Last night we were all bused to nearby restaurant called The Chopsticks for a welcome meal, the evening was great fun, food was good and it was nice to finally meet all our travel companions for the next week or so. Back at the hotel it was bliss to get back into a comfortable bed again.
We booked a 5:30 alarm call for the morning so we could get up for an early breakfast, reason being we had to be on the road for 7:30 for our morning trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels. The drive from the hotel took about an hour and 45 minutes and it was astonishing to see all the scooters out during the Monday morning rush hour, there are approximately 8½ million of them in Ho Chi Minh City alone and they certainly slowed our journey up this morning.
A young lady by the name of Tang was our specialist guide, she was provided by APT to show us around the tunnel site and travelled with us from the hotel, the journey time gave her ample time to fill in all the background information concerning the history from around the time the tunnels were constructed and in use.
Some of it being quite dark and it just highlights how hideous war can make people behave. I didn’t take too many photos as all the time I was there I kept thinking this sort of thing should not be endorsed or glorified in any way.
It’s good we should know about it and maybe do our best to make sure this sort of thing doesn’t happen again. The tour lasted about 1¾ hours and the return journey taking slightly less time due to the improved traffic conditions.
Back at the hotel we immediately indulged ourselves in a spot of lunch and soon afterwards we set off on foot to visit the Reunification Palace, it was only a ten minute walk and it provided another impression of a different element of the same time frame of this mornings tour.
The palace is virtually untouched since the day the North Vietnamese tanks entered the grounds signalling the end of the war. We spent a good two hours wandering around the palace and grounds, absolutely fascinating and well worth the effort.
Today’s activities have been really thought provoking and upon reflection it does make you wonder how an earth these things are allowed to escalate to the stage where peoples lives are changed and not always for the better. The Vietnamese people were basically used as pawns by the USSR and USA. So sad because we have discovered some amazing people in the two days we been here and it is plain to see how the results of the conflict have made an impact on their lives even today. They are now moving forward and are proving to be very successful at it too.
Back at the hotel we decided to take some time out and relax a bit tonight. After all, it’s only day two and it feels a hell of a lot longer.
Tomorrow we set off to join the boat, it will be sad to leave Saigon but at the same time we feel enriched having had the chance to come here and meet the people.