Day 8 Ci Chu Tunnels and a ride on a motorbike!
All went well with alarm at 6am and at bus ( pink now!) for 8am. We set off for the Ci Chi Tunnels and were told it would take an hour and a half – not particularly because of distance(about 65km i think) but because of the traffic in Saigon. As schools start at 6.30 here we couldn’t work out where all the traffic, mainly mopeds and scooters, were going! We got there in our cool bus , arriving about 9.30. First a happy room stop and then wevwere led into the new jungle – the old jungle had been destroyed by the Americans so the trees were only about 20 years old. This was an amazing place. We were shown traps to catch US soldiers, airholes in rocks, the hospural, the kutchen and the strategy room. Most of all was the experience of going down one of the tunnels. We went down one lot of steps and then turned into a cave like room to go down more steps into a tunnel (enlarged for westerners) no more than 2 1/2 – 3 feet high and 2 1/2 wide. They were dark and we followed each other until a man with a torch directed us the right way, about 25 metres in all, bent double. Gave me a real feeling of what it must have been like to move about down in the tunnels. These ‘resistence’ fighters liced underground for something like 20 years. The Americans had to concede they could not get them. Not that it stopped them bombing them and using the agent orange to defoliate the forest. Some of our group opted to use the firing range with rifles and machine guns – god knows why! Most of us had an ice cream and tried to talk with the firing of shots as background! Quite a bizarre situation really. We ended our visit with some tapioca, in root form, dipped in a peanut mixture. The Vietnamnese fighters lived only on tapioca for 20 years. We got a little cup of fragrant tea to drink with it. It was bland but not disgusting but i couldn’t see myself surving on it – no wonder they were skinny! We returned to Saigon with many images in our minds.
On the way back i had to hold my hand up to having forgotten my photos for my Cambodian visa so my first job was to have some done as the machine at the airport is often broken it seems! Well goodness knows what the temp was by this time but an oven comes to mibd. The guide had pointed me in a direction but after going down half a dozen streets i stood on a corner despairing! I was wet through and desperately trying to read the map i had been given. My knight in shining armour came to ask where i was going, said he could take me on his motor bike to a photography shop. After about 2 mins deliberation i agreed ti let him take me. Quite pleased with myself sitting on the back of his bike with crash helmet on weaving in and out of the crazy traffic. I had my photos done for my Cambodian Visa and we set off again for an oasis called The Lemongrass. Air conditioning – YES!. I ordered water and tiger bia hoi – draft beer in the local lingo. It was wonderful to jyst sit there but realised i was starving. I ordered chicken and cashew nuts and sticky rice. Yummy. Then banana fritters but i could only manage one and some others from my group who had just come into the restaurant helped me out. By this time it was increasingly apparent that i had a cold. I was coughing, nose running and my eyes were sore. I set off to the pharmacy. I just had time for an iced tea before catching the shuttle bus back to the horel. My plans to go to the market will have to wait until tomorrow! I mentioned about the masks and rain wear of the moped drivers but now i have noticed something else. The women wear a sort of apron/sarong skirt over their short skirt to cover their legs while driving the scooter. Also babies up to something like 10 years don’t have to wear crash helmets but adults do!
Thw prime minister’s mother lives in a house on the way to the tunnels, she is 92 and he telephones her every day. She has a casino going in her house every day. The other thing i noticed on the way to the tunnels was the shack/ shops/houses all looking rather a mess but by the side of them along the road were franjipani trees. Wonderful. Flowers are very important here and whereever we have eaten there have been flowers, orchids, roses or chrysanthemums usually. Ok had it folks! Night! X
Tags: Travel
Freejan