19th - 23rd July 2012
I was saying to Ronan on our last day in Saigon that we don't have much to put into our last blog entry on Vietnam. We figured that it's because we have spent so long here that all the things we would have found obscure and blogged about are now normal! So maybe it's time to move on seeing as we are getting too comfortable!
Our first day in Saigon (Thursday 19th) was a write-off basically after our early dump off the bus and the hanging about for 6 hours to check into hotel. When we got checked in at around 10.30am we went for a snooze before going for lunch and a wander around the city. We had loads of little practical things to do like sorting laundry, booking a tour to the Cu Chi tunnels and organising our bus to Cambodia. Our Cambodia plans have been chopping and changing for the past couple of weeks as we were trying to incorporate some beach time to get scuba diving again. But it was just working out at putting too much pressure on us in a short time frame considering the horror stories we have heard about Cambodian buses taking at least twice as long as they say. Ronan has a photography course booked for Wednesday 25th so needed to be sure that we were in Phnom Penh (capital of Cambodia) for that. During our early morning wait, we chatted and just made the decision to just hit the 2 major cities in Cambodia (Phnom Penh and Siem Reap) and look for scuba diving in a later part of the trip. I was so sad when we were booking our bus tickets to Phnom Penh that Ronan went and looked up flights from Dublin to Hanoi! We can get back here for €900 each in case anyone's wondering!! It will be happening.
That evening we went to a fabulous restaurant, a street food type place but in a restaurant environment and shocked the waiter by ordering in Vietnamese! There was a couple from New Zealand beside us and they wouldn't even order fried rice as they were afraid of the egg in it! As we have embraced the street food since China, our immune systems have definitely gotten stronger. At this stage I reckon I have been drinking local water unknown to myself between ice and lettuce being washed and no ill effects! Anything we read before coming out said to avoid ice, anything cooked outside that flies might land on, anything you can't boil or peel etc etc. We broke every rule. However if we listened to this advice, we would definitely not have the same amazing Vietnam experience! Apparently Cambodia is like India and almost every traveller gets sick there so will be interested to see what happens there!
On Friday 20th we did the famous Cu Chi tunnels tour. The Cu Chi tunnels were a network of tunnels that the Vietnamese rebels lived in to hide from the American army during the war. There was a 250km series of tunnels where the lives of whole families were conducted below ground. Some of them are so tiny it's hard to believe people lived here.
Typical of us at this stage we can't do anything normal! The usual thing is to get on a bus from Saigon, take 3 hours to travel 60km with 40 other people, arrive in the height of the heat with 50 other tour buses - nah I don't think so!
Take a speedboat, get breakfast and lunch onboard, arrive at 9am with the other 10 people on our boat before a single tour bus gets there - check!!
We had an amazing couple of hours wandering around an almost empty site. We recreated this famous photo: (yes my photography skills were better than Ronan's!)
We thought people would be queuing up to get into the hole and take this photo but no, me and Ronan were the only ones! Things are bad when I'm in the daredevil category....
Ronan wanted to shoot the AK47, didn't see the attraction myself! Girls from the hen, multiply clay pigeon shooting by 100!! The noise was horrendous and it's slightly disturbing when there is no health and safety around something like this!! He really wanted to do it, so like a dutiful wife, I grabbed some ear protectors and photographed/recorded! He thought it was deadly even if I didn't! I do draw the line at the shooting ranges in Cambodia where they apparently let you shoot a live cow though!
We then got to go through some of the tunnels. The first set were fairly big - I could scurry through them bent over without too much hassle. There are exits every 20m so you could exit when you wanted. The rest of the group did one but myself and Ronan keep going for ages. We then got to the second series which were smaller, no takers for this apart from us so off we headed with our wee torch (thanks Emma &Steve) and went for ages as they were getting smaller and smaller. We ended up in a living room at the end of it! For this one we had to squat down and run from a squatting position! And yes we knew about it the following day when our thighs were killing us!! As there was no else waiting behind us we got to mess about with photos and video clips!
