So my time in Camboadia ended, early morning we headed off from Sihanoukville and off to a little border crossing into South Vietnam. I was very nervous, the two border crossings I had done before were pretty horrible so I was excpecting this to be an equally challenging experience but to my furprise it wasn't busy, it was nice weather, and we didn't have to walk far. The not walking far was very good because I had 5 bags all over me, and I was sunburnt and a bit of a mess really (which there is a video of in my vlog below).
There was then an awful lot of driving until we got to our lunch stop, and then we carried on to our homestay for the night. I haven't got any pictures of it because the weather was awful but I do have some videos, again in my vlog at the bottom of this post. There were big rooms where all of us stayed, I made a cat friend, and we had the best meal after learning how to cook Vietnamese Pancakes (which are some of my favourite food in the world).
We were there for probably less than twelve hours before we headed off that morning to visit the Mekong Delta floating markets, which was not something I even knew existed, let alone thought I would visit.
Of course I knew about it once I saw it was on my tour itinerary, but it wasn't what I expected. The Mekong Helta Floating markets are basically whlesale markets where you can buy things, minimally, by the tonne. There are people there with boats just full of watermelon, or cabbage, or other vegetable or odd bits, and it's wehre a lot of restaurants or street vendors come to buy their stuff to sell on.
It's not really a place for tourists to buy things but it's definitely worth a visit if you do get a chance to, such a weird one but definitely in a good way.
Unfortunately these cute little guys are caged up and ready to be killed to be served as food. yes I think snakes are cute, these guys were tiny and had their little tiny tougnes... they melted my heart a bit.
Ok so this market isn't really for tourists to buy things, unless that's coffee, which Vietnam is famous for. Not only coffee but really strong coffee and made with pasteurised milk. A boat came up along side ours and it was just a little boat that went round all the other boats selling coffee, how this couple kept the boat steady, and themselves, while making Coffee is beyond me but it was super cool to watch. I'm not a fan of coffee though so I didn't try any... think I missed out anyway.
And there was another boat, a pineapple boat, that sold pineapples ready to be eaten and was there for tourists, we stepped out onto the roof to buy our pineapples and I could see all around me were hundreds of boats covered in fruit and veg... amazing.It was a short boat trip back to dry land, featuring karaoke, to find our bus to carry on our journey to Ho Chi Minh City
Our first stop when we got to Ho Chi Minh city was Pho 2000, famous because JFK has eaten here, it was packed... mainly with tourists. And though my Pho was good they didn't seem to understand my saying no tofu (as I'm allergic to soya), or no egg (vegan alert) and I ended up having to eat around both of these things. So be wary eating here if you do have allergies, luckily mine aren't serious ones.
Then we explored some markets, and I went and spend the rest of my afternoon in a park just chilling out, writing and reading and watching the world go by. Apparently in Vietnam people don't go running, they walk backwards instead. I thought I was going mad for a second as I was wakling through this park and everyone around me was walking backwards... I wasn't it wasn't just me..
I can't remember what I did that evening and I have no video or pictures from it so that remains a mystery. But the next morning we headed off to the Chu Chi tunnels.
Now if I wasn't on a tour I probably wouldn't have ended up going to Cu Chi tunnels, the logistics of fighting in wars have never been something that interest me too much, but I am glad I came here. I learnt a lot about the Vietnam war and how people survived, the mechanics behind building these tunnels, equpped with hospitals, kitchens, schools, and living quarters, was amazing. And I even crawled 100m through a replica tunnel... which was tiny and still 1.5x bigger then the original ones.
I wasn't so keen on the shooting range on site as I am not a gun person but while people were firing guns I did have a good people watch. Plus the noise gave me more of an insight as to what it might have been like here during the war.
After a morning at the Cu Chi tunnels we headed back to the city and to the war memorial museum. This was much more my thing, especially the exhibition about war photographers. This was an exhibition showcasing these photographer's last ever photo, as many photographers and journalists were captured and killed during the Vietnam war. It showed a different kind of sacrifice, not that of those fighting for their country but those who were trying to document the war, to show people what was really happening. And as someone who is very into photography I always love seeing through photographers eyes.
There was also an exhibition on the children of agent orange which was incredibly striking but incredibly interesting too. It showed children, both American and Vietnamese, who were born from parents who has been exposed to the chemical used widely by the Americans in the Vietnam war to destroy the forests. These children are born with deformities and mental illnesses and many of them, especially in Vietnam, are orphans because of it. One million Vietnamese children are affected by it as well as some Americans.
So this day was a lot about the Vietnam war and as something I'd never really learnt about before it was definitely incredibly interesting. And also humbling.
After that I tried some rather interesting vegetables at this vegetarian restaurant (still don't know what a lot of them were but they weren't bad) and then prepared to get on my first sleeper train of vietnam.
You can see more of these few days, which I didn't photograph, in my vlog below. This was part of a trip through Cambodia and Vietnam by G Adventures which you can book for yourself here.
Which will be talked about in my next travel post, next Friday. I hope you guys have a lovely weekend and I will see you, hopefully, back here on Tuesday.
Thanks for reading!
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