Vietnam - Hoian & Saigon

It's our last night in Vietnam tonight. We leave Saigon tomorrow at 1pm by bus to go to Phnom Penh. Not sure how we're going to spend the morning, but we only have about 5 bucks worth of Dong left and we're not gonna take any more out since we'd just get a crappy exchange rate into Cambodian riel, so we'll be pushing our 5 bucks as far as we can!

Our time in Hoi An was relaxing, relatively quiet just generally nice. It was marred somewhat by an expected and reluctantly accepted bout of gastro, which left me functionally chained to the bathroom of our hotel room. It was all a bit of a fever dream really, I remember feeling very achy, wishing the bed was softer, and wishing there was more than one English-channel TV station. While I wasn't throwing up, we were able to enjoy a unique, old port town, with a strong multicultural heritage created by the various European and East Asian groups that settled in the town 300-400 years ago when it served as a link between East and West.

We were also able to get out to My Son, an interesting Cham ruin site just out of the town. It was a Hindu Holy City, and it is set in a shallow valley that was thought by the Cham of the day to be the centre of the universe. It was built in many stages, with different Cham kings between the 4th century and the 14th century building different parts of it, so that there are a bunch of "sites" with unique architecture. Much of it was destroyed in the American war, and since nobody has ever figured out what the old Cham people used to glue their bricks together, it's been a hard task to restore the buildings.

We had a nice boat ride back down the Thu Bon River to Hoi An, and had a nice early night after a dinner of what was advertised on the menu as hamburgers. They weren't bad really, but they were like no hamburger I've had in my life. I suspiciously pecked at what I could of mine before deciding I'd give my stomach a little longer to recover.

After Hoi An, Saigon has really been a bit of a roller-coaster. It's the biggest city in Vietnam, and it has the craziest traffic to support that fact. The street vendors and cyclo drivers seem a little more insistent here than in Hanoi, but we've learned a few tricks to avoid their unwanted attention, and we've resigned ourselves to our place in the Vietnamese economy. It's the city that seems most obsessed with the "American" war, and it seems fractured by the coexistence of ex-Southern Army soldiers and ex-Viet Cong within its boundary. Its more Westernised and colourful than Hanoi, but also less refined somehow.

We managed to get out to the Cu Chi tunnels today, which played a really important part in the American war. In a way, they are a pretty spectacular human achievement; 250km of 3 levels of catacombs connecting towns to each other underground, and all camouflaged from the surface and built with hand shovels. Much of the tunnel system was destroyed by heavy American artillery and bombing, but parts of it are still there, and you can go in them and see what they were like. You can probably imagine: dark, claustrophobic and uncomfortable.

We were both put in a sad, philosophical frame of mind by the (very one-sided) Museum of War Remnants, which had a fantastic temporary photographic exhibition honouring 120 of the photojournalists that were killed in the American war. It particularly focused on about 10 of them, American and Japanese. There was also a long part showing the evidence for American war crimes committed during the war, and showing the damage done by American chemical warfare (phosphor, agent orange, etc). As a view you would be unlikely to see anywhere else, it was pretty interesting, even a little enlightening. Mostly though, it just depressed us with the realisation that real live people can do pretty much the most horrible things they can imagine to other real live people. It really made me think about how wrong war is, and how there isn't a single idea or imaginary line in the history of ideas and imaginary lines that's worth going to war over to defend.

I'm looking forward to Cambodia. I don't really know what to expect though. The story of the Khmer Rouge is another tragic tale in the region, but I've been told that there is much beauty in the country. I'll let you know when I'm there!

We've popped a few more pictures up, not yet of Saigon, but of the rest of Hanoi and of Hoi An. There are also some pretty detailed explanatory remarks for some of them. See our photo album here.