Our journey to Ho Chi Min (more commonly known as Saigon historically and by the general populace) took us from Brissie to Darwin and then across to the ditch. With mere remnants of Aussie Dollars and coins in need of liquidation, we had a field day at the news agents and with the vending machines - packing as many 10 cent coins in as possible. Our stack of 5 cent pieces were generally unwanted anywhere so ended up filling the Rotary club's coffers. We flew Jetstar - a truly minimalistic airline in which even the blankets cost $5 to shield one from the cold .. The seats in our A320 didn't even recline - making the trip a tad more uncomfortable than your standard economy class! It was only 9:25 pm in Ho Chi Min when we arrived but this equated to 12:25 AM our time - needless to say, the clan was nearing complete exhaustion. Foreigners in a foreign land we had to negotiate our way through customs which involved a visit to the landed visa office and then through the customs agents. Cole was completely passed out on the waiting room chairs with Aidan fighting off his fatigue with increasingly silly and obstinate behaviour - his norm when completely exhausted. Piper gets clingy and whiny in this state, wishing to be carried wherever we need to go but is at least manageable. We had booked our tour through Private Asian Tours, a Vietnamese Tour Company located in Hanoi (the North of the country) and were counting on our email contact, Ha (his name), coming through with someone to greet us as promised. Sure enough, as we walked out of the terminal a short bespeckled fellow was smiling and holding up my name in large letters - I can't recall the last time I felt so good and relieved to see my name! Our driver pulled up and we piled in seeking the solace of an air conditioned hotel room. It took a good 30 minutes to finally arrive at our hotel - The Hotel Continental Saigon - a magnificient looking place built in 1880 by the French. Walter Cronkite, Somerset Maugham and a handful of other famous people have resided here at one point and time giving it a majestic, historical feel with classical french architectural finishes all around. We felt truly blessed as we had placed complete faith in our tour organizer to find us appropriate accommodation. With orders to be ready to 'tour' by 8 AM we crashed heavily into our beds.
Cole woke at about 5 AM - around 8 AM to his biological clock, gradually incensing the rest of us out of our beds in a truly weary state. A couple Panadol and a shower fixed my jet lag headache and we ventured to breakfast. The restaurant sits in the middle of the complex with both an inside and outer area at the edge of a large courtyard. The employees and people in general are incredibly friendly and completely enamored by Piper and her blonde hair. Breaky in the courtyard had an old-world charm to it and we regaled in our luck to have such a place on our itinerary. 'Tri' (sounds like Tree) - our tour guide arrived right on time with Mr. Chi (our driver) and we started the congested and long trip to the Cuchi Tunnels on the outskirts of Saigon. The predominant mode of transport here is by motorbike or moped and it is literally chaos on the roads with road signs, lines on the road and stop lights being more of suggestions on how to drive rather than legal entities aimed at alleviating risk and helping traffic to move appropriately. The bigger the vehicle the more right to the road it seems. Our driver would slow for other like vans or trucks but not bat an eye if he was heading into a mob of motorbikes/mopeds. Pedestrians are the lowest of the low and zebra crossings are simply decoration on the tarmac. There are over 8.85 million people in this city and apparently about 5 million of them have motorbikes. They carry anything from fridges to rainwater tanks and industrial supplies on them - it is phenomenal to see. I can only imagine the horrific accidents that must occasionally occur - the emergency departments of the hospitals must be a trauma haven. Surprisingly though, our tour guide informed us that the life expectancy of the average Vietnamese is somewhere around 80 yrs (more for females than males) although I haven't been able to check on his figures. Obesity, other than in tourists, is virtually non-existent and in general the streets are clean, virtually clear of graffiti and people happy and friendly. We eventually made it to the Cuchi Tunnels - a Viet Cong hold out during the Vietnam War which was virtually impenetrable due to the clever tactics and 230 kms of underground tunnels of the Cuchi guerrillas. Our first stop was in front of a TV screen on which a film from 1967 was played, giving some historical pretext and significant communist propoganda to the guerrilla insurgency against the US and South Vietnamese. It was in black and white with barely audible dubbing at times and minced no words in deprecating the US invasion. There were tiny secret refuges under trees where individual guerrillas could hide if the enemy were near, a three level system of tunnels and burrows barely tall enough to crawl through, demonstrations of various booby traps, special smokeless kitchens, underground meeting rooms and much more. Necessity was truly the mother of invention for these freedom fighters, taking whatever refuse or bomb scraps they could collect and reusing them to make spikes for booby traps. Aware of the tunnels the US would send out German Shepherds to sniff them out but even this attempt was of short-lived success as the guerrillas soon found out that they could disguise their holes from the German Shepherds by making them smell like the Americans. They used clothing and other wares collected from US camps to foil the dogs. Widespread bombing also failed in that the tunnels would sometimes descend three levels below the surface. They even made shoes from bombed out jeep tires and fashioned them such that the widest portion of the show was at the back and narrow part at the front giving the impression from above that they were moving in the opposite direction to which they actually were. It was truly fascinating and perplexing at the same time as seeing such ingenuity formulated towards the killing of other human beings and imaging the pain and suffering which must have befallen both sides in the conflict left me feeling a bit queasy and unnerved by the end. In the midst of the tunnel display is a shooting range where you can purchase some bullets and fire them into some oil cans/ sand bags some hundred metres away - I was tempted but gave it a miss. The souvenir stand on the way out had various airforce jet planes, tanks and other war related contraptions all fashioned out of bullets - again - all a little bit odd and seemingly pro-violent in its formulation - like we've all been desensitized to mass destruction and killing machines.
From the Cuchi Tunnels we ventured back to the CBD for a bite to eat and our intrepid leader guided us to the Pho Restaurant adjacent the largest markets of Saigon. It had particular significance in that President Clinton and his daughter Chelsea had eaten at the same establishment back in November 2000. We actually sat at the very same table and instead of your typical table cloth, it had a glass top covering an A4 piece of paper detailing what both Bill and Chelsea had to eat on the day. The Beef Noodle soup came highly recommended so we all ordered one. Chopsticks have never been our kids strong point but they managed quite well today after a few pointers from our host. After lunch we headed into the markets and at one end was herded into a stall by some very keen and friendly women determined on re-clothing our children. We caved in and paid a bit exorbitantly for some soccer jerseys and a pretty Vietnamese get up for Piper - seems we're not the best at the haggling game. From there we hit the Reunification Palace - another majestic building akin to the White House in that it previously housed the deposed President of South Vietnam and his family. When the North Vietnamese eventually overcame the US and South Vietnamese forces in April 1975, the building was taken over and converted into a museum of sorts as the prevailing forces had their government in Hanoi in the North. The building is spectacular in its layout and decor, sadly displaying massive elephant ivory tusks and hoofs as symbolic gestures of power from yesteryear. Our guide was an encyclopedia of information and took us through the 4 story building room by room, giving a play by play of their use and the symbolic patterns or objects inside. By this time the kids were on the verge of collapse but we still had the church of Notre Dame and the colonial Post Office to visit. En route, Tri guided us on how to cross a road in Saigon without getting run over. Stepping off the curve into oncoming traffic is not for the faint-hearted but as a group we managed to manouvre through the flotilla of buzzing mopeds and safely arrive at the other side. The church and Post Office were intriguing but we'd lost the drive by the time we'd arrived to view them and only gave them a cursory look. We'll hit the War Museum tomorrow and do a bike ride of the Mekong Delta - should be a rather sweaty, scenic and solemn day - will be sure to report every detail when we return from our ventures in the arvo.
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