And something of a culture shock after the serenity of Hoi An as we were suddenly thrown back into the heart-stopping, life-endangering vehicle mayhem remembered from Hanoi, but this time on bigger streets with even more scooters. Sam emphasised the need for care when out on the streets - not only did the scooters pose a physical threat to our health, but also to our possessions as motorbike bag-snatching was apparently a common occurrence. Only the day before another Intrepid grouper had fallen foul of a snatcher and had broken her shoulder bone when pulled unceremoniously to the ground. Such dire warnings left some of us in need of pastries so we took air-conditioned refuge in a local bakery (the Indochinese nations do a fine line in fancy baking) before braving the streets and heading to Saigon's Ben Thanh market for some more retail therapy.
Much like Bangkok's Chatuchuk market, Ben Thanh is a covered warren of narrow alleys between the multitudinous stalls selling shoes, clothes, toys, knick knacks and food. But added to the disorientating mix of new smells, extreme heat and general shopping bewilderment was a new dose of aggressive selling. As soon as we plunged into a row of clothes stalls the local owners were grabbing at our arms and chanting 'you like? How many you buy?' when you hadn't shown any interest in their wares at all. Bewildering and amusing in equal measure, we soon got into the swing of things and before long I'd bought a pair of fake Converse shoes, the Ginger Broad had bought a fake Kipling bag and Sergio, our group's haggling demon, was laiden down with several new purchases. Shopping for fake goods in these countries becomes something of an addiction - I am now the proud owner of, besides the fake Converse, some fake Haviana flip flops, fake Fitflop shoes, fake Dolce and Gabbana sunglasses and a fake Longchamp bag. Back in London surely I'll be the only one who knows the truth??
But before we could commit too much commercial theft we were whisked off on our first cyclo tour. For those unaware of this strange form of transportation, try and picture a pushbike with a large chair strapped over the front wheel for the passenger. It's sort of being like ET riding on Eliot's bike except a lot more exposed and less safe (and you can't fly dammit). Unlike on tuk tuks or cycle rickshaws the passenger has nothing around him for protection, rather as you're on the front of the bike it's you that goes first into the traffic. Maybe not so much of a problem in quiet little towns like Hoi An but on the manic streets of Saigon the whole escapade feels suicidal. Drivers in Saigon seem to share the same sixth sense as their counterparts in Hanoi but being wheeled head first into a four lane junction thronging with a never-ending stream of cars and bikes left us all with our hearts in our mouths. There was the added 'thrill' that we'd been warned cyclo passengers were often targeted by snatch thieves as the tourists were usually distracted enough by the sites to be easy prey. So we all set off clutching our cameras with steely grips and I didn't mention that I'd heard that a year ago a poor tourist had been pulled from her cyclo and to her death under the wheels of a bus when she refused to release her bag to a thief.
As if thoughts of dying a hideous death entangled in a metallic sandwich wasn't enough, first stop on our tour was the city's War Remnants Museum. A slightly one sided account of the Vietnam War is, inevitably, housed within with much of the focus on the aftermath of the war on the civilians left behind to count the cost. There are some horrifying and gruesome photographs of victims on both sides of the conflict with the gallery detailing the American use of defoliants (Agent Orange etc) cataloging a depressing array of genetic defects that have been passed through the generations since the war ended. Sadly, as we only had one hour in the museum, I had to do a speed scan of the final gallery which looked at the American and international photojournalism that covered the war and included some striking images of man's ability to treat others with contempt.
Whisked off on our cyclos we also visited the Reunification Palace, previously known as the Presidential and then Independence Palace. The original colonial mansion was damaged and then pulled down in 1962 with it's concrete replacement looking like a 60s era tax office or town hall. But it is still widely revered by the Vietnamese as a symbol of the fall of Saigon and defeat of the South. Two tanks from the Northern Army still stand in the grounds - a testament to the day in 1975 that they stormed the gates and took the city. More death-defying cyclo transportation and we were at Saigon's version of Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral and the city's General Post Office. Now postal establishments are not normally on my list of 'must sees' when travelling but this cavernous 19th century construction provided political controversy and telecom related amusement. Sam (a Cambodian by birth) had told us to look out for the large mural map of the region on the wall and find the spot where Cambodge (the French name for Cambodia) had been painted out. Apparently still something of an annoyance with the Cambodians, Saigon and its environs had once belonged to them and not Vietnam. National boundaries aside, the Post Office still housed two walls of wooden phone cabinets where, before the advance of mobile phones, locals had come to make their calls. A little romantic nostalgia possessed us all - cue 10 mins of pretending we were back in 1920s Saigon (although with a sadly 60s looking phone clamped to our ears).
