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| Local wares for sale |
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| Vietnamese Kara drinking Cafe Sua not the street |
We arrived into Ho Chi Minh City early on Saturday morning. It was hot, humid and the air smelt delicious. Vietnam smells. It smells like spicy egg noodles, dried fish, onions and sweet coffee… Combined it's quite welcoming and enough to get your stomach rumbling! But that’s ok because Vietnam can cook. Boy can they cook good. Aside from the regular beef pho, and scrummy rice paper spring rolls there is an array of different (we will say different) consumables: pig brain soup? Crocodile fritter? BBQ rat? Deep fried snake or Snail pie anyone? It’s all on the menu, and it all (when you close your eyes and think of chicken) tastes amazing. Another local favourite is the bang mi (baguette) made with liver, chilli, pickled onions, shredded chicken and spiced cucumber- absolutely delicious in fresh crispy bread.
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| Just after a rain- women selling fish |
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| Come get your bananas! |
South Vietnam is hot, sweaty hot, clothes sticking to you hot. Which is quite amazing considering that everyone is dressed in pants and long sleeved shirts.
Everything is busy and every man, dog and house, literally, is on a motorbike.
Aside from the compulsory siestas, we have been quite busy exploring. As we only have five days in Vietnam we decided to make home base Ho Chi Minh city and venture outwards from there. We dived straight into a bit of war history and visited the famous underground tunnels in the Cu Chi district.
The tunnels built in the late 1960's incorporate three underground levels and cover over 250kms of land. Built by the country folk of Cu Chi who, as it seems were extremely little people and were right into Guerrilla warfare.
On our tour we were told the people had two options; 1. die 2. secretly hide underground and fight back.... so they fought back for over 18 years. We ventured nervously into the mini-people sized tunnels and covered 100meters of ground before our legs cramped up and we couldn't see through the sweat covering our eyes....nice. We also visited a government initiative designed to help those left jobless after the war to re-educate and learn new skills.
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| Things just got akward |
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| Inside the largest Cu Chi tunnel |
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| Bit of a tight squeeze out |
The tunnels built in the late 1960's incorporate three underground levels and cover over 250kms of land. Built by the country folk of Cu Chi who, as it seems were extremely little people and were right into Guerrilla warfare.
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| Chilling out at the red dragon |
On our tour we were told the people had two options; 1. die 2. secretly hide underground and fight back.... so they fought back for over 18 years. We ventured nervously into the mini-people sized tunnels and covered 100meters of ground before our legs cramped up and we couldn't see through the sweat covering our eyes....nice. We also visited a government initiative designed to help those left jobless after the war to re-educate and learn new skills.
After that we had some R&R, John was dying to try the local brews so Kara left him at the bar and went off for a $3 mani and pedi. Quite a good bargain and the beer was tasty too!
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| Playing with the lunch |
We took a full day to also explore one of Vietnam's lifelines- the Mekong Delta. Our river tour took us South West 3 hours from Ho Chi Minh to My Tho, the upper branch of the Mekong.
We boat-hopped across to four small islands named after animals found in Buddhism (the dragon, phoenix, unicorn & turtle). What we really enjoyed about the river tour was seeing how local people live (and make a living).
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| Sailing the Mekong Delta |
We stopped for lunch on the largest island and ventured off later on bikes! The tours are a bit ‘touristy’ but do give you an insight to the people and culture.
We should note, we did visit the Binh Tay markets in the city centre. The market boosts to be the largest wholesale market in Vietnam.
After walking 30minutes to get there from our hotel, we stayed all of 10minutes. We’re not sure if they get many tourists, or few but the sellers are very ‘persistent’ if you even show the slightest interest (or not even) with anything. Generally speaking you can get all your wares there and then some… seafood seemed to be very popular!
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| All fruits and them some! |
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| Vietnamese rice rolls for breakfast! |
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| 'Pho' for lunch! |
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| Large pearly gates! |
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| Visiting the Phat Budda |
One thing we noticed about Vietnam is that is seems to come alive at night. It shakes of the humidity and heat of the sun and comes alive with plenty of neon lights. Actually it’s a bit like walking into a discount chemist shop- you can be a bit overwhelmed.
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| Bring on the nightlife! |
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| A treat to bring home! |
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| River boats |
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| Cycling through a small island village |
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| Ready for our boat ride! |
Tot siens,
John and Kara
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