Captain’s Log: Saigon Day 3&4

April 9-10

Hi All,

Ok…..staying busy…..and Internet sucks on the boat…..at least their advertised wifi…..ok, let’s use our own iPhone hotspot and the data we bought…..sure…..turns out my Sim card hiccuped…….we don’t know why……arghhhhhh….so Thang, our guide, added more Dong (Vietnam money) to see if that was the issue……..USD1.5 for 1.5 G…..still not work…so took out Sim and reloaded and voila we have Internet…..go figure!!

It’s now Day 5 (April 11) and I just posted the first log about Day 1 & 2 (April 7&8)……no pictures posted yet as we’ve had no time to upload as well as the internet woes!!!

Weather: HOT, HOT, HOT……HUMID HUMID HUMID……most days in the 90*F with the heat index well over 100!!!!

You maybe asking……why J&K are you doing a cruise…..don’t you live on a boat:)))) Well……when we started to research Vietnam we kept coming across these luxury cruises…..small river ships…..up to ~100 people…..and they seem to have a lot of what we wanted including Cambodia…..so we made a few inquiries and guess what……they were all booked…..this was January for an April trip…really, yep, these are quite popular cruises according to several tour operators…..go figure……then APT (Australia) emailed us back they had a cancellation……well….we looked at each other and said why not……unfortunately the Hanoi leg was still full so we will not make the central or northern part of VN…..so much to see so little time!!!!

Tidbits/facts on VN we have picked up:

– VN is still a communist country, the second one for us (China was the first one) , and one of five left……China, Laos, Cuba, Vietnam, and North Korea
– maybe up to 80% of the people in South Vietnam supported Ho Chi Minh…..why, we ask…..because they believed in his cry for Liberation….for Independence. They had been suppressed over a 1000 years by China, then the French and then Americans……they just wanted to be a free and independent country. Evidently after the war they were still not that friendly with China so received most of their support from Russia.
– In hindsight, the war was pointless…..communism as a socialist state failed and now the seeds of capitalism are growing rapidly. The economy is growing 6-7% rivaling the growth in China. USA lifted sanctions in the early 1990’s, VN joined the WTO in 1995 and now the USA is helping VN clean up the environment and finding and disposing left over land mines and bombs……about 1 mine or bomb/day still kills or injures someone in the Mekong Delta.
-Of course, the war was really about the specter of communism and the fear of the domino theory. We would both like to go on record as saying that we have the utmost respect for those US soldiers who served here when our country asked them to. We cannot imagine what it must have been like for those young men.
– VN now has religious freedom……officially it is an Atheist state and overall, VN is not a very religious country…..so different than the other SE countries we have visited. “The earliest established religions were Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. Today, these religions are grouped into the same religion known as the Triple religion or Tam Giao which has many followers today. Later religions in Vietnam include Christianity and Islam. New religious movements include Hao Hao Buddhhism and Cao Dai. About 85.5% are Buddhist ( mostly Mahayana), 6.8% are Christians (mostly Roman Catholic), 2% belong to indigenous religions such as Cao Dai. About 0.8% are Hindus and 0.5% are Muslim.”
– Saigon and the Mekong Delta are remarkably clean and rubbish free!!! However the River is polluted!!

Some very good articles we came across in our research on Vietnam

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/vietnam/history
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/apr/22/vietnam-40-years-on-how-communist-victory-gave-way-to-capitalist-corruption

Day 3: Cu Chi Tunnels:

“In order to combat better-supplied American and South Vietnamese forces during the Vietnam War, Communist guerrilla troops known as Viet Cong (VC) dug tens of thousands of miles of tunnels, including an extensive network running underneath the Cu Chi district northwest of Saigon. Soldiers used these underground routes to house troops, transport communications and supplies, lay booby traps and mount surprise attacks, after which they could disappear underground to safety. To combat these guerrilla tactics, U.S. and South Vietnamese forces trained soldiers known as “tunnel rats” to navigate the tunnels in order to detect booby traps and enemy troop presence. Now part of a Vietnam War memorial park in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), the Cu Chi tunnels have become a popular tourist attraction.

Communist forces began digging a network of tunnels under the jungle terrain of South Vietnam in the late 1940s, during their war of independence from French colonial authority. Tunnels were often dug by hand, only a short distance at a time. As the United States increasingly escalated its military presence in Vietnam in support of a non-Communist regime in South Vietnam beginning in the early 1960s, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops (as Communist supporters in South Vietnam were known) gradually expanded the tunnels. At its peak during the Vietnam War, the network of tunnels in the Cu Chi district linked VC support bases over a distance of some 250 kilometers, from the outskirts of Saigon all the way to the Cambodian border. As the United States relied heavily on aerial bombing, North Vietnamese and VC troops went underground in order to survive and continue their guerrilla tactics against the much better-supplied enemy. In heavily bombed areas, people spent much of their life underground, and the Cu Chi tunnels grew to house entire underground villages, in effect, with living quarters, kitchens, ordnance factories, hospitals and bomb shelters. In some areas there were even large theaters and music halls to provide diversion for the troops (many of them peasants) and their supporters.”

The tunnels were impressive……very ingenious and crafty……you can easily see how the American soldier became so frustrated with the VC!!! They had a survivor of the Tunnels come and give a talk/Q&A……he lived 13 years in and around the tunnels…first fighting the French then USA. The man seemed to hold no animosity towards the French or Americans as it seems is the case with most Vietnamese……certainly there is a lot of pride in defeating the Americans. The B-52 bombs certainly were effective but still these small people skillfully survived digging deeper tunnels and kept fighting. We were allowed to go through several of the tunnels…..we did not get stuck but it was very tight for our Western bodies…..it would have been almost impossible for a soldier with all the gear to get through the tunnels.

That night we had dinner at a local restaurant called Xu. The Chef/Owner is Luke Nguyen…..a very famous and well known Vietnamese Chef…..he is quite popular in Australia….has a few cooking shows et al and the Red Lantern restaurant in Sydney……perfect, sounds good, wish we knew about him. The dinner was excellent but the wines were a little disappointing…..from Chile and just an ok brand…..we were hoping for one of the better Australian wines!!

The next day we did a City tour on a motor bike…..yep, you read that correctly…..Kathy actually on a motor bike/scooter…..of course, we were the passenger holding on to a skillful driver:)))) Saigon is famous for the amount of motor bikes……say about 2 million at anytime on the roads for it’s 10 million residents. And Rules…..there are no rules…..we learned that the past few days trying to cross a street……it was organized chaos!!!