Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon Vietnam Trip Part II

Hey'all I started writing about the Vietnam Trip from the second half of the trip because it was more recent and fairly fresh in my mind. I initailly intended for this to be a single post about our entire time in Vietnam, I decided to spare you guys some time and break it into two sections, because this is a pretty long blog. Sometime during the week I'll post the first part of our time in Vietnam in Hanoi. Hope ya enjoy!

Our sweet ride on the Mekong Delta

These are some pics from our trip on the Mekong Delta, we drove out to My Tho province and spent the day touring two of the four islands that were close to where we were. Each island was named after the four major animal symbols of Vietnam; The Turtle (Longevity), The Unicorn (Intelligence), The Phoenix (Virute and Grace) and the Dragon (Power). Our first stop was The Turtle Island, where we watched workers make a variety of fruit candies, really good but really sweet. We also got to try some Banana wine which was actually really good.

That's right me eating fruit

We also tried a bunch of regional fruit that I had never seen before, nor do I remeber their names. Now I'm normally I only have fruit in juice form, but I made an exception here. Most of it was actually really good. Next we headed to Unicorn Island.

I feel like Alice Cooper

This was actually really cool, I'd never been up close to a monstrous snake before let alone have him put on my shoulders, (Another thing to add to the list of "Life Accomplishments") . The snake was really peaceful and surprising cold considering how hot it was outside. I wasn't worried knowing that Pythons don't bite they constrict, but I did get kinda nervous for a second when he tightened up around my neck. After this we headed to the next stop where we had some more candies, peanuts and tea with honey which was made on the island.

"It's looking at me!!!"

Julie decided that she too wanted her picture with the snake, because she knew she'd regret it if she didn't. We went back to the guy with the snake, and immediately Julie was scared, especially when it turned and looked at her. This is only the first pic, the second one she's a little bit calmer. I give her tons of credit cuz I know guys that wouldn't do what she did.

Working Hard

Just wanted to take a picture with this thing, I saw lots of farmers and people in the market walking around with these and wanted to see what it was like. And I already had the hat so com'on perfect pic. It also reminded me of this statue that Cummings had and gave to Matt, for breaking his Buddha statue. After the tea and a quick bathroom break we headed back to the boat.

Thank God for the sun hats

These two pics (above and below) are from our canoe/gondola ride back to the Mekong Delta. As you can see from these pics it was an amazing ride, with beautiful scenery palm trees on both sides of the stream. It was crazy hot as well, very happy about the purchasing of the Vietnamese Sun Hats.

The shortest but probably the best boat ride of the trip.

Coconut Cheers

It was nice to see that when we did get back to the boat we had cool refreshments waiting for us. I don't like eating coconut, but as stated earlier I like many fruits in juice form and I can add coconut to the list. It was nice and sweet and I was surprised how much milk was in there. After this we hopped back in the car and headed back to Saigon, went out for dinner and checked out a night culb that was in the basement of the hotel. Ridiculous beer prices, they only served imports because it was a 'Hennesey' Bar...terrible.

Me in a Hidden Tunnel Entrance

Inside one of the Tunnels

These two pics were from the Chu chi Tunnels, about 1 hour SE of Ho Chi Minh city, it was a stronghold for the VeitCong during the "War for Independence". The tunnels were built over 20 years, starting in the 1940's after the struggle for independence from France. The 250km of tunnels and the surrounding villages were never captured by French or American forces. On another blog I'll post all the crazy devices and boobytraps these guys made, all from detonated and non detonated, recycling at it's finest.

Milling rice for rice paper

Before the shooting range I tried my hand as a Miller, not for me. It was kinda funny because other tourists were taking pictures of me while I did this, when I stopped a Korean man asked me to go back so he could take one more photo. Very weird.

M-16 Bullets

In my opinion I think that the Chu Chi Tunnel system was the coolest part of the Veitnam trip. Not because I ened up firin a M-16, that part actually wasn't all that great. I wanted to take a pic, but because it was super loud Julie didn't wanna come down. I asked one of the attendent guys there, "Can u take my picture", he responded with, "No". Can argue with that, he didn't seem like the type of man who would be swayed with a "Please".

