After my last post Justin and I left the internet cafe to flooded streets in downtown Saigon. We knew it had been raining and were hoping to wait it out which would not have helped anyway. As the rain continued to pour down we stood in the doorway of the internet cafe wondering how we were going to make it home through 6 inches of water in the street. The kids in the neighborhood seemed to have no problem as they came out in droves to play in it. Even the motor bikes seemed to be ok as every motorbike in the area seems equipped with ponchos. We eventually relented, took off our shoes and walked 3 blocks barefoot through 3 inches of dirty water. Not the cleanest thing we have done but we were running out of options. After recharging at the hostel for a little bit we went back out (streets had drained by then) and found dinner. While eating the waitress, Yuki, struck up a conversation with us. As we went upstairs to play pool she came up and challenged me to a game, saying if I won I bought her a beer and if she won she bought me a beer. I am not quiet sure she knew what she was saying, but I agreed. But since she was working we left before the game got underway promising to return the next day.
The next morning we set out for the sites in downtown Saigon, District 1. Among the things to choose from were the Imperial Palace, where a North Vietnamese tank smashed through the gates reunifying Vietnam in 1975, the Ho Chi Minh City Museum, with a history of Saigon from it's start, through the repelling of the French and the repelling of the American aggressors and the puppet government of South Vietnam. They made it clear the puppet government was not the fault of the people and all south Vietnamese were quickly forgiven. I sure am glad history is unbiased. After reading how terrible white people are we headed over to Notre Dame Cathedral, a smaller version of the one in Paris built by the French in the late 1800s. It doesn't quite have the glamour of the original but was neat to see in downtown Saigon. For a break from the heat we ducked into the Diamond Plaza, a department store of sorts complete with a western style arcade and bowling at the top. If only the military leaders knew that exporting culture and video and games was the key to defeating communism.
After heading out of the AC we walked through a huge covered market whose name I can not recall. After all the markets we have been through this one was much of the same, tiny stalls selling general house hold goods and tourist crap. We breezed through rather quickly. After grabbing lunch at a BBQ place, the most authentic Vietnamese food we have had in Vietnam, it was back to the hotel for a quick break. After resting for a few hours we went out for food and then back to the bar to try out that bet on Yuki. She came right over and started talking to us again, giving some background on herself and asking questions about us. It turned out she was 21, had been on her own in Saigon for 2 years after moving there from the country side. Her younger sister also worked at the bar, named Fur (at least I think that is what I heard). It was a Saturday night and she eventually asked if we wanted to go out with her when she got off work at 11, since she had a brand new dress and wanted to go out. I figured it couldn't hurt, Justin groaned, and at 11 we were out the door with Yuki heading for a bar. She recommended Apocalypse Now (yes they have a bar named that) but it was far away and we wanted to stay local so we could get up early for our Cu Chi tunnel trip. So she asked if we wanted to go to a place with beautiful girls. Do I really even need to say how we answered? As we walked into the place I got a weird vibe: the girls all had pink tube tops and tiny miniskirts and there were only white guys in the place. I noticed the girls were extremely friendly to the guys and when I asked Yuki if they go home with guys she said if they like you yes, if not you may have to pay. And that answered that question.
We learned a bit more about Yuki there, such as the fact that she does not like Vietnamese guys. She really wants to travel and go to Europe, other parts of Asia and the US. And this is where she gets herself in trouble. She told us about 1 "boyfriend", an 18 year old UK guy that had come through town. He promised her he would come back in 6 months and on the day he was to come back emailed her saying he could not make it and would probably never come back. I felt bad for her because she had quite a few big dreams but would probably never meet them. And every western guy she tried to coattail would probably do the same thing the UK guy did. But short of marrying her there was not much I could do for her other than buy her drinks at the bar (she said she made $2 a day, working 12 hours a day 7 days a week).
Once we had enough of watching fat old white guys fondle young Vietnamese women Yuki took us to another day, Seventeen Saloon. As the name suggest it was decorated to look like a American style bar and boy did they hit the nail of the head. The outside looked like a log cabin, much different than the general concrete slab style construction in Vietnam. Inside all the guys working there wore leather vest with eagles on the back, cowboy hats, boots and jeans. The women were better, sporting gun holsters to carry their notepads and pens. Inside was decorated with totem poles, stuffed animals, Indian pictures and every other pieces of generic wild west junk. Now all this was exciting enough and we got a great kick out of it but I have not even gotten to the best part. Playing on stage when we walked in was a band with 3 Phillipino women (they were called the Phillipinoes) singing classic rock covers. When we came in they were doing Guns N Roses - Sweet Child. The main girl oddly enough sounded a lot like Axl Rose and as she sung the other two girls would be doing the trademark Axl dance (the one I was doing in Vegas with the two old women 3 months ago). I was dieing laughing but then it got even better. During the instrumentals all three women would do synchronized slow motion head banging, first to the left, then to the right. When the instrumental picked up pace they just went all out and rocked like an 80s hair band. They followed up Guns N Roses with a little Survivor, with one girl announcing and the other girl making punching motions to capture the Rocky essence. Unfortunately that was their last song before heading out but it was worth every minute.
