Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam – November 7 – 10, 2010

I arrived safely in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) about 9:30 p.m., got my luggage, went out to the currency exchange place and exchanged my 700 plus Hong Kong dollars into 1.9 million Vietnam dong (I felt very rich), and paid for a taxi to the hotel inside and then met it outside and everything went smoothly – no waits and very friendly service. The hotel is nice and roomy but needs some upgrades to the carpets and a few things. Of course it’s pretty hard keeping the carpet clean when the air conditioner is dripping on it all the time. It is very hot and humid here so almost everything feels wet. However, nothing smells too musty so the air conditioner must be doing its job.

I went down for breakfast this morning and found Sylvia from the China tour who is also taking this tour. (Did I happen to mention in an earlier blog that Sylvia was the other single person on the China trip and her name is Sylvia Clarke and she’s been married three times, just like the Sylvia Clerke I know well in Kelowna except for the spelling of the last name. Too funny!) Anyway, we had breakfast and joined our group for an 8 a.m. departure. I thought the 6:15 wakeup call was a bit early but those who just flew in from America and didn’t get to bed until 2 a.m. probably thought it was a lot earlier. There are 20 of us on the tour this time and all the rest are American. Besides Sylvia and I there are four other single travelers.

Our first stop today came after a minute drive through the city and countryside. I’ll come back to a description of those aspects at the end of our touring here. The first stop was the Cu Chi Tunnels Historic Vestige Site. While I had definitely heard of the Vietnam War and the Viet Cong and the Guerillas, I had never heard of Cu Chi or its tunnels. Cu Chi is a district along the Saigon River in southern Vietnam. The area was one of the most heavily bombed areas during the war as it was a free drop zone. Planes that had not dropped their bombs anywhere else would drop them here as they apparently had to drop them before they could land. Over half a million bombs were dropped in this one tiny area. Hundreds of thousands were killed or injured in the area as a result of the bombs and the fighting, and further damage came when the US started using chemical warfare, specifically Agent Orange.

The people who lived in the area dug tunnels under ground and eventually all of the smaller individual tunnels were joined to make a huge system of tunnels, which the people could run into when the bombing started. They also became the hiding place for the guerilla fighters who would surprise the US and other troops by suddenly appearing and then quickly disappearing. In total there are 120 miles of tunnels running all over the area and with outlets on the river bank. In one of the areas the Americans built a camp and were being killed in their beds while they slept and they couldn’t figure out where the killers were coming from. And in many of the American camps the Vietnamese workers were also spies so that helped the resistance know exactly what was happening. The resistance people also went into the American camps and stole uniforms and other personal items. These were then put near the entrance to the caves or near the air vents so the dogs would not smell anything unusual when searching for the cave entrances. They had medical rooms and sleeping areas and kitchens down below. The vents for the smoke from the kitchen often came out 2 km away so no one knew where the kitchen really was. The tunnels themselves were very small as were the Vietnamese. They have made a few of the tunnels bigger, especially the entrances, so tourists can get into them. The entrance wasn’t bad but the zigzagging tunnel itself was only 1 m high and 80 cm wide so everyone had to walk bent over and with their knees bent. I went in and took a look at the actual tunnel but decided not to do the walk.

They showed us various hidden entrances and air vents to the tunnel system and you really didn’t know anything was there until they pointed them out. They showed us some of the hand-made traps they used. You would never have seen these on the ground either but you certainly would have felt them when you fell in. It was pretty cruel stuff and the rest of the group thought they were very inhumane and awful. Well, they were but they really only involved one person at a time versus the bombings and sprays the other side was using. And all the time you were walking through the thick jungle and seeing this, there was continual gun fire from the nearby firing range: M16s and AK40s (or something like that) and other heavy duty military weapons. It was an eerie sound for the location. We watched a video which was obviously very slanted to the Vietnamese point of view but it didn’t bother me. Some of the rest of the group was pretty disgusted by the bias. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at the War Remnants Museum which had an incredible display of pictures on the war. Some we had certainly seen before in the press but overall it was a pretty sad and upsetting display. It was also very anti-American and quite vocally so. We didn’t stay long there and it was just as well.

