A very busy day in the delta

We've only just returned to our hotel from a very busy day, a 14-hour busy day to be exact. As I said in my previous post, we booked a tour to the Cu Chi tunnels and the Mekong River today. The weather was lovely, nice and sunny and quite warm. The day started with a 90-minute bus trip to the Cu Chi tunnels, an extensive labyrinth of underground tunnels used by the Viet Cong during the war. In all, there are some 250 km of tunnels, although our group of ten only managed 30 or 40 metres. Given that the tunnels are much too low to stand up in, even this distance was a tough assignment for those like me with a recurrent bad back.

This tunnel leads to the dining area, but there is a separate tunnel where cooking occurred. They also came up with an ingenious way of removing the smoke. 

A huge American transport plane left behind by the US Army.

The tour of the tunnels also showed us the booby traps used by the VC, which included sharpened bamboo spears, metal skewers, in fact, a myriad of devices intended more to scare the living daylight sout of the Americans rather than inflict large numbers of fatalities, although many GIs did meet their death in the jungle surrounding the tunnels. 

A demonstration of sharpened bamboo sticks used to impale unsuspecting GIs.

One thing which has left an indelible impression on me since we arrived, and reinforced perfectly through our trip to the tunnels, is the indisputable resourcefulness of the Vietnamese people. Their ingenious solutions to the problems of living underground without attracting the attention of the enemy, such as going to the toilet and cooking food, makes you realise these people were so determined to free their country they would have been prepared to continue fighting until there were no more soldiers left. Unfortunately from the American perspective, their appetite for fighting was never this great. 

After the tunnels, we headed off for a very nice local lunch in the Mekong Delta area and then arrived at the mighty river itself. The Mekong River begins in southern China and then flows through five other SE Asian countries before entering the South China Sea at Vietnam, a distance of over 4,500 kms. We enjoyed a short trip on a ferry boat to an island in the river where they keep bees, of all things, and then enjoyed some local musicians and singers, and a canoe trip down one of the canals flowing to the river. 

Fishing vessel on the Mekong

The Mekong as the sun sets

Fishing boats moored.

It was really good to leave the city for the day and take in the countryside, with its rice paddies and water buffalo; very Vietnam. Today was actually our last day in Saigon as we leave tomorrow for the historically significant city of Hoi An. We actually did grow to like Saigon, but it's probably time to move on. Great to see once, but we don't have any desire to return. Nevertheless, there is a sense of achievement in being able to say, "we survived Ho Chi Minh City"; indeed we did. 

Singing and music over a snack of tropical fruits.

Paddling along the canals.

Honorary Vietnamese for the day.