Ho Chi Minh City - 28th June 2009

I had an early morning this morning, 6.45am, as I had to be at the tour bus office for 8am ready to visit the Cu Chi tunnels and the Cao Dai Temples.
On getting dressed a gecko ran from under my shoe which was quite sweet although it made me a bit nervous about what other animals lurked in the room! Either I have been previously unobservant, or the gecko had pooed in my shoe, as there seemed to be a like-substance there unwaking when there had not been previously.
It took me a while to get dressed; maybe the heat made me slow. Thankfully I had the wisdom to book my tour with a company close by, and by 7.20 I was already outside waiting for my tour bus to arrive. A local man invited me to sit down and order a drink while I was waiting, so I ordered a iced black coffee, which was one of the most heavenly things I have tasted, and at 5000 dong, you can't go wrong!! (18p or so!) We chatted for a bit, he seemed friendly, although his motives were yet to be revealed; he was a moto driver and was offering to take me a tour around town for a few hours as a tour. I told him I'd think about it, and although he spoke good English and he seemed nice, I would much prefer to see the city walking. I bought a few supplies of water and biscuits to last me the day, and by 8, to tour guide had arrived and we were led to our minibus.
The guide who spoke pretty good English, was a bit of a comic! He kept us entertained for the first 10 minutes or so, and gave us an insite into the Cao Dai Temple, before letting us nap until we arrived at our first "Happy Place" stop! aka. a toilet; named as such as you go in not-happy, and when you leave, you're happy!
I slept most of the way, although ever so often I would be aware of things around me; a blind man crossing the road; and a legless man (no, not in the sense the Brits use the word!)
Shortly after 9, for our first Happy stop, we rolled into a Handicapped Handicrafts store, where we saw the production line for wooden pieces of art, with egg shells and mother of pearl placed delicately; such as wine holders, noodle bowls etc. They were really amazing, although quite expensive!
Next stop, was the Cao Dai temple. There were lots of people dressed in white robes, and a few in a blue, yellow or red robe. Each colour signifies a different religion out of Taoism, Buddhism and Confusciasm. They worship the 'all seeing eye' which reminded me completely of Lord of the Rings. I'm not sure what came first, LOTR or this religion, which was created in 1926, but there is definetly some kind of plaugerism going on!
The temple was beautiful, there were lots of eyes, and at the top of the shrine was, for some reason, Jesus, and various other people to worship. There are three saints in this religion, although I cannot remember details about them. The were different heights of steps going up to the shrine; which of the different levels you were allowed on, depending on how practiced/highly ranked you were. There was a rather cool staircase which climbed around one of the towers; it was in the shape of a dragon. We were allowed to walk around the temple, although it had to be in a certain direction, which seemed rather random! The ceremony began at 12, by which time the tourists had made it up the stairs to an overhanging balcony looking down onto the worshippers. There was a band playing, made up of some kind of guitars, a gong, and some singers. The music was really enchanting and beautiful. The worshippers joined in with the singing, which was rather 'hmmm' and 'ahhh' like. I'm not sure how long it lasted, although by 25 past we were due back at the tour bus. I'd seen and heard all that I needed to by then.
The van was now being driven by the tour guide, who seemed to swerve and stop suddenly an awful lot, and the ride was quite bumpy, I was surprised the suspension didn't break!
Next up was lunch; rice and vegetables, which was really quite tasty.
We then continued back towards Ho Chi Minh City, to the Cu Chi tunnels; tunnels which were created so that the residents of Cu Chi could hide and be protected from the Americans in the anti-American war, as the Americans had wanted to take over Cu Chi, probably on their way to Ho Chi Minh City. We watched a film about the tunnels, which sounded rather like the film at the end of Kill Bill 2, with the music, the sound of the voice etc, the theme... which made it quite enjoyable! Women fighted too; one even won an award for blowing up an American tank. The Vietnamese, who also were farmers, set clever traps and were tactical with their missiles and grenades and managed to not be defeated by the Americans! (Yay! - I think...)
