HAPPY NEW YEAR

After all the doom and gloom of war, it was nice to participate in Chinese New Year celebrations and the Vietnam Tet holiday – which lasts for 9 days and most Vietnamese go home to their families or holiday.

So, Saigon was (supposedly) empty of most of its 9 million residents, with most shops, banks and some museums closing down for days – but tourist businesses stayed open, so we managed the trips we wanted and enjoyed lots of things that we wouldn’t have otherwise seen.

Wall to wall bikes for the night festivities – I think this is how it is every day, but we actually managed to cross the roads in the daytime – a feat in itself with cars and bikes zooming around in all directions – walk slowly, do not run, do not stop, develop eyes in back of head!
Balloon sellers, flashing light toys, candy floss – all the fun of the fair Vietnamese style



Main street made over to a flower festival with football sized crowds parading up and down – taking photos and smiling – a lovely atmosphere and loads of fun talking to locals (although a lot were from the US and visiting Saigon for first time in many years).












One of the parks held a show all over its grounds, with cafes and stalls around the outside and the exhibits in among the trees and permanent flower displays and structures.

It seemed to be a bit like our shows where the exhibits are awarded prizes and the categories ranged from 20 or 30 types of bonsai (with or without flowers or fruit, large, small, tiny, within rural scenes, special trees etc), natural wood carvings, flower or butterfly wing pictures, orchid displays, specialist flower arrangements, – an endless photo opportunity around every corner.

Am recharging camera batteries every night! – and keeping tight hold as we walk around.  One of the group had his snatched (cut strap over his shoulder) and took camera , out of his hand, so he never felt it go – our guide was annoyed that he hadn’t listened to his firm instructions on how to keep stuff tight to the body at all times.  Same as in Europe cities –motorbike drives alongside and it’s gone.

 Am going to try putting so many photos into an album – you should be able to browse or not according to interest by clicking the link that takes you to a slideshow -possibly! (looks like you need to have a Microsoft login to get it to work - or even mine - anyway you get the idea from the small photos below.  Let me know if anyone has any success)

		Saigon Garden Festival VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

VIETNAM WAR–THE OTHER SIDE

Another few words that conjure up images from our youth and probably a war that we know a bit more about than the Cambodia killing fields and Kymer Rouge.  Even though we got the Westernised version of events, enough of our generation remember that the Americans seemed to be in the wrong much of the time – probably because our counterpart students and middle class families did not want to go to war.  And with good reason – around 58000 Americans lost their lives – and even more shocking, the huge numbers who have committed suicide since the war ended.  Not a lot of support from the guys who sent you there, then – and suspect the same applies to many veterans of any war – the scars run deep.

Certainly, if you came up against the traps and night time operations of the Viet Cong, you would be rightly scared to death for yourself and comrades.  We took a very interesting tour of the Cu Chi tunnels where the Viet Cong hung out for 13 years – we couldn’t handle 13 yards, and that was in specially widened tunnels for big Western tourists. 

Even though it was full of coach tours and groups, the area still showed enough to educate and give some idea of what went on – mostly above ground, with the few minutes set aside to experience an actual tunnel itself.

They built a complete network at different levels for miles around  in the jungle and lived, ate, slept, built weapons and hid for all that time, only coming out under cover of darkness to attack. Many of the soldiers were women from the farms and villages around the area




This is a photo of an actual tunnel and the other is the sample trapdoor that they used - Graham nearly got stuck!!





Typical jungle area












The tour showed around 15 horrible traps made our of sharpened bamboo with different trapdoors, hidden gates that made you fall in and be pierced like the animals they used to trap - pretty nasty but you had to use the methods at hand - was this more or less cruel than carpet bombing and napalm?

MEKONG DELTA

Arrived in Vietnam after a 7 hr bus journey across Cambodia from Phonm Penh to Saigon/Ho Chi Min City.  The contrast immediately apparent as roads, buildings, shops became comparatively westernised – not that you would think it if just arrived straight from the West – but the wealth of Vietnam and progress is in stark contrast to struggling Cambodia.

A major culture shock when we went straight out from our super hotel (well, probably 3-4 star in UK) compared to Bangkok and Cambodia, traffic all over the place and all cars/motorcycles/new taxis – no tuk tuks here.  International shopping malls and many of western food chains (try to avoid but have to confess to a Mexican last night as a relief from noodles and rice) and we walked around for 2 hrs to see most of major sights of old French colonial buildings and a few parks. 

All is excitement as tomorrow is Chinese New Year and the Vietnam Tet holiday starts and lasts for 9 days when everyone goes home to families bearing flowers, plants and goodwill for the New Year.  So the streets are full of the flowers for sale and everyone carrying them home + red flags everywhere and flowering trees outside shops and hotels – all very colourful.  It does mean a lot of shops and museums will be closed but this is made up for by special celebrations – to be blogged about in a few days time.

Our first full day in Saigon was a trip out to the Mekong Delta – a massive wetland/river area nearby at the end of the river starting up in Tibet and crossing Thailand, Cambodia etc – if you have read this blog in detail you will recall (or not! – pay attention!) our daylong river trip via the floating villages which was further up from here.

A busy and interesting trip – a typical Explore trip even though it was a locally arranged trip but full of all sorts of local transport, music, fruit, meal, cottage industries – the photos narrate the experiences.






Making Rice paper wraps for spring rolls - these are drying in the sun











Fish farming from small floating houses -note the yellow flowers - these are outside every shop. hotel and home to welcome in the New Year








We travelled on main boat, smaller motor  boat, paddle canoe and this horse and cart - as well as coach from Saigon centre







Grahams favourite - homemane coconut candy - pure coconut juice, stir in condensed milk, stir until think, mould into long sticks as here, cut into chunks, wrap in rice paper and then wax paper and pack in packet.  Pretty labour intensive and delicious - some with ginger or peanuts added.  Not sure they will last for home tasting sessions.