South Viet Nam

Editor's Pick Award

Our Editors awarded this travel blog entry for providing relevant information that may be useful and inspiring for other travelers.

Our taxi driver took us to the border crossing near Chau Doc, where we shouldered our packs and crossed a bridge into Vietnam. The border here has only been open to foreigners for a couple of years and we attracted a lot of friendly stares. The border guard, with very long finger nails and wearing a uniform far to big for him, led us to a series of new, empty huts where we had to sit around and fill out forms. The guards x-rayed our bags after a long time fannying about with the machine, trying to get it to work. Turns out it wasn't plugged in.

Once we'd got ourselves stamped and checked we were in. We got the obligatory moped to the nearest town, which isn't Chau Doc after all - apparently that's another 35km drive and the moped drivers reckoned that there wasn't any busses. This was, of course, all absolute bollocks, but we needed to get to a ferry port to organise transport to the island of Phu Quoc where we planned to spend Christmas, and time was of the essence. So after trying to phone a couple of ferry companies to ask which port would be best (and getting bemused, elderly, Vietnamese people answering in a bemused, elderly, Vietnamese fashion) we decided to take the mopeds. This was the first leg of an epic journey that took us only a few hundred km's but took us all day, where we had no idea what was going on, nobody spoke English but everybody looked after us.

At Chau Doc we managed to book a bus ticket to Rach Gia, a major port with ferries to Phu Quoc, using sign language and pictures. Whilst we were waiting the receptionist gave us some of her lunch, some sort of yolkless quail egg thing. Then the bus zoomed past, so they bundled us into a van and sped after the bus, flashing the lights and beeping the horn. It was all very exciting. Once we were on the bus everyone smiled and nodded, offering us cigarettes, food and moonshine, and chatted around us in Vietnamese. Well, Chesta was offered all of the above, Charlie had to make do with a bottle of water. After a lot more moonshine (for Chesta) we were taken off the bus and put on another. Hours of smiles, nods and offered fags later (all for Chesta) we got to the outskirts of Rach Gia. We'd been on the road for about 8 hours and hardly covered any ground at all. Still, at least we were near the ferry terminal.

Rach Gia is a city with lots of mopeds, a large sea port and a big river. Like Portsmouth without the glitz and glamour. It's a bit of a dive. We thought that we might be able to pick up some Christmas presents to each other because it's a city, but could only find shops selling mobile phones, shite or pringles. And then we found out that the ferries had been canceled for the week due to bad weather. Bad weather? The sun was shining, the temperatures were high and there was a slight breeze. We suspected government misinformation and subterfuge. This was a low point for the C Team. We had booked our hotel from Christmas Eve but had no way to get to Phu Quoc - with the ferries canceled all the flights were full. And restaurants kept running out of food. We kept meeting people on the street who'd give Chesta their rice wine moonshine though. Blinding. Literally.

Eventually we managed to get two seats on a Christmas day flight to Phu Quoc, which was great. It's a beautiful island close to the Cambodian border, and famous for it's white beaches, pepper and fish sauce. We spent nearly a week here in a nice hotel, swimming, eating great food, drinking colourful Christmas cocktails, bombing around on a moped and smelling the odd fish sauce factory. And the people are as friendly here as on the mainland - lots of people wave and shout hello, especially kids. It was great, a quiet Christmas but an unusually sunny, pool orientated one.

We had to get another flight out, as the ferries had been canceled again due to bad weather (which had been lovely whist we were on the island). Strange. Luckily the internal flights are really cheap in Vietnam, so we got ourselves a plane to Ho Chi Minh City on New Years Eve.

Ho Chi Minh City used to be called Saigon until the communists took it in 1975, renaming it after the great Ho Chi Minh who'd been born in Saigon but died in 1969 before he was able to fulfill his promise of liberating it. Most southern Vietnamese still call it Saigon and it's a fantastic city- busy, colourful, frenetic and friendly. It's also considerably richer than other Vietnamese cities. A couple of years ago the average income here was double that of the average Vietnamese at $240 a year. Which is just a quiet night down the pub with Jon and Bongo. Crazy.

New Years Eve was really good. We managed to phone our families and friends, and get bang on it. There was lots of revelers, lots of booze, lots of glitter and lots of music. Great stuff. Shame about all the little kids being made to sell stuff to the tourists, but excellent apart from that. We also met Mr Wing and Mr Thai, two Easy Riders from Dalat, and arranged to meet up with them in a few days.

The next few days we had a look around HCMC, buying some bits and pieces and taking it easy (Chesta got an automatic Tag Heuer watch for $25. It automatically tells the time twice a day.). We also visited the War Remnants Museum and the Cu Chi tunnels. Both are well worth the visit, but the museum is incredible. It details the atrocities committed during the Vietnam War by the Americans and some of their allies (of course it doesn't mention any massacres by the NVA), has a gallery of photographs taken by journalists and photographers  killed during the war, and shows a video about Agent Orange and it's disabling effects. It is an upsetting and harrowing experience. For example, there's pictures and statements by journalists present during the famous Son My massacre, where two platoons of US infantry  killed around 500 unarmed men, women and children, including babies, in a couple of hours. Google it for more information. The only person to be court martialed was the commanding officer Lt. William Calley. He got life in prison with hard labour, but Nixon overturned the sentence after just three years. Sick.

The Cu Chi tunnels are less interesting but cool. For years the NVA had soldiers living in a system of tiny tunnels, (complete with hospitals, mess areas, arsenals, etc,) who'd be able to pop up, attack, then disappear before any one knew what was going on. At its peak the Cu Chi tunnel network covered some 250 kilometers - from the Cambodian border in the west to the outskirts of what was then Saigon. They've made the tunnels bigger for tourists now but they're still incredibly small (Chalky wouldn't like it). We went down some 100m of them and it was hot, cramped and awkward for Chesta but quite roomy for Charlie thankyouverymuch.

Afterwards you can fire off some rounds with a variety of weapons including AK47's, M16's, M60's, M14's, etc. Stuart would have like it. We had a crack with the AK and the M16 - they're SO LOUD. It was fun, but they should explain what damage these things can do afterwards.

Once we'd had enough of the city we grabbed a bus (shop around, we paid over the odds) to Dalat to meet the Easy Riders.