Around 7 in the morning a minivan picked me up at the hostel and drove me to the bus station. They forgot to add my seatnumber to my ticket so I had to get in the office and get that sorted, it took about 5 minutes. I once again traveled with GiantIbis, without a doubt the best hbus company in Cambodia. When I took my seat a few minutes later a french guy older guy took his seat next to me. Sadly enough he was the typical perfect sex tourist.. On the bus they collected all out passport to see if we had a valid visa for Vietnam. This bus offers free wifi, free water, free snack and has powerplugs at every seat, this wifi works in both countries, Cambodia and Vietnam. It didn't take long until mr. sextourist started a conversation. He was from France and I was stupid enough to tell him I spoke a little french, from that on he only started talking in french and I didn't want to do the effort of understanding. He started a videocall with a Cambodian girl, seems he paid her 200 dollars for a night and when she asked him when he returned he said with a big proud smile, maybe in three years. I felt bad for the woman she really sounded nice. As soon as he disconnected with her he started a new videocall with his next girl in Vietnam, telling her what time he arrives in his hotel and if she would come over at that time. He looked fat, half bald, grey hair, the glasses.. Really the typical guy, nice company for 8 hours!
We reached the Cambodia border and they returned our passports, we get off the bus, get a stamp, walk a little bit futher and get back in the bus where they collected our passports again and dropped us at tax free shops and restaurants. We spend half an hour there before they picked us back up and drove us to the Vietnamese border. There they walked with us to the passport control, returned our passports to us and we could walk straight thru, they arrenged our stamps already for us. Just a little scan of the bags and, Welcome to Vietnam. The checked the bus and we could get back on it on a straight drive to Ho Chi Minh. Lucky as I am the bus stop was 100 meters from my hostel. They warned me about the traffic in Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh but it wasn't that bad to me, a million motorcycles and ok.. you just have to be confident and keep walking on the same tempo. They will all avoid you. I checked in the hostel and decided to rest for the rest of the day, those long bus rides are energy killers. The hostel offered free beers every day between 7 and 8pm. I stayed three nights and didn't drink any, how much have I changed. They had a rooftop terrace which gave wonderful views over the skyline in the evening. Ho Chi Minh has a beautiful skyscraper light show, I loved it. I also booked my 2 tours for the next 2 days.
The first tour was the Mekong Delta Cruise, only a full day. I was really looking forward to this one, the pictures looked amazing. They picked me up and went to the bus station bus the bus had already left! They called the driver and he returned to pick me up. I took the last available seat next to a girl and she turned out to be from the Netherlands. Quite nice and weird to speak dutch again. We had some nice conversations and she was there for the 3 day cruise. We stopped some shop/harbour and she ships were ready, we boarded some small boat and cruised around the Mekong. Nice to know that I have seen the Mekong in Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam now. The cruise went along some islands before we stopped at the main reasn why I booked this tour, the tiny little canal surrounded by bananatrees and on bamboo rafts. Its a really wonderful experience but sadly enough it also feels like a mass tourism highway for bamboo rafts. I still loved every second of it! At the end our boat was waiting and took us to the next destination, a bee farm on an island. These bees dont seem to sting and I could taste the honey with my finger surrounded by 100s of bees, a nice experience. Then they offered some honey tea with some other bee products, tasted quite lovely, we walked a little further to local village to have a fruit tasting experience with the locals singing songs for us before we went back to the boat for the next stop, another island where we would change boats to smaller ones to cruise again in a slightly bigger canal. Another lovely boat ride. We stopped at a place where we could see how they cooked coconuts in an oven and made some sort of chewing gum from it, very sticky. We cruised back along the lovely canal to the big boat before they took us to a local restaurant on another island. Some very lovely local food their and we got to see local people fishing in a 'traditional' way, they pump the pond empty and try to catch the fish with some sort of basket, in the mean time playing some house music to entertain the tourists. This was the last stop and we cruised back to the harbour where the group got splitted between the one day visitors and the multiple day visitors. I said goodbye to the Dutch girl and we drove back to my hostel.
During the night I woke up with stomach problems, my stomach really hurted and I had to run to the toilet quite a lot of times, yup, I became sick from eating wrong food. Not the thing you want if you have planned a trip in the next morning. I really was in doubt of making it to that trip. I took some pill to stop my toilet breaks for a while. They picked me up again and walked me to the bus station and guess what, the bus was actually still there this time but once again I was the last person! A big bus this time with many people, not really what I was hoping for.. We drove off to the Cu Chi Tunnels. If you don't know them, its the tunnels from the Vietcong used during the Vietnam war. Little did I know that there was also a second, smaller bus,half empty driving there. They also joined our group, I started to have doubts about the being lovely part. We got off the bus and the guide arrenged our entrance, the first stop was at a rolling trap hidden in the ground. From here on I knew I had to choose between listening to the guide and stay close to him or have nice pictures and missing the information. We moved from place of interest to place of interest but the guide didn't wait until everyone was there to start talking about the information.. I missed quite a lot of information but decided to enjoy the sights. It felt amazing, walking in the jungle, between the hidden traps, hidden entrances to the tunnel system. All the time I could hear gun shooting in the distance as well.
There is actually a lot to see but I would NOT recommend a tour, go by yourself and take your time, you miss most information anyway.. We explored quite a lof of interesting bunkers, tanks, fake termite mountains, see the way they hide the smoke from cooking in the kitchen,.. After a big hour we arrived at a shop, there was also a gun shooting range. I never expected to do this or hadn't any plans for it but since I'm here.. I bought myself some bullets and went to the shooting range to shoot some guns for the first time in my life. Another experience added. Most people wanna show how great they were, I simply don't know if I even hit anything but it was nice to do it. When the few people who decided to shoot some guns were done we continued the tour. The Cu Chu Tunnels visit. I really wanted to do this, I waited until everyone was in and I was the last person to enter the tunnels, I gave the people before me a lot of space so I didn't see them most of the time. If you are claustrofobic, don't even try this. Its a wonderful experience crawling thru those very small, narrow tunnels. I've seen it in the Vietnam war movies but doing it in real is something else. Its extremly hot in there and the tunnels go deeper and deeper and become smaller and smaller but this made my day! I can't imagine how it must be to live in there during a war buts its incredible they made a system like this, 25km if I'm not mistaken. We got to see a small movie after this and returned back to the bus. I still don't believe I made it with my stomach issue. They dropped me off at the hostel and I don't remember being this happy about seeing a toilet again.
Thats the end of my Ho Chi Minh or Saigon part, a lovely living city, about the tours I must say, I have seen what I wanted to see but the first one I would have been happy to pay the same money for just the Delta Mekong canal cruise, the rest of the tour seemed to be a "trying to sell you stuff tour". The Cu Chi Tunnels tour was nice and loved the experience but the guide information is worthless with such a big group, if you go there, go by yourself. So I finally wrote a blog story about Vietnam which I will be leaving in less then a week, lets see if I have the time soon for the next chapter, until then!
