SAIGON

as soon as the bus stopped i ran out and hopped on the fist motorbike i found. What I didn't know was that there is a population of 10 million people and 8 million motorbikes. The driver was out of his mind! We were going extremely fast and into traffic. He swore at pedestrians and vehicles on his way. I had my big pack, the guitar a bag and my small day pack... but managed to make it out alive. To top it off, the hostel i was looking for was closed so i was forced to wonder around the streets homeless haha. With some help i found a hostel down a narrow alleyway. The owner was a very nice Chinese lady. She gave me the penthouse ;) i had my own 2 story balcony and everything.

Had some really good Pho for breakfast and shortly after, i met a cyclo diver who offered to take me around for the day. A cyclo is pretty much a wheelchair with a bicycle behind it. Mr Lung introduced himself showcasing a news article with his picture on it. I liked him from the start. He looked wise, or at least he seemed so by the look in his eyes and the shape of his beard. He knew a lot about the city and he told me about the corruption that goes on and how the police gets everything foe free otherwise threatening small businesses.




Fist stop was the war museum. We all know that there was a Vietnam war in the 1970's & that the US was involved, but that's the extent of it. This museum opened up a world of suffering an cruelty right before my eyes. Unnecessary tortures and gore filled the walls... dragging people behind tanks, taking pictures with body part of the dead. American soldiers killed many innocent children and women, wiping out entrire villages. Then, when i thought it couldn't get worse, I learned about agent orange. This chemical was used to get rid of the food supplies of the enemy, however, it had devastating after effects. Generations of people with missing limbs, deformities, cancer and skin diseases. All those who came in contact with the chemical were affected in one way or another. To this day, people are still being born with deformities. The pictures and stories were heartbreaking.

Second stop was the Notredame cathedral and the post station. Both very picturesque and well conserved.

Stop number three was an artisan shop where i got the see the whole process of Thai traditional art. There where three types: egg shell, nacar, paint.

Before we got to stop number four we drove by the waterfront with modern buildings, sky scarpers all around. One of them even had a helicopter landing platform! We got to our stop which was a bonsai garden right on the lake. There were shaped in all sorts of shapes, and the oldest was 100 years old. It was really pretty specially because there were lots of butterflies fluttering around us.


Last stop was the antique market. We waled around as he showed me various relics, female Buddhas, items from ship wrecks and more.

Next day i had booked a tour of the Cu Chi tunnels but first we went to a the Cao Dai temple. It was quite strange through. It was the a mix of fluorescent pinks and yellows with incredibly detailed designs and all sorts of icons. Cao Dai is a fusion of Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism with a tinge of Christianity and Islam. It is a very new religion or sect founded in the 1920's as the answer to the ultimate ideal religion. At noon, the service started and the followers came out in organized rows all dressed in white. Females on the left and males on the right. The sat and bowed in tune. The temple was surreal and so was the ceremony, it was hypnotizing, the ying and the yang, the weird symbols hidden among the walls... the whole experience leaves you more confused than when you went in.

After lunch we went to see the Cu Chi tunnels. The tunnels are a form a huge underground network and they are spread out through the whole country. They were located at strategic location for the war and they were use as a hiding spot as well as communication and supply routes, and hospitals. Many believe the tunnels where the key to success. Life in the tunnels was extremely difficult due to the lack of air, food and water. Often there were infested with ants, scorpions, poisonous centipedes and vermin. The people would only come out at night but often, they would be forced to remain underground for days or even weeks at a time. This caused sickness and skin diseases as mold began to grow on their bodies. First we watched a video which was meant to be very serious but talked about warriors that got awards for being great "killers of Americans" ... the entrance to the original tunnels was tinny, no idea how they could fit in there. We got a chance to try them out. The northern Vietnamese hid in these tunnels for 9 years, i barely lasted 5 minutes... some parts were so small i had to go on my stomach and pull through. The feeling of claustrophobia was overwhelming. The guide also showed us different traps, the Vietnamese were very resourceful and recicled all sorts of materials to make their weapons , mainly using scraps from enemy ammunition. They used their hunting knowledge to set up traps, horrifying.