Today we went on a 2 hour boat trip up the Sai Gon river to the Cu Chi Tunnels. The river is an amazing wide brown working river. Most of the commerce were barges carrying dirt or gravel either up or down the river. The smaller boats had eyes painted on the front, which were very colorful.
The river was muddy and had many clumps of green plants floating down the with the current. The driver steered to avoid these large obstacles, as we had a relatively small boat. The barges just mash the greenery over.
We arrived at the Cu Chi tunnels and took the tour. At times, over 16, 000 Viet Cong lived in these tunnels. The Americans defoliated the area in an attempt to wipe out the "enemy" but the forest was replanted and has regrown. Standing on the pathway and looking around, you're surrounded by forest and jungley vegetation. Camouflage was key here and the tunnel entrances were virtually undectable. The openings are really small and the tunnels themselves were small also. Down below ground there were three levels of tunneling, each going successively deeper. Some areas were enlarged for rooms, bedrooms, cooking rooms, etc. It was pretty much an underground city. Jiro took the tunnel crawl, but I thought it was too claustrophic.
We looked forward to the air-conditioned bus ride back to Saigon.
December 2 Cai Be Floating Market Mekong Delta
Today we took an all day tour to the floating market in the Mekong Delta region. It was a 3 hour drive to the location of the first boat and we were amazed as we loaded, just how enormous the Mekong River is. It begins in Tibet and flows through Laos, Thailand and Cambodia before it gets to Vietnam. It's a brown river with lots of rich sediments which make the entire delta a prolific agricultural area. Lychees are the main crop in the area we were in.
The boat took us to the floating market, which was a bit of a disappointment. I'd expected to see small boat vendors hawking their fruits and veggies to the tourists, instead we saw larger boats filled with taro, potato, onion, etc. and smaller boats buying fairly large amounts from these bigger boats. We continued on to an island and saw how edible rice paper is made by hand. It is an interesting process and the drying part is totally dependent on the weather. When dry, the rice papers are good for about six months. These are on the outside of spring rolls, if you've eaten those.
Next we went to another island and had lunch, then went for a bicycle ride. About a mile from the restaurant was the big ferry crossing, one that carried cars to the island. There were very few cars on the island, mainly scooters and bicycles.
After that we all got into small, 4 person boats and a lady rowed us around the island. We were in the first boat and it was quiet and peaceful, until we got to the part where the floating power shovel was scooping up river bottom and placing it along the edge of the canal.
Back onto the larger boat, around the bigger island and over to Vinh Long to dock. We were able to walk around a really big outdoor and indoor street market for awhile before boarding the bus for the ride back to Saigon. It was a wonderful day. The whole river life culture is just not part of our California culture.
We got back to our hotel, which is in the backpacker area. It's fun because this is where all the travelling young people are, or those on a budget. We're calling it "white man's area." Most of the tourists are from Australia, some Asian tourists are from Malaysia. We have a communal eating and chatting area so we've met some nice people. We have two more days in Saigon. I fell asleep listening to Jason Mraz blaring from a nearby nightclub.
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