History was also on our minds the following day when some of us took an optional trip out to the notorious Cu Chi tunnels. Not everyone in our group wanted such a close encounter with the grittier side of war, but those who did were accompanied by the elderly but irrepressibly perky Charlie. Now as Charlie was a 50 plus Vietnamese gentlemen that was clearly not his given name but you couldn't help wondering if this ex-Vietnamese Army member was being intentionally ironic with his choice of nickname. At least he wasn't called 'gook' or any of the other derogatory US nicknames for the Vietnam Cong. (On a side bar, the full name of our tour guide Sam is actually Sambo. Which means 'rich' in Cambodian. He accepts that it has much worse connotations for the British and American travellers and has kindly allowed it to be shortened to save us from embarrassment).
Back at the tunnels genial Charlie was giving us some background. Cu Chi was once a rubber plantation owned by a French tyre company and the first tunnels were dug way back in the 40s to hide anti-colonial weapons and fighters. The Viet Cong, many of them local villagers, adopted them for similar use and expanded them to over 250km of underground passages by 1965. Complex and ingenious the tunnels were a vast warren of communication lines with underground latrines, dorms, meeting rooms and even hospitals. But the living conditions were atrocious and claustrophobic with tunnels often no bigger than 80cm high or wide and pitch black inside. Hatches out of the tunnels were hidden all over the area so the VC could pop out unexpectedly to confront the disoriented enemy. These hatches still exist and are tiny. There was no way my child-bearing hips (with extra padding) were going to squeeze into one of those but two of the other girls managed with only a vague look of panic as their feet tried to take purchase on the ledge below.
Beside the hatches Charlie also demonstrated the booby traps that the VC littered throughout the area. Each was a hideously imaginative way to impale your enemy on some nasty looking spikes. Some even had back-up plans - if you managed to stop the spikes swinging down and hitting your chest, the hinged lower part would just swing up and hit you in the groin. Pretty deadly, and very gruesome, but you have to admit a sneaking admiration for the ingenuity of it all. No wonder young lads,used to the city streets of the US, died in their thousands in the impenetrable, confusing, unfamiliar jungles of Vietnam.
Sections of the remaining tunnels themselves have now been partly widened to allow for the fuller figure of the average Westerner but as Charlie invited us to go down and explore he warned that they were not for the claustrophobes among us. Andrea, an athletic ex-stunt woman from New Zealand, and I thought we'd take a look and suss out whether we wanted to 'do them' or not. But before we'd had a chance to think 'will we, won't we' we were crawling/crouching our way through a tunnel that was partly lit and emerging some way from the rest of the group who were still waiting for us to pop back up where we'd started. Reassuring the others that it was 'easy', we persuaded them to try a different tunnel, only to find when we got below ground ourselves that this was a different experience - crawling all the way on your hands and knees with the only light coming from a small torch and the light from my camera flash. Ten minutes underground like that was enough for me - with some group camaraderie lightening the mood - but I wouldn't have survived ten seconds in the 'real thing'. The sheer desperation that must have driven men, women and children to consider such an existence. Horrifying and humbling in equal measure.
Something a little more positive in tone was needed from Ho Chi Minh City and we found it in A visit to the Pagoda of the Jade Emperor. Built by the Cantonese at the beginning of the 20th century, the Pagoda is a riotous mix of Buddhism and Taoist gods, wooden carvings, elaborate doors and gates, all heady with the scent of incense. Still very much an active temple, as so many of those visited in Thailand, Laos and Vietnam are, there were worshippers presenting offerings and praying as we moved around snapping photos. At such times I often feel I'm intruding on private moments but no-one really took much notice of us nosy tourists except for the bloke peddling feed to throw to the many turtles and terrapins that floated (not all of them alive) in the pagoda's grubby pond.
And that was the end of our flying visit to Saigon and, indeed, Vietnam. The next day we'd be crossing the border into our third and final country, Cambodia. I confess that so far in the trip Vietnam has perhaps been the biggest disappointment - we've seen little of the countryside, of the paddy fields and rural life, of the more remote regions and the city's have only been glimpsed in part. Perhaps that just means it is ripe for a return visit?
Next - confusion at Cambodia's border and putting your snotty nose and sore throat into perspective at the Killing Fields.
Photos below: Cyclo virgin; Notre Dame de Saigon; Ben Thanh market; Nicola joins the Viet Cong; emerging from the Cu Ch tunnels; at the Jade Emperor Pagoda.
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