Saigon to Some, Ho Chi Minh City to Others

Saigon is a city full of scooters and insane traffic patterns! It's easily the largest and most populated city of Vietnam, and it's capital, so it was no surprise when we arrived to the city we hit about an hour's worth of traffic because of heavy rain that had the streets flooded with water that came up to your knees. The downpour that we arrived in made us decide to hop into the first taxi we could find, which was maybe not the best idea but it seemed right at the time. haha. We knew we were going to try to stay at a hostel that was only about a 5 minute walk from the bus stop, so when our cabbie told us it would take about 10 min we got suspicious. He ended up driving us in a huge circle and his meter was rigged to jump up at an exponential rate! It was insane! After 10 minutes of driving our fare was $200,000 VND which was outrageous! We found our hostel and the lady there basically told me it should have been around $50,000VND so I knew we had been scammed for sure.  We refused to pay him the actual fare that he was trying to charge us and while we were in the street getting our bags he just kept yelling at us and swearing at us. A Vietnamese man walked by and I asked him if he understood English, which thankfully he did, and I explained what had happened to us.  I told him to tell the guy we knew he had tried to trick us and we wouldn't pay. The local guy told us we should have only been charged at most $20,000 VND, but that he couldn't really do anything because we had gotten into a "mafia" cab. Umm mafia? Really? That didn't sound very good to us, and the word mafia fit this guy's description once he started trying to close the trunk of the minivan on my head while I was getting our bags out, and when he did one of those "I'm watching you" finger movements to me before getting into his cab and driving off (we only paid him $50,000). Yikes. We had a hit put out on us from the mafia after only being in Saigon for 10 minutes. Great way to kick off our stay I think?

We spent our first day in the city visiting historic museums, one of which was the War Remnants Museum, formerly known as the Museum of American War Crimes. I think you can tell what this museum was like.  It was very one-sided account of how the Vietnam War played out, but it didn't change the fact that everything they were displaying that Americans had done during the war was true. It was the most depressing museum I'd ever been to, and after taking a few pictures on the first floor which was pretty neutral, I couldn't even bring myself to take my camera out because the pictures on display were so graphic and horrific. Words like napalm and agent orange are burned into my mind--I can't believe we used things like that against people, so many of which were just innocent civilians. The aftereffects of those chemicals are still very much apparent when walking through the streets of Saigon.  It was terrible. There's so much about the history of this war that I need to learn. I feel like it was never introduced to us in any other way except that it was a time when the draft was reinstated. But the actual politics behind it are still so unclear to me. New goal: Learn about the Vietnam War, and our military presence in the Korean War as well as in Cambodia and Laos. The United States really screwed up out here it seems, and it's really no wonder why so many other countries have problems with Americans. It seems as if throughout my travels the history of all the countries I've visited has been marred by some sort of American presence. It's a shame. 

The next day we drove out to a town called Cu Chi to see the underground tunnels the Viet Cong built during the war. There was a very one-sided movie that was played at the beginning of the tour where the US forces were labeled the "American devils," but after that it was pretty much just a tour of all the ways the Viet Cong went about killing the US Forces out in the jungles of Vietnam. The traps they laid out were so gruesome and grisly. Ew. Bamboo spears that would stab them if they stepped onto the wrong place in the ground--not an easy way to go.  The tunnels were insane! So tiny--I can see why the Vietnamese are so small. They moved so quickly through those tunnels, and they had about 200km of underground tunnels in just this one town alone! The tunnels led to meeting rooms, a kitchen, there was even an underground clinic and areas to make shoes, weapons and clothing. Very extensive.  And the coolest part of the day was that I got to shoot an AK-47!! I paid $3 to shoot two bullets at a pile of dirt. haha. I could have shot a machine gun or bigger guns, but I was okay with just the AK-47.  The first gun I shoot in my life and it's one used all around the world in war. Craziness. I was not very graceful either. haha. I jumped 10 ft after I shot my first shot because I had no idea what to expect. haha. It was pretty obvious that I had no experience with guns whatsoever.  

I spent my last day just relaxing and walking around the city doing some last minute shopping and such. Attempted to get a mani/pedi, but no one actually seems to know how to do one of those in Vietnam.  One of the girls working on me actually ended up cutting me, and I noticed her putting little bits of tissue on my toe. I was like, "Umm, am I bleeding?"  Her response: "A little yes. I'm sorry." Umm...ok? Definitely not the best job in the world, but for $5 I shouldn't complain I guess. 

I can't believe my trip is over!! The past six weeks have flown by so quickly!! It seems like yesterday I was first arriving into Bangkok, and now I have 30 hours of travel time to look forward to. Ugh. I need more time!  My next trip out here will have to be South Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines.  Too many things left to do, and so many that I want to do twice! Fingers crossed it won't be 5 years until I can travel again. :)

Hopefully I get some safe and on-time flights. :)