Our tour started by showing us a video that had been made very obviously by the government.  Is was very keen to state how the Americans were the bad guys and how the Vietcong were all just simple farmers who had no choice but to fight.  It was standard propaganda, and had to be taken with a pinch of salt, but was interesting to see nonetheless - we sat and watched the TV with a large picture of Ho Chi Minh overlooking us.  After the video we were taken into the jungle on well marked paths that snaked around B-52 bomb craters.  I don’t know if it was the rain, but all of the insects were out - especially the big cigar shaped centipedes.  They were as common as earthworms would be in England.  The guide showed us a lot of Vietcong traps - real vicious things ranging from the bamboo pit to the 'souvenir trap’ - essentially a bear trap that soldiers 'got to take home with them’.  There was a firing range there, but in the same way as at the Killing Fields, to use it seemed a bit insensitive. 

Our last part of the tour was the tunnels themselves.  A section had been widened for the use of tourists - they were as small as 40x30cm in some parts and the section that had been prepared for us was double that.  It was still amazingly cramped and had emergency exits all of the way along its length.  I felt quite a sense of achievement in going along the full length of it - a 5 minute crawl and I am in awe of the men and women who actually spent months on end down there.  You get the feeling that the Americans had no chance.  We saw some of the entrances into the tunnel system that were above ground and it seemed that they were little larger than letter boxes.  The Vietcong had thought of everything - they made their shoes (Ho Chi Minh Sandals) from old tyres.  Their traps were made from shrapnel and they even went as far as to build a network of tunnels which went from the kitchens to small holes above ground, so that they could cook hot food without notifying circling planes.  As were were leaving we saw a massive scorpion - further proof of just what a horrendous place it would have been to spend a long period of time.  If there had been a scorpion in the narrow tunnel as we were crawling through it, all hell would have broken loose.

As the rain really started to set in we headed back to Saigon.  It had been a worthwhile day out, but added fuel to my debate about if anybody was in the right in the war.  The methods that the Vietcong used to maim and kill American soldiers were awful, but at the same time if the Americans hadn’t been there in the first place they wouldn’t have been injured.  I had certainly gained the feeling that the war was un-winnable for the Americans and was pretty glad that the British government hadn’t joined in.  Once back at the hostel I made the most of my free Madame Cuc dinner and then found a group of Brits my age and stayed up with them and a few drinks - probably my most social night of the trip!  They are visiting the tunnels tomorrow while I explore Saigon, but we arranged to meet up for dinner when they got back.

Day Two: Central Saigon - Reunification Palace, The War Remnants Museum and Pho 2000

Reunification Palace, Saigon

Having got into the city centre I decided to hire a motorbike for the rest of the day.  I started by visiting the relatively near by Notre Dame church, though this was closed for a wedding. It was strange to see such a large and imposing church in the centre of Saigon, but Christianity is actually fairly big here.  The Central Post Office was contained in the same square and I popped in there to admire the French architecture and the large painting of Ho Chi Minh that looks down onto the central hall.  My next stop was the 'War Remnants Museum’ - the Vietnamese centre for the history of the Vietnam War.  I expected it to be largely full of propaganda and was prepared to take all of the exhibits with a pinch of salt, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.  The museum is an international effort, with exhibits about American soldiers and others that were created and are maintained by American photographers.  The images inside were horrible and while I believe pretty mcuh every word I read, you couldn’t have made the Americans seem any worse if you HAD been making it up.

The most gruesome of all of the exhibits was the 'Agent Orange’ room.  Having seen the cunning of the Vietcong at the Cu Chi Tunnels yesterday, this was a taste of what the Americans had to counter their cunning enemies.  And it was sheer brute force.  Agent Orange is a defoliant that was dropped in vast quantities on the rainforest, to strip the trees bare of leaves and make it easier for napalm bombs to burn the forest to the ground.  The chemical (not to mention napalm) is extremely hazardous and causes mutation of DNA.  As a result there are still babies being born today with MAJOR defects - where a missing limb is common place and some babies being born with no limbs, or huge tumours, or mishapen heads.  It was shocking - really shocking, and it was made all the more shocking by the fact that I have been brought up to believe that the Americans were the good guys.  I think that the owners of the musuem have cottoned onto this by writing the Declaration of Independence on the wall in the first exhibit, with the line stating the 'unalieable rights’ of 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ - a line which should be an inspiration the world over, seeming totally impotent.  The Vietnamese government didn’t need to use proganda to convince me that the Americans were totally in the wrong being in their country - whilst American children were happily pursuing life and liberty during the Vietnam War, Vietnamese children were being bombed and burned and continue to live with the scars to this day.  The final piece in the Agent Orange exhibition was a letter to President Obama, from a student with only one arm and no legs.  It was a polite letter, explaining how the student had been inspired by Obama’s speeches and his tenderness towards his daughters.  He had always wanted to be a doctor, but had been turned away because of his defects. He had also been advised against having children of his own, because his DNA would probably cause his children to be born with similar conditions to him.  The letter asked why Obama’s pledge to his daughters to support their 'happiness and fulfillment’ shouldn’t apply to children in Vietnam.  I don’t think he could have any answer to that.  I think that if I had been American I would have left the museum pretty disgusted, with my opinion of my country permanently warped.  I left with no idea who the good guys are.  I didn’t take many photos because they seemed too gruesome and it seemed too insensitive, so if you are interested you will have to look it up.

Downtown Saigon

Dinner at Pho 2000