We caught the Giant Ibis bus (other companies do exist, but this was the recommended, if slightly more expensive, option) from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City. Crossing the border into Vietnam was uneventful and the bus staff handled most of the formality while we enjoyed lunch at the café/duty free shop in no-mans-land!
With our limited time in Vietnam we opted for only two full days in Ho Chi Minh City (which most of the locals still seem to call Sai Gon, despite the name changing in 1975!) and in order to try and fit in as much sight-seeing as possible, we booked ourselves onto a couple of tours. On day 1, we spent the morning visiting the War Remnants Museum, China Town markets and a temple, and the afternoon at the Cu Chi tunnels , and took a trip to the Mekong river delta on day 2.
The war remnants museum was an interesting contrast to the war museums in Cambodia. Where the tone in Cambodia had been very sombre and moving, the tone in Vietnam seemed to convey a strong message of an unjust and illegal war waged by a brutal US armed forces, and a heroic resistance movement who fought with clever guerrilla tactics to overcome the odds and beat the great military power and reunite the country under great leader Ho Chi Minh.
The Cu Chi tunnels site (where the Viet-Cong army had dug 250km of underground passageways to evade US attacks) continued this theme, our guide showing us with glee the ‘clever’ traps and mines set up by the Viet-Cong to kill US soldiers. To my mind the shooting range where you can pay to fire an AK47 (Russian made, used by Viet-Cong) or M16 (US made) rifle was particularly tasteless. I did, however, enjoy our crawl through 100m of the actual tunnels, which had been widened to fit the slightly larger tourist.
I don’t doubt that the Vietnam war as waged by the US was all the things that the museums claimed, but I am also sure there was brutal, cruel, and barbaric behaviour on both sides. War is horrible, ugly, sad, tragic and I would rather this came across more in the messaging. In my (humble!) opinion we should, as a global society, be aspiring to a world in which no human ever believes killing another human is justified. Our museums, especially those concerned exclusively with capturing the history of war, are key educational tools which should do everything in their power to prevent future loss of life.
Our trip to the Mekong delta took a less sombre tone, and was a celebration of the region, exploring fruit farms, taking boat rides alongside river palms (every single part of these are used in some way by the locals to make rope, armbands for swimming lessons, sunhats and cooking with the fruits), listening to traditional south-vietnamese music while drinking ‘honey tea’ (green tea, kumquat juice & honey) and visiting the bee-hives. After pestering Mel since we got to the region about my desire to drink fresh coconut water, I finally seized my chance and bought one with my lunch, then complained that I didn’t like it very much. Whoops!
Back on the bus (this tour was particularly large and I’m not sure I want to book on another anytime soon), back into a busy Ho Chi Minh City, we went for a traditional meal of Phỏ (noodle soup) followed by a beer on a rooftop bar in order to ‘fuel up’ for our flight to Hanoi the next day and to raise a glass to Mel’s sister Mandy’s birthday. We’re going to escape busy cities for a few days and are on our way to Cat Ba island to try and get our outdoor activities fix with sea kayaking, rock climbing, trekking and snorkelling on offer, I’m quite excited by the possibilities!
Melanie and Colin Go Travelling 