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| Ready for our day |
Cu Chi Tunnels and Saigon
But first, the traffic...
I haven't mentioned the traffic situation in Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City (southern Vietnamese prefer to call it Saigon, more maybe later on that). First of all, it is one hundred percent a feast for the eyes. The streets fill early morning with cars and trucks and little open backed tuk tuks and a million or a billion, I don't know which, motorbikes. Most people do not own a car, a real luxury here, the cars that are driving around this city are new and often high end, and just only a few years ago the bicycle was the main mode of transportation, but with the resurgence of the economy here, there has been a massive shift to the motor bike. They float over the roads like a flock of birds, it is amazing to watch and sometimes scary.
First, to clarify, the stop lights in the city are only suggestions, not hard fast rules (which would really help me out at 4:50 in the morning back home when I am driving to a workout class and wait and wait at an deserted intersection for the light to change, but, I'm a rule follower). We only a few times actually witnessed everyone stopping for a red light, but mostly the thought here is that if you go slowly, slowly, you really can cross an intersection with five hundred other motor bikes, sundry trucks and cars barreling at you...by the way, the same advice goes if you would actually like to do something crazy and cross the street. You just step out into five thousand speeding vehicles and go slow, no running, we've been advised, because that would surely be a death sentence.
So that is the volume and method of driving aspect of traffic around here, the real show is what the people here managed to fit on a motor bike. Today alone, Quinn saw an entire mattress...ENTIRE MATTRESS on the back of a bike. Families of four can be seen casually weaving around in and out of cars, even if one of the family members happens to be a two year old who is standing. We've seen 8 foot long poles carried and even a load of Culligan sized water tank bottles. Phong tells us he has seen a whole water buffalo. On the back of a scooter...woah. It is totally entertaining and scary all at once.
But, that is not really what I came to the blog to write about tonight. I mentioned yesterday that our guide suffered greatly for the first eighteen years of his life. I haven't even told you the half of it. He and his five siblings and parents lived out in the countryside near the Cu Chi Tunnels we went to visit today outside of Saigon, about one and a half hours away. After the war, there was no way they were allowed to leave their family home due to the rigid restrictions that the twenty years after the war brought to the people. His family suffered greatly, they ate leaves or bark or anything at all to survive. He said he would wake at night with hunger pangs so great that he would go out to eat leaves only to get a horrible painful stomach ache due to the toxins in the leaves he desperately chose to satisfy his never ending hunger.
Today, on our way up to the Cu Chi Tunnels, which are a labyrinth of tunnels that ran underground for something like 150 miles (maybe more, I can't remember exactly), he told us more about his life growing up. The people were compelled to dig the tunnels at gun point to maintain the military advantage over the American troops. And the tunnels were amazing feats of work. More on that next. But as a child, he and his friends played in the tunnels, found unexploded grenades and bombs, and many of his friends lost arms, eyes, legs or were killed right in front of his eyes. He said every day in the countryside when he was a child, people also were dying and being injured from the landmines that riddled the ground. People he knew, saw in his village, played with, cared about.
There is no way to begin to imagine a childhood like that.
We arrived at the tunnels stunned already at the depth of pain the war caused this kind friendly man who has been showing us around his country. He is proud, it is clear, of how much has improved here since 1995. And, even though by Western standards, this country is still a developing country (dirty, lack of basic social services and chaotic in many ways) it has come so far.
As we entered the area set up to show the way in which the tunnels worked in favor of the Viet Cong, we heard rifle fire and it shook me to my core. It turns out to "entertain" the tourists, they shoot guns all day at a shooting range on the property. Everywhere we looked, bomb craters, jungle type vegetation and mock ups of the traps (nightmarish is the only word I can think to describe what these looked like) for catching and making human beings suffer slow painful deaths and injuries was straight out of every Vietnam movie you or I have ever seen. Horrific. I have to admit, there were many times I struggled to hold back the tears just thinking about the utter terror of the war, which in reality was not fought that long ago. These people are still in recovery mode from what happened. Go hug a Vietnam vet. Find them, tell them that you can't ever imagine how horrible it must have been to see what they saw and suffer the way they did. It was horrible on both sides. War.
After we marveled at the tunnels themselves and how soldiers and people and children and medical personnel could have lived in such awful conditions to kill an enemy that they didn't even know and were compelled to fight against, we drove a mostly quiet ride back home.
As I said, Phong has such a optimistic outlook on where Vietnam is headed, really it is written over all the faces we have seen so far. The people are finally happy and have hope here. It is not hard to see progress everywhere, with new construction, cleaned up and beautified roads and rivers. These people today are grateful. They have known the worst of life and have survived. A good perspective.