By this time it was pretty late and we figured we should get to bed. Yuki had tried to put the moves on once by asking me to hug her because it was cold. I didn't want to give her the wrong idea so I declined and I think she knew it was a no go from there on out. So we walked her back to her hotel, said our good byes and fell asleep at the hotel. Early the next morning we had to be up to catch the tour bus to the Cu Chi Tunnels. These are the tunnels used during the war that you see in movies like Forest Gump and Platoon. We had opted for the half day tour since we had not been having the best luck with tours and did not want to spend all day out. With the tunnels only 60km away we figured we would still have plenty of time to see them. But we were wrong.
After the bus picked everyone up we spent an hour and a half driving to a porcelain factory (they sold other shit but after China they are all porcelain factories to me now). The entire time there we had to listen to Billy, our guide, go on and on about the war. Billy was a Vietnamese-American who had served as a Navy swift boat captain during the war, stayed behind after the ceasefire in '73 to find MIA, got arrested and imprisoned after Saigon fell and spent 4 years in in jail being reeducated by the north. He had some interesting stories, like serving with John Kerry, being a guide for Bill Clinton when he came and how when Saigon fell he had dumped his uniform, hat and gun into the river. But for the most party he just seemed bitter about the war and blamed everyone. He blamed the US for coming in the first place, he blamed the communist for imprisoning him and he blamed every other nation for not doing anything about it. A little contradictory and after an hour and a half it was getting old.
We eventually made it to the tunnels and were told we would have about 1 hour there (we left the hotel at 8, got to the tunnels around 12 and were gone by 1:30). The first thing we had to do was sit through a Communist propaganda video about the war and the tunnels. It started by saying how happy and peaceful the people of the Cu Chi area were before the evil Americans invaded and started bombing them to death for no reason. It went on to talk about how great the people were, building the tunnels and using them to surprise and kill the enemy. It even said how some of the great heroes of the war were awarded medals with titles like "Hero American Killer for killing 150 Americans". The entire tour group, not just us, was taken aback by this level of reveling in killing other people. The video went on for about 10 minutes before Billy stopped it, saying it was done. It didn't seem like it was done but I get the feeling he saw the reaction of most of the crowd and called it. He then gave another brief intro to the tunnels before handing us over to another tour guide who was much quieter thank god (he only gave the facts, no personal opinions).
By this time I was pretty much done with the tunnels and ready to go home. But first I had to sit through rest of the tour. We watched a fat guy almost get stuck in the entrance to the tunnel that barely looked big enough for a kid to fit through. Then we got to see the booby traps and were given an explanation of how they each worked. They had all the regular bamboo spikes, metal spikes and the like and he demonstrated with a stick how they worked (they used to use live animals but apparently tourist didn't like that much). In back of the traps were paintings of American troops walking through the jungle and springing the traps, with spikes poking through them and blood everywhere. That kind of put me over the top and pretty much ruined my day. After that it was off to the firing range to shoot guns for $1.60 a bullet. I don't like guns to begin with so I didn't shoot anything. After that it was a quick run through the tunnels, recreations really. They weren't terribly exciting, more annoying than anything since they were designed for people that top out at 5'6.
After the tunnel we loaded up on the bus for the ride home. It took close to 2 hours with the driver laying on the horn the entire time. Safe to say this was the second worst tour of the trip, right behind the damn Elephant Trek (that still pisses me off). Back at the room I fell asleep to Justin watching Wild Hogs on tv. When I got up we went out in search of food. Justin wanted to try the GO 2 restaurant. It looked nice on the outside and the menu wasn't bad so we gave it a shot. But everything went south fast. The waitress brought me pineapple pancakes when I had ordered a chicken sandwich. When I told her it was wrong she asked me to eat it anyway. I said no I don't want it to which she said she would have to pay if I didn't eat it. I eventually got the attention of the manager, told him the problem and he corrected it. I was a little ticked at this point but got my food and ate. When the bill came the waitress had put the pineapple pancake on there plus 2 chicken sandwiches. I said it was wrong, she asked me again to help her by buying the pancakes, to which I said hell no. She finally got the bill right after a few tries, we paid and got the fuck out. It was the worst meal so far and after the other events of the day I was ready to get out of town.
On the way back to the hotel we ran into James and David, the two Australian brothers we had met on the Halong Bay trip. I kind of left out that by the end of the trip we had got to know them better and other than the 1 remark about not wanting to be American they were good guys. We grabbed a beer with them, told them what all we had done since Halong Bay, heard about their trips, debated Aussie Rules Football vs American Football, then headed back to the hotel. We turned in early so we could fly out to Cambodia the next day.
The trip to Cambodia was uneventful other than the small prop plane we took. The flight was fine but I was a little apprehensive when I saw the non jet. But it was fine and I was glad to get out of Vietnam even though I did enjoy some of it quite a bit. Now upon landing in Cambodia we had quite the adventure but I'll save that for next time since this is so long.
Pictures coming in a few days once we get to Singapore and a country with decent upload rates.
