I know we were warned that temperatures in northern Vietnam are a lot cooler than in the south. Still, we were surprised to find that Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) was MUCH warmer! It was about 90 degrees F. I could put away our jackets and long sleeves for a while.
By the way, this is a terrific travel laundry trick that someone taught me.
After washing your clothes, you can roll it in the hotel bath towel to get out a lot of moisture so that it will dry even faster. I wish we'd thought of this before!
We left our hotel at 8:40. The sheer numbers of motorbikes across the city was staggering.
Hoa told us that although Vietnam is a communist country, it is also capitalist.
Land is supposed to be distributed equally among the citizens, but yes... there is corruption.
Would you believe we actually saw someone TEXTING while riding on a motor scooter? It totally blew us away. I wish we had a photo of it.
We arrived at the Cu Chi Tunnels around 10:30 after a 2 hour bus ride from Ho Chi Minh City.
Hoa: The tunnels are 200 km. long and have THREE levels! It is also five kilometers from where the U.S. Army base was located.
Dogs were used to try to locate the tunnels so Viet Cong used poison and hot peppers to ward them off.
Water and mines were also used to flood and destroy the tunnels which didn't work.
Yes, of course Art had to try entering the tunnels like the Viet Cong did. You can see why the tunnels were hard to locate.
These trap doors were also set up around the jungle for our troops to fall through.
Just the idea of knowing what our soldiers suffered was sobering.
There were holes on fake termite hills to provide ventilation for the tunnels.
Replica of a Viet Cong outpost
Here's a captured army tank.
The tunnels of Củ Chi are an immense network of connecting underground tunnels located in the Cu Chi district of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), and are part of a much larger network of tunnels that underlie much of the country. The Củ Chi tunnels were the location of several military campaigns during the Vietnam War, and were the Viet Cong's base of operations for the Tet Offensive in 1968.
The tunnels were used by Viet Cong soldiers as hiding spots during combat, as well as serving as communication and supply routes, hospitals, food and weapon caches and living quarters for numerous North Vietnamese fighters. The tunnel systems were of great importance to the Viet Cong in their resistance to American forces, and helped to counter the growing American military effort. --Wikipedia
We saw where any military weapons Viet Cong found were often recycled or reused.
The more you saw, the more you realized how daunting that war was.
5,000 U.S. tanks were destroyed using recycled mines.
After all that, it was good to have a breather to see how rice paper is made.
Rice paper is used for the wonderful spring rolls we were enjoying during our trip.
Those who wanted to were given the opportunity to crawl through the tunnels.
It was extremely claustrophobic.
I understand that the tunnels were often infested with vermin of every kind (spiders, snakes, disease).
It was in this Viet Cong kitchen and dining room that Art suffered his first mishap during the trip. He somehow hit his shin on the bench when coming out of the room.
Art's leg started to swell to a scary size. It might be due to the baby aspirin he was having to take.
Hoa immediately found ice which helped to bring it down a bit.
These water lilies were traveling down the river at an astonishing pace outside of our restaurant where we stopped for lunch.
We left the restaurant at 2:00 for the 1.5 hour drive back to Ho Chi Minh City.
We had a stop at this local market where we were able to buy a few souvenirs to send to our granddaughter.
5:00 Water Puppet Show
The show highlighted farm life in the 17th century.
6:00 Dinner at the Kichi Kichi Restaurant was more Japanese shabu shabu (hot pot). We got to pick the ingredients we wanted off of a moving conveyer belt to put into our individual hot pots. I really enjoyed that.
I normally don't drink beer at home, but for some reason, when we take our trips I do have beer with my dinners. I really enjoyed the Vietnamese beer.
At 8:30 we returned to our hotel and packed for a one night trip to the Mekong Delta.
I enjoyed the day, but it really brought back some very sad, disturbing memories from the 60's. I thought about friends and relatives who came here as soldiers and returned home with spirits forever affected and changed, some tragically.
By the way, this is a terrific travel laundry trick that someone taught me.
After washing your clothes, you can roll it in the hotel bath towel to get out a lot of moisture so that it will dry even faster. I wish we'd thought of this before!
We left our hotel at 8:40. The sheer numbers of motorbikes across the city was staggering.
Hoa told us that although Vietnam is a communist country, it is also capitalist.
Land is supposed to be distributed equally among the citizens, but yes... there is corruption.
Would you believe we actually saw someone TEXTING while riding on a motor scooter? It totally blew us away. I wish we had a photo of it.
We arrived at the Cu Chi Tunnels around 10:30 after a 2 hour bus ride from Ho Chi Minh City.
Hoa: The tunnels are 200 km. long and have THREE levels! It is also five kilometers from where the U.S. Army base was located.
Dogs were used to try to locate the tunnels so Viet Cong used poison and hot peppers to ward them off.
Water and mines were also used to flood and destroy the tunnels which didn't work.
Yes, of course Art had to try entering the tunnels like the Viet Cong did. You can see why the tunnels were hard to locate.
These trap doors were also set up around the jungle for our troops to fall through.
Just the idea of knowing what our soldiers suffered was sobering.
There were holes on fake termite hills to provide ventilation for the tunnels.
Replica of a Viet Cong outpost
Here's a captured army tank.
The tunnels of Củ Chi are an immense network of connecting underground tunnels located in the Cu Chi district of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), and are part of a much larger network of tunnels that underlie much of the country. The Củ Chi tunnels were the location of several military campaigns during the Vietnam War, and were the Viet Cong's base of operations for the Tet Offensive in 1968.
The tunnels were used by Viet Cong soldiers as hiding spots during combat, as well as serving as communication and supply routes, hospitals, food and weapon caches and living quarters for numerous North Vietnamese fighters. The tunnel systems were of great importance to the Viet Cong in their resistance to American forces, and helped to counter the growing American military effort. --Wikipedia
We saw where any military weapons Viet Cong found were often recycled or reused.
The more you saw, the more you realized how daunting that war was.
5,000 U.S. tanks were destroyed using recycled mines.
After all that, it was good to have a breather to see how rice paper is made.
Rice paper is used for the wonderful spring rolls we were enjoying during our trip.
Those who wanted to were given the opportunity to crawl through the tunnels.
It was extremely claustrophobic.
I understand that the tunnels were often infested with vermin of every kind (spiders, snakes, disease).
It was in this Viet Cong kitchen and dining room that Art suffered his first mishap during the trip. He somehow hit his shin on the bench when coming out of the room.
Art's leg started to swell to a scary size. It might be due to the baby aspirin he was having to take.
Hoa immediately found ice which helped to bring it down a bit.
These water lilies were traveling down the river at an astonishing pace outside of our restaurant where we stopped for lunch.
We had a stop at this local market where we were able to buy a few souvenirs to send to our granddaughter.
5:00 Water Puppet Show
The show highlighted farm life in the 17th century.
I normally don't drink beer at home, but for some reason, when we take our trips I do have beer with my dinners. I really enjoyed the Vietnamese beer.
At 8:30 we returned to our hotel and packed for a one night trip to the Mekong Delta.
I enjoyed the day, but it really brought back some very sad, disturbing memories from the 60's. I thought about friends and relatives who came here as soldiers and returned home with spirits forever affected and changed, some tragically.
