Currently Listening to: “Awake” by Tycho
It has been almost a full week since my last post, which means I have plenty to catch everyone up on. The day after my visit to the Cu Chi Tunnels, I hired a local motorcycle tour guide to take me around Saigon. We spent the day traveling throughout the city. I visited several Buddhist temples and even a few Catholic Churches one of the main highlights of the day was my visit to the War Remnants Museum. The museum’s focus was on the Vietnamese perspective of the Vietnam War. It was a very one-sided depiction of the war, which was to be expected, but there were two very moving exhibitions in the museum. One was the room focused on the international journalists that were in Vietnam covering the war. Several that died while covering the war were featured with shots from the last roll of film they had taken prior to being killed. The other moving exhibition was the room dedicated to the effects of agent orange. It showed Vietnamese citizens with various deformities. The pictures were truly heartbreaking.
Typical traffic in Saigon
Floating down the Mekong Delta
Floating market in the Mekong
View of the beach from one of the many resorts in Mui Ne
White sand dunes outside of Mui Ne
Coming out of the museum, my guide suggested we visit the Central Post Office and Notre Dame Basilica. The chief architect of the Central Post Office was Gustave Eiffel, the main architect for the Eiffel Tower. And a fun fact for the basilica is that all of the original materials were imported from France. The rest of the day was spent riding through China Town, through the new tunnel built by the Japanese and stopping in neighborhoods where I was the only tourist for food. 6-7 hours later I was exhausted and in bed early for an early pickup time to the Mekong Delta.
Up early Thursday morning, we boarded a bus and drove for about two hours to the Mekong Delta. We boarded the first of many boats and rode out to Turtle Island for a large lunch of fish caught from the river that morning. We got back onto a boat and moved onto another island where they make coconut caramels. The residents of the island also took the opportunity to introduce us to their pet Python that was being stored in a random rice bag. While there were several people that chose to hold the snake, I kept my distance. To get to the last stop for the day we took a smaller canoe like boat down a narrow river to a place that makes their own honey. We drank honey tea and listened to traditional music performed by the locals. At that point .it was back on the bus for another two hours back to a larger city for a stay at a hotel and a dinner along the waterfront.
Up early again on Friday, we had breakfast at 6:30am and at 7am we were heading to the tourist port to get on a boat and make our way to the floating market. This particular floating market was dedicated to wholesale foods. Each boat has a pile that has whatever goods they are selling tied to it at the top. As we made our way through the market smaller boats selling coffee, beer, water, and soda would pull up to the side of our boat for us to purchase refreshments quickly. From the floating market, we moved to dry land where we spent an hour touring a small village by push bike. From there it was back on the boat and back to town for lunch and then a four-hour bus ride back to Saigon. The Mekong was beautiful at times, but there were several areas that you saw piles of trash floating by or stuck in the vegetation along the edge of the delta.
This brings me to the last city I was in. On Saturday morning, I boarded a bus for a five-hour journey north to Mui Ne, a small resort town. I stayed at a great hostel, Mui Ne Backpacker Village, where I sat poolside all day and eventually made friends with people from all over while playing pool. In just a few minutes I made friends with a couple from Norway, two guys from Scotland, someone from the Netherlands, a guy from Northern Ireland, two ladies from Poland who are now living in Berlin and another American. On Sunday, that group of us lounged around the pool some more before heading out by motorbike to the white sand dunes. Once at the sand dunes, the 7 of us rented a U.S. Army jeep from 1982 and had a driver take us all over the dunes.
Today I made my way further north to Da Lat for some cooler weather and rain, as I have typed up this post it has poured several times. Here’s to hoping it stops for a bit.
Strange Trails 