Fighter Jet at the War Remnants Museum

Going to the War Remnants Museum was really interesting and I wished we'd spent more time there, there were some areas we didn't get to check out, one in particluar was a room full of posters that supported the Vietnamese. There were lots of gruesome pics from the war as well as an exhibit showing the prolonged effects that Agent Orange still has on the people of Vietnam. Children of people who were sprayed are born with severe deformities and mental, as well as developmental disabilites, also there are very high rates of cancer. One particularily disturbing part of the Agent Orange exhibit displayed Two still born babies who were terribly deformed.
There were also many horrible statistics about the number of civilians killed, as well as detailed accounts of several gruesome massacres that were undertaken by US soldiers. One of the most notorious being the My Lai Massacre where around 500 civilians were killed all between the ages of 1 and 82, not even sparing pregnant women. Truly brutal stuff that even some of the Americans on our tour didn't know about. I had read about some of this in some Chomsky books, but actually being there and seeing the photos was enough to turn my stomach.

Notre Dame Basilica

We breifly stopped to check out the Nha Tho Duc Ba, or Notre Dame Basilica. It was built in 1863 by French Colonists. Much of the arcitecture in Saigon/Ho Che Minh City was very French, this being the perfect example. Mass was just getting out so we didn't get a chance to get inside. Instead we checked out an equally old Post Office across the street and after getting a bite to eat we headed to the Ben Thanh Market to pick up some final souvenirs before going on the last of our many boat trips. We had New Years eve dinner on a big boat, while being entertained by some Korean singers and a Fire Dancer. From there it was airport time.

New Years Cheers

Our flight left at 12:30 am so we made it through customs and some last minute souvenir shopping, with enough time to get a couple beers in at the Airport bar. For some insane reason they stopped serving booze at 11:30.....ridiculous. So we nursed them till the big countdown, also surprising not many people were pepped up for new years, a real bunch of wet blankets. Meh...what can ya do. The flight was 5 hours + we lost 2 hours going back so we made it home by 8:00am. Caught a bus back to Iksan for $22, after 3 hrs we were back home and ready for some much needed rest.

Christmas in Cambodia

In front of a Souvenir shop where the goods were made by victims of landmines

Here's a shot from us walking into the Airport after landing. The flight from Ho Chi Mihn City was neat cuz we took this small two engine propeller plane that fit like 40 people. The flight was an hour long, and we got a little mini Kit Kat and fruit to tide us over.The Lin Ratanak Angkor

Here's a shot of our hotel, it was really, really nice. After being in Korea for 4 months it was nice to have a shower with good hard pressure, as well as standing in a bathtub to shower. It's nice to be able to step out of the shower and step on to a nice dry floor. The food was pretty good too. They also had a nice outdoor pool that was great for cooling off during tour breaks in the day. On our 2nd last night we got massauges in our room, not worth the 10 dollars.

The South Gate

These two pics were taken at the South gate, and was pretty much the first thing we saw walking into the Angkor Thom area of the Angkor temple comlexes. I didn't really realize how huge the whole Angkor area was, it was massive and very spread out through this jungle-like area. Definitely very neat.

The Banyon Temple

After walking through the South Gate we headed to the Banyon Temple, the walls of this temple were crazy!!! Huge sandstone walls covered with millions of intrericate carvings. Most of the walls had their own theme to them, one was of soldiers marching, another depicting worship inside the temple and another that we saw depicted a water scene complete with alligators eating people.

Who Likes Tourist Pictures?

This was a pic from our mini photo shoot with some people who work in the park and take pics with the tourist. This was taken on the top of the Banyon temple. They're dressed in the traditional garb, well except for the peacock guys on the ends...and the dude in the mask for that matter. Later that evening we went had had dinner at a restaurant where they did have people dressed like this doing traditional Cambodian folk dancing and little mini plays. It was pretty cool.

Trevor gets swarmed

In between temples there are these mini vendor villages where locals sell all sorts of crafts, like flutes, necklaces, bracelets, T-shirts, fans, guide books and silk goods. There most dangerous weapons are the children. These kids follow you almost relentlessly, pleading and begging you to buy something. They barder themselves and with each other at times. These three little girls all had sad looks on their faces and wouldn't let go of me. Even though I had already bought 5 bracelets from another vendor, I bought one more from each of them too. Scenes like this happened frequently in Cambodia and a little bit in Vietnam when you get out to the rural areas.

