On the road again, I cant wait to be on the road again.
Yah right, painful leaving Mui ne, where you can get the nicest fresh seafood while overlooking the sea for cheap, you can rent a motorbike for the day hassle free, the omelets, the beach, the massive waves and the kites. Oh well, here we go.
The bus was painless, took a few hours and we were in the heart of a massive city going through tiny streets, near canals and Motorbikes, go figure.
We got dropped off next to a park and set off on a walk to find a cheap place to stay, this man led us down some very narrow alleyways, big enough for one motorbike to squeeze through where all the accommodation seemed to be. It was like a mini tini town filled with guesthouses.
We settled on a cheap 4$ a night room and shared with Jonboy and Olivia- who we met in Mui Ne. I think we were the only ones in this guesthouse and the man that ran it had very very small arms.
We walked around for the day, mainly only to book a bus out of the city as soon as we can. We also booked our bus to Cambodia and our tour the next morning to the Cu Chi Tunnels.
We ate, showered refueled and headed for a walk in the local park outside of our guesthouse town. It must have been fitness night because we sat amused for a good hour or so watching the aerobics class. It was brilliant, and everyone did it- pretty soon the whole park was just overfilled with aerobic doing people. We sat for a while before calling it a night and retired to watch Charlies Angels on tv. What a night.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Củ_Chi_tunnels
Our journey the next morning began at 8am where are bus was taking us to the Cu Chi tunnels. Our guide talked our ear off on the 3 hour drive before making our first stop at what troubled us a little bit.
Our guide was telling us about Agent orange, a chemical that during the Vietnam War, the United States military sprayed nearly 20,000,000 US gallons of chemical herbicides and defoliants in Vietnam, eastern Laos and parts of Cambodia, and where he was taking us was somewhere we can see the effects of this chemical as people are still today being poisoned.
The guide said the people affected get paid by the government to work, making art and we walked through watching as they made the most beautiful pieces.
We boarded the bus and headed another hour with the guide in our ear.
The Cu Chi tunnels were very interesting, and we were all ears when our guide was telling us of Vietnamese traps, mostly spikes hidden underground underneath trap doors, and spiked that you rolled through if you stepped on the wrong area, even spikes to come down on you if you open the door. We seen the whole layout of the tunnels, miles of tunnel dug with a small hand shovel and something resembling a dust pan. The tunnels were used by Viet Cong guerillas as hiding spots during combat with the Americans.
We got a chance to walk through bits of the tunnel which proved just how small and harsh these living conditions must be. It truly is an amazing thing. Doors in the ground you cant see, spikes, the lot.
One wicked thing- We shot a Carbine gun at the Cu Chi tunnels, they have a shooting range. You can shoot an AK 47 , and an M1 Garand but these are significantly more expensive so we took the Carbine. 10 bullets each, loud noise. Great feeling.
What a stress reliever, our guide showed us the kitchen, which yes is underground and the chimney runs to outside but the smoke fileters in to many different chambers on the way out making the smoke stay on thr ground and not rise in the air to show where they are, they fed as tapiocka and we are on our way back to our town of guesthouses.
Someone we met in Hanoi gave us drink vouchers for 50% off at a certain pub, so we went for a beer, cheersing to leaving tomorrow- we ate in a nice hotel and called in early as we knew tomorrow we were headed for a beach.
We woke up, our bus at 7am left promptly on time and the day is so far so good. We are off to Cambodia now, good thing as Jons visa is expiring tomorrow.
I slept the whole 9 hour journey it was- the border was absolutley painless thankfully as we heard there can be alot of corruption.
I thought our journey was going very well untill I look over and see Jon drenched and trying to hold the curtains over his head, turns out, his journey has been alot more painful then mine and had water leaking on him the whole ride. Shit.
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