It was a brilliant morning topped off with a fab lunch on the boat on the return journey!
The rest of the day was just chilling out, eating, drinking, doing some forward planning. That night we went to a barbeque garden where you order raw meat and cook it yourself. Ronan was in his element and it was the perfect way to round off his testosterone fuelled day!
We had a sleep in on Saturday before getting up and doing the Lonely Planet walking tour of the city. It was 4km long so we did it over a few hours, stopping for coffee and not over-taxing ourselves! We saw this cutest little dog in the cafe where we were having coffee, felt sorry for him having to wear a jacket in 34 degrees heat and with all that hair! He proceeded to wee all over the floor so the sympathy waned slightly.
Sally and John facebooked to say they arrived today so we arranged to meet them that evening. I started to feel strange in the afternoon, very jittery and a little ill. Again I was saying to Ronan I don't know what's wrong, I feel strange. Anyways we figured it was the coffee again so I am no longer allowed anything except lattes! We finished our walking tour with a drink in a rooftop bar as suggested by the Lonely Planet. It was crazy expensive but really good, definitely not the sort of place you expect the LP to send you to!
So we headed back to our hotel after this but not before randomly bumping into Sally and John! I think this is the 5th time we met randomly on the street and these are not small cities! We arranged drinks and dinner for that evening. We had to change hotels as the one we were in was expensive and not good value for money. The one we changed to was the shittest hotel we had stayed in so far but was $13/€10 a night for the two of us! The fact we had to sleep with a chair against the door and the toilet leaked everywhere didn't matter.
Sunday was our last day in Vietnam so we had to do the last remaining big sight in Saigon, which was the War Remnants Museum. I actually can't go into this as I could be here all day but it was easily the most harrowing, awful thing I have ever being to. I left half through what they call the 'Agent Orange' room in tears. There were only so many photos of kids with physical disabilities and actual deformed foetuses that I could handle. These were caused by a chemical the Americans used in the war and are causing problems even for second and third generations. The most recent case featured was a child born in 2000 with deformities because of chemical warfare from 25 years ago. Ignorance really is bliss where this is concerned. It was horrendous and extremely upsetting.
We had arranged to meet Sally and John for The Last Supper so we went for our first love - street food at the markets. We went for the usual vietnamese dishes we have been ordering as well as trying something new - there was just something tempting about the whole frog barbecuing away - we were very disappointed when it came out all broken up and not really looking frog-like! Surprisingly it actually tasted really good!
So after the meal we went all out and went for a bottle of the good old local Dalat wine - €4 a bottle can't go wrong! After putting off the inevitable it was time to say goodbye! They are staying longer in Vietnam so we will be well gone by the time they reach Cambodia! After a great 3.5 weeks of meeting up in every town that was it! It was about 12.30am this stage, party animals or what, but we still had to pack our rucksacks and be up for 5.30am to get the bus. After packing we eventually got to bed at around 2am.
When we got back to the hotel we had 15min battle to get our passports back in order to pack them! I amn't really comfortable with how the Vietnamese hotels keep your passports but have no choice! Eventually the dude broke out google translate so we were able to type out what we wanted and got them. Although we had the same guy trying to check out in the morning so another nightmare trying to explain our special cheap rate (we bargained the hotel rate down with a girl who could speak English but of course nothing in writing) and deposit already paid, while being cranky and tired and rushing for a bus!!!
That was Monday morning 23rd July, currently writing this on the bus to Phnom Penh having left Saigon at 6.30am.
So long Vietnam, it's been amazing. We will be back! We have had so many amazing experiences here from our Halong Bay tour, cooking course, scuba diving, easy rider tour, Cu Chi tunnels, it's been a fabulous 3.5 weeks!
I was saying to Ronan on our last day in Saigon that we don't have much to put into our last blog entry on Vietnam. We figured that it's because we have spent so long here that all the things we would have found obscure and blogged about are now normal! So maybe it's time to move on seeing as we are getting too comfortable!