The tunnels themselves had three stories. For the kitchen, they had to dig a tunnel to let the smoke out, as to not give away the tunnel's position. It was really quite clever, they even had a room as a honeymoon suite! (I don't think the guide was pulling our legs when he said that!)
In case the Americans tried flooding them out with pumped water from the Saigon River, the third, lowest level, had a drain out into the river, so it never flooded, which is quite clever.
There was some rice paper being made in one of the huts; and under some of the other huts were examples of traps, which looked a bit dodgy although I'm sure they must have worked, otherwise how would the Vietnamese have won the war?!
There was also a hole in the ground which would have been the size of the original start to the tunnel; people must have all been size 0 in those days, as there was no way any of us would have fitted down it!! Imagine if someone had put weight when they were down there (unlikely I know!) they might not be able to get back up again!
We went for a brief break into a shop, where we were given the opportunity to fire an AK47 or other such gun. The noise was incredibly loud; it made me subconsciously shut my eyes every time it went off, and even though I knew to expect a noise, it still made me jump.
Finally it was time to head down to the tunnel! And of course the monsoon came; I had my umbrella, but I still got completely soaked. The guide had checked we had no heart conditions, although strangely enough he never checked for claustrophobia, or a fear of the dark, which may have been more appropriate. We headed down, and had to slide ourselves a meter down to get to the tunnel. It was really quite scary. I was last to go down, which made me nervous as I didn't want to be left behind. We were only walking 100m bit my legs felt every bit of it. We had to crouch for all of it, which made it really hard to move, and for some bits we even had to do commando crawl!I have no idea how the people at the front managed to go so fast through the tunnel; it felt like an agility course for dwarf hamsters. It didn't help that it was very dark, and even though every so often there were red lights slightly lighting up the place, it was a relief that someone had brought a proper torch. I bumped my head quite a few times, and I was breathless by the end, although I'm not quite sure how! I was glad that I wasn't left behind. The guide had told us that when the Americans made it into the tunnels, if they survived the hidden grenades and traps that were in the entrance to the tunnels, they never came back out again as they got so lost!
The drive back was extremely bumpy; we passed a really pretty cemetary, which looked like the bodies were raised above the ground. There was also a fairground toy in one of the fields!
There was a curiously named fashion shop named Dung; which I found amusing; and even more so, a man on the road, thankfully quite near to the edge, who was suitably praying!! I'm sure he'll need it if he spent much longer there! A van full of rather dashing sailors passed us by; their suits were very smart and pretty. I'm not sure if they were actually sailors, but they looked like them!
Unfortunatly someone wasn't so lucky, as in the middle of the road, a crowd was gathered around an unconscious man with a pizza box and motorbike sprawled nearby. He seemed to have some sort of head injury, although maybe he was lucky and it was just pizza splattered on the road. No one seemed to be doing anything to help him, although to be honest I wouldn't really have known whether to have checked for him to be breathing or to have not moved him at all either. I was a bit upset after seeing the poor man. I had been tempted to hire a motorbike and travel north, in Top Gear style, although seeing him, it rather put me off! I was surprised he was my first dead/dying person on the road, but it still was a bit of a shock.
We got dropped off almost outside my guesthouse which was handy. I was still soaking wet from the monsoon, so I went inside to get changed. I stripped off in the hall (of my shoes and socks at least) and was greated by the two 3 month old brother and sister puppies! They seemed to have warmed to me as they were no longer barking at me but were licking my feet and I spent quite a while with them stroking them and being licked to death in return. They are absolutely adorable!!
I then spent the next three hours eating and drinking in my favourite coffee shop, even though the coffee isn't that great to be honest! but it's worth it for the internet!
At 9pm I headed back to my guesthouse hoping for a good nights sleep ready for my long hike the following day, and hoping that my shoes had dried off! Walking for 7 hours in wet trainers doesn't sound like fun to me!