Wednesday 10th December 2008

Now at the end of our third day in Ho Chi Minh City and we have been very busy here. Most of the main places to see are in easy walking distance of the hotel so that is what we did. Amazing place to cross a road there are 10 million people here and 8 million have motor bikes and they all seem to be on the road together. It's a case of pray to your god step out into the road and keep going and hope they all miss you. So far so good then!

The first visit was the Reunification Palace where the N.Vietnamese army famously broke down the gates and completed the capture of Saigon in 1975. It has been left more or less as it was then a sort of 60s art deco type residence of a James Bond baddie! complete with helicopter on the roof. Then the nearby War Remnants Museum which was mainly about photos of the war and some truly stark ones as well taken from both sides some by photographers who got killed taking them. There was a rather fetching guillotine last used in the 50s by the French who used to transport it to the unlucky people rather than the other way around. Also visited the Jade Emporer Pagoda which was a in need of a bit of a spruce up obviously donations are down recently and the Botanical/Zoological Gardens a bit distressing to see the poor state of the animals.

Yesterday we took a day tour to the Cao Dei Great Temple an amazing sort of quasi-Disneyland candy coloured creation for a type of composite religious order that only exists in Vietnam. Then in the afternoon to the Cu-Chi tunnels where the VietCong fought the US from in the war. Amazing feats of ingenuity and we had the chance to crawl through one of them that had been enlarged for westerners but was still very tight and difficult to imagine living down there for weeks.

A bit more easy going sight seeing todayincluding all the amazing fruit and vegetables in the markets the one around the corner from the hotel had fresh fish of every description. Finally a mention of all the Xmas decorations around here plastic santas et al all very strange in 30C + heat and in a buddist country.

We now leave here later on the Reunification Express overnight train for Hoi An about 1000 Km north.