Another early arrival. This time we thought we'd take our time about finding a hotel. Now loaded down with luggage (presents, suits and more!) we wandered around the backpacker area of Saigon for ages, with the idea of finding somewhere nice for our last hotel - we were EVEN prepared to go up to $20 a night. In the end it turned into 'same, same' and we were so bored and tired of walking around we settled on somewhere that seemed OK, the Bi Saigon. The room was quite cute - the bathroom was like a miniture 'house' with a roof inside our room. And it came complete with two stuffed toys on top of the TV. It seemed strange that this would be our last stop, we were happy and sad, our decision to leave early had been quite sudden and we weren't quite used to it. We planned to enjoy it and spoil ourselves a little.
That night we went to a highly recommended ice cream parlour (research for Gary of course) and it was delicious. Then we wandered around looking for a restuarant recommended in the Lonely Planet which was (surprise surprise) no longer in existance which led to our favourite pastime of spending hours looking for the perfect place to eat, similar to our perfect hotel search and ending in the same way - tired and bored, anywhere that looked OK would do. We did like Saigon though and found it much more friendly than Hanoi, more cosmopolitan and more spacious. Yes, it was very very busy BUT that was were the comparison with Hanoi seemed to end. We booked a tour to the Cu Chi tunnels the next day. Unfortunately, as we only had one free day we couldn't do a Mekong Delta tour which we had wanted to do.
The next morning we were up bright and early for the tour. We needn't have bothered as it was an hour late leaving. Our tour guide was called Tom (it seems to be a popular Vietnamese name!) and he was great! He kept us entertained on the mic for the 4 hour or so drive to the tunnels with stories about the history of Vietnam, facts and figures, Vietnamese philosophy, RATHER intimate details of his personal life (something to do with fancying two sisters at the same time), some TERRIBLE jokes and (BEST OF ALL) some very enthusiastic karaoke ('last christmas I gave you my heart'). On the way we made the obligatory stop at the handicrafts village to see people making things then charging us ten times more for it than in town. It was quite interesting to see what a long process it was to make these things, sawing shells and painting and dipping in water etc.
Eventually we arrived at the tunnels and after buying our tickets were sheparded into a dugout to watch a very informative film and for a lecture. The film was really old and really bad. We were sat on benches and at the front, so it was really uncomfortable but we couldn't squirm too much because MAYBE the people behind were REALLY interested in the film. 'This is Mi. A great fighter. Awarded for killing many Americans...this is Su. She killed many Americans...'. After the film a lecturer took the stage, he obviously fancied himself as a great public speaker and gave a very animated and passionate speech about the Cu Chi tunnels. It was actually a very good lecture and there were lots of diagrams and models to illustrate! We could only admire the clever fighting methods and die hard attitude of the Vietcong. It was the only time that Deena remembered her original fascination with Vietnam when studying the war at school.
Next we went for long walk through the trees. We were shown a typical entranceway to the tunnels which was about the size of a postbox, a few of the smaller people had a go at getting in including Deena. Then we were led around various displays with models doing things like cutting bombs and making shoes, we also saw models of all the traps that made to capture Americans. Gary was happy as he got to clamber all over a real tank from the war, he was so comfortable he nearly got left behind. We were taken down the 'tourist tunnel' apparently this was made larger than the real ones in order to fit in all the gigantic, fat tourists. We were only down there for about 5 minutes and it was 5 minutes too long. It was pitch black and really scary! We were on all fours the whole time and felt quite claustraphobic. It's amazing what the Vietcong did living down there! They must have been really hardy fighters. One of the best bits for Gary was the shooting range where you could buy a bullet for a dollar (minimum 5 bullets) and shoot them from a choice of guns. Gary chose an AK47. Half the bullets didn't go off at all, luckily they had a large supply to replace the dud ones but we all joked that it was a good job we weren't fighting a war! As for Gary shooting skills... erm, he maybe needs more practise... no , sorry it was the gun's fault, it wasn't shooting right. Well, anyway, luckily for the cardboard rhino he didn't manage to hit the rhino once.
Back in town we went out for our last night's meal in the city centre. At one of the malls there were lots of twinkly christmas decorations up, with a Vietnamese Santa. The kids were going nuts. We were getting really excited about going home the next day. In the hotel, we showered and packed and fell into a peaceful slumber thinking about getting home and seeing everyone.
The next day we had our flight back to England.
Now, there's a happy ending and a sad ending. Which one do you want? We wanted the happy ending, but...