Entrance to Angkor Wat Temple

Angkor Wat Temple

Here's the pics from the namesake of the area Angkor Wat, probably the biggest temple system. It's surrounded by a giant mote which originally contained alligators and cobras, but the cobras are continually removed. The temple also had 4 libraries for monks, the King's family and for the King. It also had four swimming pools inside, pretty swank but hey he's a king right. We watched the sunset here, which was pretty cool, but I would have like to have spent a little more time here. We didn't get to check out the interior of the main temple, just the outside. That was it for the day as far as temple were concerned. As stated earlier that night we went and saw some traditional dancing.

Musicians injured by landmines

Julie and I fell behind the rest of the group because, yet again, I was mobbed by a group of villagers selling stuff. They ended up takin a right off the main path so we ended up walkin right past them, we were searching for them for a good 15min and eventually realized that they couldn't have made it as far as we were so we doubled back and found them at the enterance of the temple.

Me inside the trunk of a giant treeTrees over taking the temple

Ta Prom (Old Brahma)

These three pics above were taken in a set of temples about 15min drive North East of the Ankor Wat temples. It was actually a pretty cool area that was slowly getting destroyed by these monstrous trees. I believe they were Sandalwood Wood trees, but don't quote me on that, cuz our tour guide was a little bit hard to understand. Anyways part of Tomb Raider 1 was filmed here.

Mini Killing Fields Memorial

We took a brief temple break to check out the Cambodian war museum as well as a small memorial to victims of the many massacres that took place when the Pol Pot regime were in power. The museum was pretty crazy, there were lots of old rusted out tanks, anti-tank guns, and anti-aircraft guns. They also had tons of different military equipment all sorts of guns, uniforms, and rocket launchers. But the craziest thing was that they actually had two land mines inside the museum. Now I' don't know if they were fake or what, but our tour guide kept telling us not to walk close to there. Needless to say I didn't want to test them out. We probably spent 20 mins at the most here then we headed to the Killing field memorial, which I really wanted to see. They have a big me memorial for the victims in Phenom Phen, but since we weren't goin there, this was the best I'd get to see. The memorial was inside a buddhist temple where the monks worked to spread awareness of HIV and AIDS, they were really nice guys, one even let me use his bathroom, which I was very greatful for because it was an extreme emergency.

Petting an Elephant

As you can see by the picture Julie was a little bit affraid to be so close-up to the elephant. They were just little ones and they seemed pretty calm. It was awesomw to be able to get so close and pet it's trunk.

Elephant ride on X-mas

Instead of hiking the 15-20 minutes ups to Phnom Bakheng, we decided to splurge and pay the $15 each to ride the elephant up the hill. I mean why not? It was Christmas for cryin out loud. It was a nice peaceful ride up to watch the sunset, and I was amazed to see how many elephants they had runnin the circuit. On the way up we must've past about 8 or 9 other elephants, it was pretty cool.

Sunset @ Phnom Bakheng

We ended up watching the Christmas sunset at the top of a big hill NW of the Ankor Wat temple. We hiked up the 5 very steep storeys and got some good pictures of each other at the top of the temple. From the top of the temple you could get a pretty good veiw of the country side and some of the many other temples . What made even nicer was the fact that our tour guide played a traditional Cambodian instrument called a Tro U, a two string deal played with a bow almost like a cross between a banjo and a fiddle. It was a very peaceful sunset.

Downtown Siem Reap

The last day we left Cambodia at 5:00pm so we slept in a little and then went walking around the main drag. These last two pics were taken on a little bridge over the Seim Reap river. We ended up walking to a park, where there were these huge trees that were full of bats. Then we headed to a few souvenir places, but the prices were ridiculous when compared to the deals we got at the temples. When we left Cambodia it was in the mid-30's, I was sweatin' buckets. Fortuneately in was alot cooler in Hanoi, our next stop, there it was in the low to mid 20's. Once I get Julie's pics I post that blog, it might have to be a two-parter lots of pictures from Vietnam.

