular photograph which sticks in my head. A Vietnamese man surrounded by American soldiers. The caption was a quote from the photographer asking them to wait until he could capture the scene and when he was done, he turned and heard the shots fired. I know someone has to document war but it seems so clinical to hold the fate of the life of another human being albeit for a few seconds. Also saw a lot of the weapons used to torture the prisoners, things you couldn’t even bear thinking about. Of course there was brutality on both sides – check out my flickr photos showing the traps used by the Vietnamese!!

Ho Chi Minh City is totally mental, like Hanoi but much bigger and there is traffic everywhere!! These photos don’t really capture just how many mopeds there are here. They also drive like maniacs and there doesn’t seem to be any real rules to be upheld. It’s not hard to imagine why there are 43 road deaths a day in this country.

Saturday morning found us on a 3 hour bus journey to the Mekong Delta. Made a pit stop to see a Buddhist temple which was spectacular, as you can see…..

Had a fantastic tour around the Delta. This area is unspoilt by tourism. We got to cruise around and visit some of the villages that surround it. Many different things are produced around the delta including clay products such bricks, roof slates and pottery.

After a hard morning’s work(!) we had an amazing lunch in a Vietnamese house, followed by a relaxing snooze in hammocks. Did I mention I have a tough life? 🙂 In the afternoon we made another couple of stops and got a chance to taste snake wine and hold a python – now they are heavy buggers!!! We also couldn’t hold him in the middle because he’d eaten a duck two days before – nice!! To recover we had some green tea and fruit – jack-fruit and dragon eye fruit which are really good!

We were then brought to our homestay and spend the night sleeping under mossie nets (thank god, the war seems to be back on!) listening to roosters, frogs, crickets and all the other wildlife. Really enjoyable, had the best sleep since leaving home. The following morning we visited a sweet factory where caramel, rice paper and other sweetie products are made. These guys here are making the equivalent of Rice Crispie bars!

Then it was back to Ho Chi Minh with us to meet the rest of the group. There are 18 of us now which is great. We all had dinner in a restaurant which trains homeless kids to become chefs and cooks. Moving into Cambodia next and I will be sad to leave Vietnam, it’s such a varied country, depending on where you go.

That brings us to the end of our two weeks in Vietnam. It’s a great country, really varied on the one hand they are agricultural is still a huge industry but tourism is going to boom and I’d highly recommend a visit before that happens because I think there will be massive changes here in the next 10 years. Anyhoo that’s the scoop for now. Next stop………..Cambodia!!

P.S. The mossie war is back on 🙁 The little feckers seem to like me again and this time the bites are swelling big time – oh joy!! Anyway I have a lovely one on my knee which has swelled so much that I look like I’ve two knees on my left leg. It is providing great entertainment for the tour group but I could do without it!! I am now armed with 95% DEET repellent, anti-histamine gel and tiger balm and they’re still eating me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!