Saigon is a mad city. 9 million people and 5 million motorbikes make for plenty of hustle and bustle.I slept OK on the bus so I headed straight out in the morning with a Swedish guy I met on the bus. We managed to see most of the sites inside the city of Saigon. There isn't anything really spectacular here, but there are one or two buildings of interest.
In the evening we met up with another guy from the bus (yet another Irishman!) to go to see the market and go for a few beers in a bar in the backpacker district. It doesn't seem to ever close so we were up pretty late. The next day was a bit of a lazy day, during which eating breakfast was about the most strenuous activity!
In the evening I met up with Adrian (the Irishman) and we went back to the same bar although had a much earlier night as we were both booked on tours of the Cu Chi tunnels the next day.
The Cu Chi tunnels are an amazing network of tunnels built by the Viet Cong to help them hide from and fight the South Vietnamese and the Americans. After a bit of a history lesson and a look at some of the traps they used we were able to walk through an 80m section of tunnels. Well walk isn't really the right word as the tunnels are only about 3 ft high and less wide. And this is after they've been widened twice for tourists! The Viet Cong used to live in these tunnels for most of the day and only come out at night. They had ingenious systems for letting out smoke from cooking with the early morning mist, as well as spiky traps and little holes where they could jump up and shoot unsuspecting GI's.
The tunnel complex also featured a shooting range so I just had to have a go! It was pretty expensive at $1.30 a bullet but I thought what the hell and got 10 for an AK47 machine gun! Well, I thought, when am I going to get another chance to do this? The noise was deafening and I'm not really sure if I hit the target much but it was fun.
That evening was to be my last in Vietnam so of course it was going to be a bit of a sesh. But Adrian and I had booked on buses for Phnom Penh in Cambodia for 8 am so we had to be a bit careful. Oops, I wasn't careful at all. Three separate groups of people I'd met along the way in Vietnam turned up so we had a big group of 9 or so people at least. This was going to be an epic session after all! It was really good fun and a great way to say goodbye to a country I've enjoyed so much over the last month. We finished up at 6 am and Adrian and I said we may aswell stay up so I went off to pack. However when I got back to my room my bed was just calling at me to lie on it for an hour. I set my alarm but my inebriated state of course meant I did it wrong! Next thing I know and it's 12'o'clock. Doh! I legged it down to the travel agents and managed to blag my way onto the last bus of the day at 1pm for no extra money. Phew! At least I was on my way, even if I was 5 hours late!
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