Crazyness in Saigon  

On February 5^th culture shock struck us. We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). After spending the night in Singapore in its beautiful airport (it is like going to an exclusive shopping center) we arrived in Viet Nam. The city is wonderfully congested and so alive! The first thing we noticed was all of the motorcycles (mopeds). Imagine a bee hive with all of the bees swarming around the hive, and never hitting each other. This is what Saigon is like. Eight million people living in the city and with 3.5 million motorcycles. The people driving them don’t look when they turn, they drive on the sidewalk, and they drive on the wrong side of the street. And, they do all of this with very few traffic signals, which they don’t pay any attention too anyway. Crossing streets is also quite a ‘treat’ as it becomes a game of chicken. There are no pedestrian rights.

During our 5 days in Ho Chi Minh City we experienced 2 tours, one to the Mekong Delta region and one to the Cu Chi Tunnels. It was very interesting to hear a different perspective of the war from each of the tour guides. The tour guide to the Mekong Delta was a ‘20 something’ young man who had been schooled in the Ho Chi Minh philosophy. He told many, very biased, stories about how North Viet Nam had liberated South Viet Nam from the American invaders. During the trip to the Mekong Delta region we traveled by bus for 2 hours and then on a variety of different size boats and skiffs to visit 3 villages. We drank their local wines and beer, sampled their locally made coconut candy and purchased a few trinkets. After lunch, several villagers young and old entertaining us with singing and playing their unique instruments.

The Cu Chi Tunnel tour was also very historic with a tour guide that was less biased than the one to Mekong Delta since he had fought in the South Vietnamese Army. He told many stories of how the Viet Cong fought the Americans by hiding in these large series of tunnels. We were able to go into one of them and crawl (hunched over) about 75 feet to the next opening. We were told how the Viet Cong (Liberators) would crawl some 3 km. (1.8 miles) through these tunnels to attach the American base that was close by. This extensive and elaborate network of tunnels were constructed by the communist guerrillas from 1965 to 1972. Craters from the B-52 bombings were still very evident. Quite an experience for us!

We also spent a day touring the War Museum and the Reunification Palace. Again, it was interesting to hear and see the communist memorials on this war and hear their one sided views. The War Museum left us with a very somber feeling of just how brutal and horrible war is.

During our 5 days in Saigon we felt we had seen and experienced a lot of the city as well as their biggest celebration of the year. The Vietnamese in Saigon were very gracious, friendly and helpful. On our last day in the City, Dick Bryant (a close friend of Mike’s) and Dick’s close buddy, Jose arrived to join us as we traveled up the coast to Hanoi. It was now time to move on.

Where’s Pat and Mike?