Our tour director is from the States and is a history graduate and did his thesis on the Vietnam War so we got quite a history lesson on the bus. It was actually a bit much for me and just a tad too biased but I managed to keep my mouth shut and not say anything. According to him the US never lost a single battle in Vietnam. The French, however, had a large contingent involved and they were outsmarted by the Viet Cong mainly because of these tunnels. Personally I thought it was all the same war but what do I know?

Our tour guide for Ho Chi Minh City then picked up the story with what happened after 1975 when the US left. The North Vietnamese tried to take control and the people had to report all their property and money to the officials. In 1978, the North Vietnamese took everything away from the people, left them with nothing and sent them to a new area. Many of the people who had nothing tried to escape by boat and became the “boat people”. There are still millions of them unaccounted for today and assumed dead. Someone told her family not to leave their home so they refused to go and they got to stay. Because her parents were army workers, her father was sent to a re-education camp for 5 years and not allowed to take a job again. Many did not survive the camps. Her father was a well educated man, as were others in the same situation, but they were only allowed to drive a cycle and run a rickshaw. The North Vietnamese took all the jobs and left everyone else without. Even today they check back three generations to see if your family was a supporter or in the army and if they were you cannot get a job with the government. She is hired through the US tour company for these trips. After the war the females in her family sold soy bean juice in the market to try and raise more money for the family. Until 1995, when the US finally lifted the embargo on goods to Vietnam, the people had little food and nothing like shampoo or soap and certainly no luxuries like chocolate – for 20 years! A bar of soap on the black market in 1981 was $3 US and with no jobs they just couldn’t afford to buy it. They didn’t even have rice to eat but I can’t remember whether that was because they couldn’t afford it or if they didn’t have access to it because the North Vietnamese kept it all for themselves. To put the losses in perspective, 58,000 US troops died and 4,000,000 Vietnamese died as a direct result of the war or from malnutrition after the war. At the end she commented on how many lives were lost in the war – from all countries – and asked to sing us a song to help heal both sides and to hope for no more war. I expected a Vietnamese song but instead she sang Eric Clapton’s Would You Know My Name (if I saw you in Heaven?) and it was a very nice way to end the conversation.

Our last stop for the day was a quick trip through the Ben Thanh Market. We just followed our leader down several narrow lanes and finally ended up back at our bus. I don’t think we even came close to seeing 1/10th of the market but we saw literally everything for sale: fish, flowers, clothes, shoes, jewelry, groceries, small hardware items, souvenirs, etc. It would have been nice to have stayed longer but that just wasn’t possible because we had to get back to the hotel. We didn’t actually have anything to do at the hotel but some people really needed an afternoon nap as they were suffering from jet lag. That evening we walked down to the Lemon Grass Restaurant for dinner and it was very good. It was too crowded at the table for comfort but the food was great. Four of us ladies travelling on our own went out after to the Rex Hotel for a drink on the roof top patio. It was lovely on the roof and there was a slight breeze so it was actually comfortable. It was still probably close to 30 degrees Celsius but it seemed very nice. (The rest of the day was way too hot and humid!)

Our second day in Saigon (it seems shorter than writing Ho Chi Minh City) started even earlier than the first day with a long drive to the Mekong delta. Mekong means 9 dragons and that refers to the 9 provinces at the mouth of the river. The drive took us through a very fertile area which was green with crops in every direction. The main crop is rice and there were rice paddies everywhere so that it looked like one big marshy area. In this area they can get three crops of rice each year. Farmers were walking waist deep in their fields spraying on fertilizer by hand and with no protection that I could see. In other places people were crouching in the fields and working at something. We didn’t get a lot of details on the process involved. I guess it wasn’t political enough for our guide to mention. And yes, the people really do where the peaked whicker hats in the fields. Other crops in the area included corn and bananas but that’s all I could identify and the guide didn’t tell us anything different.

As we drove through towns there was a lot of flooding. Complete streets were several inches under water and homes had water right up to their doors. In some places it looked to be waist deep. This went on for miles before our guide even commented on it because he was off on another political story, which was somewhat related to flooding. The Mekong River starts in Tibet and China is building more dams near the source of the river supposedly for power and to prevent flooding. However, the Vietnamese at the mouth of the river want and need the flooding to replenish the soil. The water level at the mouth is already 2 meters or 40% lower than normal. With the lower water levels, the sea water comes farther inland and the soil can no longer be used for farming. This year alone, over 500,000 acres will be put out of working order due to the salt back flow. With more damns, the situation will get worse and it is feared that China will start putting pressure on Vietnam by using the damns and water levels. All of Vietnam relies on the delta for food so this would have serious consequences. The people in the delta also rely on fishing and the fish come down river with the floods. The fish level has already dropped by 50-60% so incomes are already being affected. There was way more to this discussion but I really started feeling like I was in a series of public lectures as opposed to a travel tour. However, it was interesting.

We got on a boat that would hold about 40 people and sailed up and down the Mekong River. It is a very busy river with lots of small boats and sampans running the locals around and many bigger river and ocean vessels carrying bigger cargoes. There are several islands in the delta so we went around several of them. We then got off the boat to visit a candy factory, which was really just a couple of tables and some equipment in a covered area out in the bush. There were lots of fruit trees around the area and again just lots of vegetation. They even made wine if you wanted some. This stuff came in a bottle with a whole snake coiled inside it. I didn’t try any. We then had a pony cart ride through the local town and stopped for some fruit, honeyed tea and entertainment in another shop. From there we boarded much smaller sampans and went for a short trip down one of the tributaries of the Mekong delta. The water was flowing quite quickly so we moved right along. It was very peaceful just floating along enjoying the big fronds growing above us and shading us from the sun. Eventually we boarded our other boat and made the trip back to harbour and our bus.

The Mekong is very brown because of all the soil coming into the delta. Some people were out on boats dredging the silt from the bottom of the river to be used as fertilizer in the fields. There were various size boats on the river, everything from small sampans to large freight vessels. Most of the latter seemed to be carrying dirt, perhaps what has been dredged up from the bottom of the river. The river seems wide in some places but not so wide in other places but then there are a lot of islands so it was hard to tell when you were looking at the actual edge of the river and when you were just looking at yet another island. Today was another hot, humid day so cruising down the river was a lovely way to stay cool. It was also a very peaceful day.

We stopped for lunch at a lovely spot – an open-air restaurant with several pavilions for eating and hundreds of tourists. The meal was excellent and the setting was great as there was a beautiful garden all around with lovely flowers such as water lilies and birds of paradise. We had a sticky rice ball which was a ball as huge as basket ball and they cut it into pieces at the table. We had rolled noodles and park, steamed morning glory and garlic, crispy fried elephant ears fish rolled in rice paper with noodles and lettuce and sauce, baby coconut salad with shrimp crisps, and pancakes with shrimp and pork. At the end we had beef noodle soup and then banana flan for dessert. It was all delicious and I think it was the most delicious meal so far in Asia.

We ended our afternoon with a stroll around the old city. We visited the General Post Office, which is a huge European-style building that looks more like a train station than a post office. It has a high vaulted ceiling and is really beautiful. Inside we met an 80 year old man who used to teach English but now goes to the Post Office every day to help people with their translation and writing in English. He was absolutely wonderful and even showed us an article written about him in the Toronto Star on September 22, 2009. He doesn’t get paid but he shows up every day and does get tips from those he helps. If he’s not at the Post Office it’s because he’s sick. He loves what he’s doing and hopes to keep doing it for many more years.