Hi guys,

Here are some pics from the Demiliterized Zone, we went there at the beginning of December. It was pretty interesting, the area is 4km wide and 250km long and is 55km North of Seoul. Along the DMZ there are high electrified fences with barbed wire, anti-tank obstacles and many landmines, making it one of the most heavily fortified borders in the world. Also interesting was the fact that there was never a peace agreement between the two sides, only a ceasefire, so technically the war is not over.

Inside the DMZ there are two villages on each side of the border, on the North side there is an Eiffel Tower like structure which waves the North Korean Flag, it actually a ghost town, no one lives there. While on the other side there are 250 people who live in modern houses, who live without paying taxes, and farm rice and ginseng.

Waiting at the Amusement Park

We started the tour at a waiting area that had a small amusement park, we looked at some old tanks and jets and checked out the old railway line, that went into the North. Many families were split up by the war, so some people haven't seen their family members since the end of the war. Chuseok, their equivilent of thanksgiving, is an important time when Koreans go the the graves of their relatives and bring teas, and other offerings. There was a monument here that faces North Korea, so people who have loved ones in the North can pay their respects.

Chusoek Monument

We ended up ringing the peace bell, a giant bell that people pay to ring in the hope of reuniting the country. After that we headed to the Dorsan train station, it was built by KTX and they hope to eventually link it up through North Korea to the trans Siberia line and eventually all the way to Europe. The problem is they can't do it till there is peace between the two Koreas.

Outside Dorasan Station with Military Policeman

From there we went to an obsevatory where you can look into North Korea through those pay telescope deals. It actually looked like a pretty average place, except for the giant gold statue of Kim Il Sung, the father of Kim Jung Il of which there are something like 30 of these statues throughout the North.

A View of the North

After that we went to one of the four tunnels that the North Koreans dug in order to infiltrate the South. We checked out the 3rd tunnel which was dicovered in 1978 and is the largest of the four, it is largest enough to send over 10000 troops with equipment about 50km from Seoul. The North Koreans claimed that they were minig coal, but no traces of coal were found, only rocks painted black. Crazy North Koreans. The tunnel is around 50 metres underground and was quite a hike.

The Enterance to the 3rd Tunnel

After veiwing the tunnel we checked out a mini documentery about the DMZ it was interesting in a propagandish way. It talked about how the undisturbed area between the two countries is like a nature reserve, only with landmines.

Unification Sculpture

We then headed back to Seoul and hung out in Itaewon a big foreigner area, with lots of western stores and tons of different restaurants. A couple weeks earlier we went to a Thai place that was pretty good and this time we checked out an awesome Mexican place called Poncho's. Really good food. After that we checked into a cheap love motel. We then headed out for drinks at a bar call Gecko's garden, a pub that was packed with foreigners.

Finally Canadian Beer

Love motels are pretty common in Korea, basically there for extra-marital affairs or for couple to go who can't do stuff because they live at home. There very cheap nad usually pretty clean all things considering. THis one was not however, I was awaken in the middle of the night by Julie, she wanted me to kill a giant cockroach. It was gross. Well that's pretty much it. Next post will be Christmas in Cambodia then Vietnam. Till then...

Condom Machine in the Love Motel

Level Up

Hey everyone, just a quick blog to let you know that we've increased in deadliness yet again, actuaclly it happened the day before we left for vacation. We are now green belts in Tae Kwon Do. This test was pretty bad, I sucked, I couldn't remember the 1st pumsai (routine) so I felt like an idiot. Yo have to remember all 7 for the black belt test, we totally forgot about that so we didn't practice that, and only focus on the names of all the kicks. As for board breaking, very disappointing this time around. It took me two try's to break two boards with an apchige, basically a high downward kick. Then when I tried to perform the tolgae chige, a spinning hook kick, I couldn't kick high enough to reach the board. Regardless I still got the belt, but it didn't feel as good as the first belt test. Oh well, I'll get'em next time I suppose.

PS I figured out my problem and will be adding three blogs this weekend on the DMZ, Cambodia and Veitnam so check-in on sunday. Till then, see ya.