Having initially thought we'd head north to Laos we had a last minute change of plan & caught the bus to Ho Chi Minh instead. If there are 9 million bicycles in Beijing there must be at least 9 million motos in Saigon. Coupled with this is that there are very few pedestrian crossings. Consequently crossing the road is an art form all in itself. Briefly, find a small gap and step into it. Now that you are on the road head slowly to the other side, don't worry about the torrent of motos, they will avoid you... hopefully. Many of the roads are incredibly wide and words don't do justice to the number of motos that will have whizzed past you before you reach the other side (hoping that you do reach the other side). People who complain about the traffic in Bangkok have not had a look-in until they have played chicken on a Ho Chi Minh road.Then there is the question of what to call the city. Officially it is now Ho Chi Minh since re-unification after but everyone still calls it Saigon especially the Vietnamese. So let's do the same.
We took a trip out to the Cu Chi tunnels. This tunnel network facilitated Viet Cong control of a large rural area only 30 kms from Saigon. It is a fascinating place to visit. You get the opportunity to wriggle through one of the expertly disguised entrances and travel through 100 metres of tunnel. It is mind boggling to think people lived down here for weeks on end coming out only at night. We saw all the raps the Viet Cong set to maim/slash or impale the advancing Americans. Pretty gruesome. Next we had the opportunity to shoot our weapon of choice , "what will it be today then Sir? AK47, M16? Or would Sir prefer something with a bit more oomph?" We chose to abstain from this bad taste form of escapism tourism. Finally the tour ended with a rather odd, somewhat bizarre, very old & rather biased documentary about the war showcasing the Viet Cong's greatest "American Killers". Propaganda aside it was an informative day out.
We also visited the War Memorial Museum, Notre-Dame Basilica, the Opera House & we must give mention to the Post Office (see picture opposite) ... the building was constructed, of Gothic architecture style, by the French colonists in early 20th century during French Indochina . It is worth a visit..
.
.
.
.
While wandering around the backpacker area (Pham Ngu Lao) of Saigon we came across plenty of art stores selling replicas of famous paintings. Once Claire had spotted a few by Fernando Botero that was it, she had to have them. Botero is a Colombian artist with a very quirky style, all his characters & still life have an over sized appearance. We saw his work for the first time in Bogota (see Botero - What an Artist blog entry) and enjoyed it immensely. We were able to find one off the shelf but the other 3 painting we wanted would need to be prepared fresh. This, needless to say, would take a few days and as much as we didn't want to stick around any longer than necessary we couldn't bear to leave without our beloved paintings. 
No comments:
Post a Comment