Our first day in Saigon (Thursday 19th) was a write-off basically after our early dump off the bus and the hanging about for 6 hours to check into hotel. When we got checked in at around 10.30am we went for a snooze before going for lunch and a wander around the city. We had loads of little practical things to do like sorting laundry, booking a tour to the Cu Chi tunnels and organising our bus to Cambodia. Our Cambodia plans have been chopping and changing for the past couple of weeks as we were trying to incorporate some beach time to get scuba diving again. But it was just working out at putting too much pressure on us in a short time frame considering the horror stories we have heard about Cambodian buses taking at least twice as long as they say. Ronan has a photography course booked for Wednesday 25th so needed to be sure that we were in Phnom Penh (capital of Cambodia) for that. During our early morning wait, we chatted and just made the decision to just hit the 2 major cities in Cambodia (Phnom Penh and Siem Reap) and look for scuba diving in a later part of the trip. I was so sad when we were booking our bus tickets to Phnom Penh that Ronan went and looked up flights from Dublin to Hanoi! We can get back here for €900 each in case anyone's wondering!! It will be happening.
That evening we went to a fabulous restaurant, a street food type place but in a restaurant environment and shocked the waiter by ordering in Vietnamese! There was a couple from New Zealand beside us and they wouldn't even order fried rice as they were afraid of the egg in it! As we have embraced the street food since China, our immune systems have definitely gotten stronger. At this stage I reckon I have been drinking local water unknown to myself between ice and lettuce being washed and no ill effects! Anything we read before coming out said to avoid ice, anything cooked outside that flies might land on, anything you can't boil or peel etc etc. We broke every rule. However if we listened to this advice, we would definitely not have the same amazing Vietnam experience! Apparently Cambodia is like India and almost every traveller gets sick there so will be interested to see what happens there!
On Friday 20th we did the famous Cu Chi tunnels tour. The Cu Chi tunnels were a network of tunnels that the Vietnamese rebels lived in to hide from the American army during the war. There was a 250km series of tunnels where the lives of whole families were conducted below ground. Some of them are so tiny it's hard to believe people lived here.
Typical of us at this stage we can't do anything normal! The usual thing is to get on a bus from Saigon, take 3 hours to travel 60km with 40 other people, arrive in the height of the heat with 50 other tour buses - nah I don't think so!
Take a speedboat, get breakfast and lunch onboard, arrive at 9am with the other 10 people on our boat before a single tour bus gets there - check!!
We had an amazing couple of hours wandering around an almost empty site. We recreated this famous photo: (yes my photography skills were better than Ronan's!)
 |
| Me capturing the sequence...going |
 |
| .....going |
 |
| ...gone |
 |
| This is the only pic of me...crap! |
We thought people would be queuing up to get into the hole and take this photo but no, me and Ronan were the only ones! Things are bad when I'm in the daredevil category....
Ronan wanted to shoot the AK47, didn't see the attraction myself! Girls from the hen, multiply clay pigeon shooting by 100!! The noise was horrendous and it's slightly disturbing when there is no health and safety around something like this!! He really wanted to do it, so like a dutiful wife, I grabbed some ear protectors and photographed/recorded! He thought it was deadly even if I didn't! I do draw the line at the shooting ranges in Cambodia where they apparently let you shoot a live cow though!
We then got to go through some of the tunnels. The first set were fairly big - I could scurry through them bent over without too much hassle. There are exits every 20m so you could exit when you wanted. The rest of the group did one but myself and Ronan keep going for ages. We then got to the second series which were smaller, no takers for this apart from us so off we headed with our wee torch (thanks Emma &Steve) and went for ages as they were getting smaller and smaller. We ended up in a living room at the end of it! For this one we had to squat down and run from a squatting position! And yes we knew about it the following day when our thighs were killing us!! As there was no else waiting behind us we got to mess about with photos and video clips!
It was a brilliant morning topped off with a fab lunch on the boat on the return journey!
The rest of the day was just chilling out, eating, drinking, doing some forward planning. That night we went to a barbeque garden where you order raw meat and cook it yourself. Ronan was in his element and it was the perfect way to round off his testosterone fuelled day!
We had a sleep in on Saturday before getting up and doing the Lonely Planet walking tour of the city. It was 4km long so we did it over a few hours, stopping for coffee and not over-taxing ourselves! We saw this cutest little dog in the cafe where we were having coffee, felt sorry for him having to wear a jacket in 34 degrees heat and with all that hair! He proceeded to wee all over the floor so the sympathy waned slightly.
Sally and John facebooked to say they arrived today so we arranged to meet them that evening. I started to feel strange in the afternoon, very jittery and a little ill. Again I was saying to Ronan I don't know what's wrong, I feel strange. Anyways we figured it was the coffee again so I am no longer allowed anything except lattes! We finished our walking tour with a drink in a rooftop bar as suggested by the Lonely Planet. It was crazy expensive but really good, definitely not the sort of place you expect the LP to send you to!
So we headed back to our hotel after this but not before randomly bumping into Sally and John! I think this is the 5th time we met randomly on the street and these are not small cities! We arranged drinks and dinner for that evening. We had to change hotels as the one we were in was expensive and not good value for money. The one we changed to was the shittest hotel we had stayed in so far but was $13/€10 a night for the two of us! The fact we had to sleep with a chair against the door and the toilet leaked everywhere didn't matter.
Sunday was our last day in Vietnam so we had to do the last remaining big sight in Saigon, which was the War Remnants Museum. I actually can't go into this as I could be here all day but it was easily the most harrowing, awful thing I have ever being to. I left half through what they call the 'Agent Orange' room in tears. There were only so many photos of kids with physical disabilities and actual deformed foetuses that I could handle. These were caused by a chemical the Americans used in the war and are causing problems even for second and third generations. The most recent case featured was a child born in 2000 with deformities because of chemical warfare from 25 years ago. Ignorance really is bliss where this is concerned. It was horrendous and extremely upsetting.
We had arranged to meet Sally and John for The Last Supper so we went for our first love - street food at the markets. We went for the usual vietnamese dishes we have been ordering as well as trying something new - there was just something tempting about the whole frog barbecuing away - we were very disappointed when it came out all broken up and not really looking frog-like! Surprisingly it actually tasted really good!
 |
| The Last Supper!!! |
 |
| The coloured rice looked so nice and interesting that we were dying to taste it .... |
 |
| ...until it came out looking like this. Not one of the most successful street food experiences! |
 |
| However the frog on the other hand was delish! |
 |
| Yummy!! |
So after the meal we went all out and went for a bottle of the good old local Dalat wine - €4 a bottle can't go wrong! After putting off the inevitable it was time to say goodbye! They are staying longer in Vietnam so we will be well gone by the time they reach Cambodia! After a great 3.5 weeks of meeting up in every town that was it! It was about 12.30am this stage, party animals or what, but we still had to pack our rucksacks and be up for 5.30am to get the bus. After packing we eventually got to bed at around 2am.
When we got back to the hotel we had 15min battle to get our passports back in order to pack them! I amn't really comfortable with how the Vietnamese hotels keep your passports but have no choice! Eventually the dude broke out google translate so we were able to type out what we wanted and got them. Although we had the same guy trying to check out in the morning so another nightmare trying to explain our special cheap rate (we bargained the hotel rate down with a girl who could speak English but of course nothing in writing) and deposit already paid, while being cranky and tired and rushing for a bus!!!
That was Monday morning 23rd July, currently writing this on the bus to Phnom Penh having left Saigon at 6.30am.
So long Vietnam, it's been amazing. We will be back! We have had so many amazing experiences here from our Halong Bay tour, cooking course, scuba diving, easy rider tour, Cu Chi tunnels, it's been a fabulous 3.5 weeks!
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