All this way for a slice of pizza

Dec 12 - 15

*sniffle* - had to leave Mui Ne....If i'd stayed another night I probably would never have been able to drag myself away....It was - Brilliant!

5 hours bus - Saigon aka Ho Chi Minh City aka former capital of Vietnam

Anan Hotel 2

Firstly, Saigon (sorry HCMC) aint Hanoi....which in my humble opinion is a good thang! - It actually feels like a capital city (which it was for ages before the war re-unified the country) - aka - the 'North' decided that communism was what the 'South' needed. Then after years of battles with millions of tonnes of bombs being dropped on this and neighbouring countries and millions of innocent lives being lost and Americans 'getting involved' and then not doing very well and then 'getting uninvolved' and the South being left pretty much high n dry until they eventually lost the war..... and then at around the same time Saigon became Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi became capital of Vietnam.......*deep intake of breath*

The War remnants Museum Recounts in graphic detail the recent war and it is one of the most depressing museums I have ever visited. With photo's of people being blown apart; tales of Agent Orange and how the chemicals the US used in the war are still causing children to be born with disabilities + mutations; a walk round a mock prison-camp with torture chamber thrown in......I felt totally empty as we left, & hope that I am not walking round similar Museums in Baghdad and Kabul in 30 years time.......Dear Mr Bush/Blair - History does not have to be a book that you read in reverse & understand less as the pages turn.......

To lighten the mood - decided to spend some money & so skipped happily down to the Ben Tinh market.......The top grade Coffee over here is called 'Cham'. Cham means 'Fox' & the coffee is so called as it has been digested by the fox; the poop has been sifted (with marigolds?); cleaned (alledgedly!!!); and then it apparently has an amazingly 'different' taste......So I threw too much money at the fox-poo seller & now have a huge bag of strangely pungent dung....err....coffee to enjoy.....
Soon after - The woman told me the footie shirt was authentic; I obviously believed her (why would she lie?).....She wanted fifteen & I thought just under a tenner was a bargain.....now its later & i'm looking at my new shirt....I'm pretty sure that it's the wrong shade of red.......and therefore probably worth about tuppence.......I am crap at buying & deserve to drink hot poo coffee....

Cu Chi tunnels are about an hour out of the city & were dug by the Vietcong during the wars with France & later the US. The Vietcong were basically guerillas working against the South (who were supported by the US) on the side of the Northern communists. Running around in oversized monkey suits and shooting guns didnt have the overall desired effect of ridding their country of the foreign oppressors so they dug a 200km network of tunnels (the picture at the top shows our guide 'Khan' at one of the entrances) which they used to evade capture and appear 'invisible'....The tunnels themselves are on 3 levels - the first at 3 metres deep have living quarters & kitchens; the third at about 10 metres. They all link underground to villages in the Cu Chi region - They are very dark; very hot and not for fans of wide-open spaces. It is a fascinating place and lots of fun for thin people.......!

They also let you shoot guns (though not in the tunnels......) & I grabbed an AK47 (which is a fine way to learn the destructive lessons of war) - suffice to say I couldnt hit a barn door at 50 paces.....They also developed a fine line in traps that most medieval torturers would have been proud of.....most memorable was a 'trap-door' that when stood upon caused 12 inch barbed nails to impale the victim whose weight caused the nails to go in further.......hmmm - Nice....