Gooooood morning Vietnam

Location: Saigon (HCMC)
Country: Vietnam

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For many years it has been a dream of mine to come to Vietnam, I am finally here, and I have to say that so far it has been great.
But let me back up a bit first to my last couple of days in Cambodia.
From Siem Reap, we got a five-hour boat to Phnom Penh (Cambodia’s capital). It was a very nice trip.




In Phnom Penh visited the war museum and the killing fields.

Both were highly disappointing, they can learn a thing or two from the Jews about how to commemorate their dead.

From Phnom Penh took an organized four day tour of the Mekong Delta, ending in Saigon.
The route we took was Phnom Penh - Chau Doc - Can Tho - My Tho - Saigon.
There were some amazing boat rides during the trip. I especially liked the boat rides in the small canals on low boats with greenery all around. It was exactly what I pictured Vietnam would be like, I felt like I was in a film.

We were also taken to see some of the local industries along the way:
* Fish farm houses – These are floating houses on the river that people live in, around the underneath of the house they have a net that reaches the bottom of the river, in the net they grow about 60,000 fish.

* Floating markets – This is quite a sight. In a section of the river there were loads of little boats floating around, each selling their wares. Each boat has a pole on which they hang a sample of whatever fruit / vegetables they are selling, so that the buyers can know easily.

* Towel weaving workshop.
* Incense stick workshop.
* Rice paper factory.
* Coconut candy mill – It turns out that coconut candy is really tasty.
* Bee hives.
Mostly it felt that they were taking us to these places so that we would buy things, but it was interesting to see.

Arrived in Saigon yesterday. It is not too bad here in comparison with other Asian Cities.
About 80% of the traffic in the city is motorbikes, quite weird to see.

Today I took a tour to the Cu Chi tunnels, it was brilliant. For those of you who are not familiar with it – During the wars with France and the US, the Vietcong built a maze of underground tunnels, which were 250 km long, they dug it all manually.
It was a great trip and we had a really interesting guide who explained all about the Vietcong fighting and living during the wars.
The tunnels were really narrow and could just about fit the tiny Vietnamese.

They expanded some of the tunnels now, so that the fat western travelers can go through them, we went down one, and I have to say, it felt very claustrophobic.
After that I visited the war museum, which was quite interesting, though there were many gruesome pictures around.

Tomorrow I am heading to Mui Ne.

Traveling in Vietnam is really easy, maybe too easy, it is extremely touristy. Basically, you buy an open bus ticket between Saigon and Hanoi and you stop at about 5 towns on the way. At each place you can also get organized tours to see the sites. All seems very simple. All the tourists here go along the exact same route. It’s good and bad I guess, but it suits me right now, a bit of easy life is fine.

The start of my visit here has been very good and I hope it continues so. My only complaint is the food, it is just so bad, they are not good cooks. I think I am putting on weight, as I have to eat rubbish all the time, otherwise I will go round hungry.

I have dumped my traveling partner. It was either that or killing her, and I guessed that that would have been frowned upon.
I know that I am not the most cheerful, constantly happy person there is, but she was just depressing. She was never happy or satisfied with anything; she had this constant tortured soul thing going. She was bringing me down.
Some of you will understand how bad it was, when I tell you that she reminded me somewhat of Maya Israel.
I felt a bit bad about it, ‘cause I knew that she wouldn’t continue the trip alone, but I will not let anyone ruin my trip.

I have found my new favorite author – Ben Elton (Duv – Do we have his books in the private library?). I’ve actually only read one of his books so far – “Inconceivable”, but it was just brilliant, his writing is so good.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE.