Ho Chi Minh

We arrived in Saigon in the evening and after finding a place to stay we went for some dinner with our travelling companions...after Suzie threw up the malaria tablets because she hadnt eaten anything! Then we went for an ice-cream!

The next day we went to the Cu chi tunnels, which were very interesting. They are where the Vietnamese- both the Vietcong and the locals hid from the Americans. There is an extensive network of 200km of tunnels. We crawled through about 30m and it was so so dark and the space was very small. Some people had to come back out because it was so claustrophobic! During the war, there were lots of traps and holes that the Vietnamese set up around the tunnels and actually in the tunnels so if the Americans tried to enter, they would get a sharp bamboo driven into them. Because they had set up all the traps and knew where they were, they could avoid them and had the upper hand on the Americans because they could easily hide.

In the afternoon we went to the War remnants museum where we learnt all about the war. There were lots of photos and examples of how brutal the Americans were during the war and how vietnamese civilians and soldiers suffered. Some of the photos were really hard-hitting and children today are still being born with dreadful deformities because of Agent orange and its effects.

In the evening, we just had a wander round and booked our tickets to Cambodia.