Cu Chi Tunnels and Ho Chi Minh City

After 30 hours of travel we didn't want to let any jet lag affect us so we filled today up. We got up at 6am to get ready and have a delicious breakfast at the hotel before we were picked up at 7am by Les Rives. From the hotel we took a bus to one of the docks on the Saigon River and then took a speedboat an hour up the river to the Cu Chi Tunnels complex. On the way, we tried some delicious indigenous fruits: tiny bananas and lychees.

 

The Cu Chi complex is harrowing and somber but we were grateful to visit it. Our guide, Dat, showed us the types of Tunnels the Viet Cong dug and the myriad methods of camouflage they used to disguise and booby trap the entrances. We also saw firsthand the awful hand-made traps left for attacking American and South Vietnamese soldiers. 

Visiting the area was a unique experience as we were the only Americans in our group and it seemed like the other tourists didn't study much or anything about the Vietnam war. Our guide honestly presented the horrible realities of the war from all sides. 

After visiting the complex we had lunch with our tour group before taking the boat and then bus back to our hotel. On the way back I also talked to the Russian family on the tour and learned that I shared two important things with their son: his mom is also from Belarus and his name is also Simon. 

From home base, we headed back out to walk around Ho Chi Minh City, with mixed results. I led us around with two maps. One of them had all the landmarks I wanted to show Erika, but the streets weren't labeled. The other had streets labeled but no landmarks. After a few (many, many) wrong turns and sound guesswork (accidentally bumping into things we wanted to see out of order) we made it around all of District 1 in about two and a half hours. We only ended up in the middle of a traffic circle once, and we only had to dart in front of a handful of moving cars. Sidewalks, it seems, are just an idea, and traffic signals are mere suggestions. 

Some of the sights we saw included: the Reunification Palace. (Note the fact this was a palace built in the most beautiful schools of architecture - the 1970s)...

Notre Dame Cathedral Basilica of Saigon...


The old post office...


City Hall...

At around 4:30 we got back to our hotel, literally cooled off (parked in a rocking chair in our room in the direct line of the powerful A/C unit), and then headed to walk around our immediate neighborhood (party central) and have some dinner. All the way through dinner, jet lag was creeping on both of us. Time to surrender to it now.