In the afternoon we toured the central part of Saigon. Many of the buildings have survived from the French occupation of Vietnam in the early 1900's so there are some beautiful places to see. An opera house, a beautiful post office (really beautiful), among other historic buildings mixed in with modern and sleek architecture are another feast for the eyes. The city is full of a lot of trees, too, and green spaces, so that adds to the beauty.
During our walk around the city, I forgot to mention that we also took rickshaw rides through the crazy streets and got to rub elbows with the occupants of cars and motor scooters and that was both thrilling and a little anxiety producing. We each had our own rickshaw driver who tried their best to communicate. Everyone is your friend.
We boarded a plane in the late afternoon and landed in Danang in time for a late dinner. More on Danang tomorrow, when I have gotten a chance to see it in the light. So far, beautiful and right on the ocean (China Sea).
Until then, good night.
First, to clarify, the stop lights in the city are only suggestions, not hard fast rules (which would really help me out at 4:50 in the morning back home when I am driving to a workout class and wait and wait at an deserted intersection for the light to change, but, I'm a rule follower). We only a few times actually witnessed everyone stopping for a red light, but mostly the thought here is that if you go slowly, slowly, you really can cross an intersection with five hundred other motor bikes, sundry trucks and cars barreling at you...by the way, the same advice goes if you would actually like to do something crazy and cross the street. You just step out into five thousand speeding vehicles and go slow, no running, we've been advised, because that would surely be a death sentence. 
So that is the volume and method of driving aspect of traffic around here, the real show is what the people here managed to fit on a motor bike. Today alone, Quinn saw an entire mattress...ENTIRE MATTRESS on the back of a bike. Families of four can be seen casually weaving around in and out of cars, even if one of the family members happens to be a two year old who is standing. We've seen 8 foot long poles carried and even a load of Culligan sized water tank bottles. Phong tells us he has seen a whole water buffalo. On the back of a scooter...woah. It is totally entertaining and scary all at once. But, that is not really what I came to the blog to write about tonight. I mentioned yesterday that our guide suffered greatly for the first eighteen years of his life. I haven't even told you the half of it. He and his five siblings and parents lived out in the countryside near the Cu Chi Tunnels we went to visit today outside of Saigon, about one and a half hours away. After the war, there was no way they were allowed to leave their family home due to the rigid restrictions that the twenty years after the war brought to the people. His family suffered greatly, they ate leaves or bark or anything at all to survive. He said he would wake at night with hunger pangs so great that he would go out to eat leaves only to get a horrible painful stomach ache due to the toxins in the leaves he desperately chose to satisfy his never ending hunger.
Today, on our way up to the Cu Chi Tunnels, which are a labyrinth of tunnels that ran underground for something like 150 miles (maybe more, I can't remember exactly), he told us more about his life growing up. The people were compelled to dig the tunnels at gun point to maintain the military advantage over the American troops. And the tunnels were amazing feats of work. More on that next. But as a child, he and his friends played in the tunnels, found unexploded grenades and bombs, and many of his friends lost arms, eyes, legs or were killed right in front of his eyes. He said every day in the countryside when he was a child, people also were dying and being injured from the landmines that riddled the ground. People he knew, saw in his village, played with, cared about.
There is no way to begin to imagine a childhood like that.
We arrived at the tunnels stunned already at the depth of pain the war caused this kind friendly man who has been showing us around his country. He is proud, it is clear, of how much has improved here since 1995. And, even though by Western standards, this country is still a developing country (dirty, lack of basic social services and chaotic in many ways) it has come so far.
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| A soldier demonstrates how the tunnels were hidden |
After we marveled at the tunnels themselves and how soldiers and people and children and medical personnel could have lived in such awful conditions to kill an enemy that they didn't even know and were compelled to fight against, we drove a mostly quiet ride back home.
As I said, Phong has such a optimistic outlook on where Vietnam is headed, really it is written over all the faces we have seen so far. The people are finally happy and have hope here. It is not hard to see progress everywhere, with new construction, cleaned up and beautified roads and rivers. These people today are grateful. They have known the worst of life and have survived. A good perspective.
In the afternoon we toured the central part of Saigon. Many of the buildings have survived from the French occupation of Vietnam in the early 1900's so there are some beautiful places to see. An opera house, a beautiful post office (really beautiful), among other historic buildings mixed in with modern and sleek architecture are another feast for the eyes. The city is full of a lot of trees, too, and green spaces, so that adds to the beauty. During our walk around the city, I forgot to mention that we also took rickshaw rides through the crazy streets and got to rub elbows with the occupants of cars and motor scooters and that was both thrilling and a little anxiety producing. We each had our own rickshaw driver who tried their best to communicate. Everyone is your friend.
We boarded a plane in the late afternoon and landed in Danang in time for a late dinner. More on Danang tomorrow, when I have gotten a chance to see it in the light. So far, beautiful and right on the ocean (China Sea).
Until then, good night.
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