Hi everybody!

After we had a great time in Hoi An, it was again time to move on and this time to Ho Chi Minh City, probably better known under its previous name Saigon. Saigon was renamed after Ho Chi Minh, the president of North Vietnam responsible for the reunification of Vietnam.

With a population of approximately 7 million people we were again in a bustling Vietnamese city. The difference though with Hanoi is that for us Ho Chi Minh City felt a bit more modern and we had more space on the side walk. During our stay in HCMC, we were mostly impressed by the War Remnants Museum and our visit to the Cu Chi tunnels. The War Remnants Museum displays anything that has to do with the Vietnam War against the USA. For those who need a refreshment, the war started when the South of Vietnam wanted to become independent from France. In order to prevent that the capitalist South would become part of the communist North, the USA supported the South by consulting them. The USA declared their support by saying they wanted to prevent a domino effect concerning Communism. Losing one part of a country, in their eyes could soon lead to the loss of more countries to Communism. When the North invaded the South and Vietcong revolutionists (people that lived in the South of Vietnam but supported communism) started to take action the USA declared the War. Sadly about 3 million people died and not only their enemies. As Vietcong revolutionists lived among the capitalist Southern population, lots of innocent lives were lost. Apart from that the USA used a massive amount of chemical weapons, such as Agent Orange, a dioxin in order to destroy a lot of woodlands to uncover hiding Vietcong revolutionists. The terrible effects of Agent Orange are still highly visible in the Vietnamese population, as it caused a lot of birth defects in the coming years after the war. Also the people that came into contact with the dioxin suffered from injuries which in many cases lead to death. Apart from the chemical weapons, a high number of detonations were dropped on the country. Not all of the detonation has gone off, which means farmers/kids are still affected by this today. So basically, the USA tried in several ways to win the war from 1968-1973, but failed and as a result withdrew their troops. As the South was left without military and economical resources they were soon overtaken by the North. The exhibitions we saw were quite impressive, including pictures of what happened.

At the Cu Chi tunnels we were able to witness how the Vietcong revolutionists had lived during war time. Trying to hide from American soldiers by building a 200 km long tunnel system. Back in the days the tunnel consisted of three levels. The first level, 3-4 meters underground for daily life, the second level, 6 meters underground for children, elderly and wounded soldiers and the third level 8-10 meters served as bunkers to hide from B-52 bomb impacts.
We saw the traps they used, the tricks they needed in order to fool American soldiers and we were able to go into the tunnels in order to get a feeling of how they lived for years, but only on the first level. We had to go on fours (hand and feet) in order to go through, that is how small it was and the smell was very distinctive, almost like gas, since the air in the tunnel mainly consists of carbon. We were glad to come out after struggling through the tunnel for a few meters, so it is hard to imagine living there for years.

After a few days in the city we felt it was beach time, so we left the city for the Southern island Phu Quoc. Getting a flight at the airport seemed harder than we imagined though. Only one hour before our flight the airline operator decided to open the check-in desk, which would not be much of a problem if the check-in desk would not be the same as for all other flights departing within the next hour. There was a huge line, so we slowly started worrying. 30 minutes before take-off we were able to check-in, but then we came to the next never ending line at the security check. In the end we almost had to run to the gate where they were already waiting for us to get on board. I guess we never had such a stressful time at the airport, but all that mattered was that we got on the plane, with our luggage, off to a great destination!

Bye bye!
Charlotte and Franjo