From there we went across the street to Notre Dame Cathedral of Saigon. It is a lovely church in red brick with two steeples and three entrance doors. It is cross shaped and quite large with stained glass windows and a white interior with a high ceiling. After all the temples we saw in China, it was nice to see a church again. From there we wandered back to the hotel and some went out for some last minute shopping. Not me! Later that evening Sylvia and I went for a walk down to the Majestic Hotel to check out their rooftop dining room / lounge. It was booked for a private function but we did manage to get some pictures of the lights out over the river and the city. We then wandered back to Kita’s and had a sandwich for dinner before returning to our hotel and packing for an early departure tomorrow morning.

I’m not sure what else I can tell you about Saigon and the surrounding area because our guides really didn’t tell us very much at all. Saigon has a population of 8.2 million people and there are 5 million licensed motor bikes. In some cases the bikes have separate lanes or even separate roads but lots of the time it is just a free for all on the street. And apparently it is the responsibility of the bigger vehicles to avoid hitting anything. Even if the motorbike crosses in front of the bus suddenly and wrongly, our bus driver still has to hit the brakes to avoid hitting him because the bus driver would be to blame not the biker. Of course he would probably try to avoid hitting him anyway even if it wasn’t the law. Helmets are required by law so everyone wears one. Many people also wear bandanas over their face, I assume to cut down on the fumes they breathe. The law also limits the motorcycles to 2 adults, which is different than in China or Taiwan where they had many more at times. Families can have more on their bike if children are young.

Vietnam has a fascist totalitarian government (communist) according to our tour director but it runs an open market system. The latter was certainly good for the country but the former is still a problem as the one party is continually in control. There is no social welfare system in Vietnam. The families must pay for everything. Many of the homes are small and yet 2-4 generations live together. In many cases the homes are very narrow but long three to four-storey buildings. The younger generations live at the top as they can get up and down the stairs better. The homes are narrow because you pay your taxes according to the width of your building. Thus it’s cheaper to build narrow buildings.

Vietnam has a two child family policy but people really want boys to carry on family name so there are lots of abortions of girls. In much of Asia there is a shortage of girls. The marriage of Vietnamese girls to foreign husbands is a common practice and they are expected to send money home to Vietnam after they move away. Last year 157,000 Vietnamese girls were married to men from other countries. However, they are finding that the girls once they leave Vietnam are not allowed by the husbands to return or to send money home. As they don’t know the language in their new home and are often married to older men, it is a terrible life for some of the girls and they are trying to stop the practice. Also, the kidnapping of young girls is common along the borders with other countries. All countries need more young people to pay taxes and help support the elderly so this is going to be a real problem in the future. Increasing the tax base can only be done through birth rates, immigration or expansion. Some countries are already paying families to have more children, and some countries are afraid of immigration so expansion becomes the next move and that is a scary thought if it means taking over and expanding into another country – according to our tour director.
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In many ways Saigon looks much older and has many more slum areas than any of the Chinese cities. I suppose that could be because of the war and from being cut off from the world and because of current government policy. It felt like a safe city though and there are some modern high rises now in the downtown area with more going up. We didn’t get to walk around much of the city but what I saw was nice and there is an old-world taste to many of the buildings, definitely a French influence. The sidewalks in many places are broken and uneven and there are a lot of construction areas in and out of the city. It will be interesting to compare Saigon with other parts of the country, and it would be interesting to come back in 10 years and compare the then and now picture. The only other thing I can say is that you are definitely taking your life in your own hand when you try to cross the street. It is a scary process with cars and bikes coming at you from all directions. There are marked pedestrian crosswalks but there are no signals to stop traffic and to direct the pedestrians. I did see a couple of pedestrian overpasses while we were driving around but literally it is just a cross-at-your-own-risk activity. Luckily, we all made it safely.