saigon/ho chi minh city.

the old capital of independent south vietnam and formerly saigon, ho chi minh city is the largest city in vietnam. when arriving from cambodia, it is frequently the first stop for travelers. for backpackers, this usually means heading to de tham in district 1, which has a feel very similar to that of my often frequented khaosan road in bangkok. most of the people here are able to communicate in english and streets are filled with cheap hotels/hostels, restaurants which offered both vietnamese and western dishes, and bars that advertise drink specials for almost every night.

being our first stop in vietnam, the one thing i noticed right away was all of the motorbikes. i thought there were a lot in bangkok, but was in no way prepared for what we were about to encounter as we hopped on some moto taxis and headed to the war remnants museum. (perhaps in numbers they were less than in bkk, but percentage wise, they dominated traffic.) halfway through the first ride, i yelled to meghan while at a stop that it was likely i would die while in this country if we continued to take motorbike taxis everywhere.

motorbikes.everywhere.

we went to a buddhist pagoda that was a good distance from the center of the city so it was an accomplishment that we were able to make it there alive. it was interesting to see the differences in the buddhist temples here compared to all of the ones ive seen in thailand. its a different type of buddhism they practice, more like what is common in china, and the buddhas are the fat kind, which is what most people think of then they think of buddha.

inside the temple.

following the pagoda we went to see the war remnants museum, one of the main things i wanted to see in ho chi minh. it wasnt as big as i thought it would be and there wasnt too much new information, but it was incredibly interesting to look at the war from the other side. obviously, in school we are taught from the american perspective and getting the back story and history from the other side was really cool. additionally, i was impressed with the fact that there was still representation about the movement in america and the rest of the world thatwas in opposition to the war. it was definitely one of my favorite parts.

really liked this quote in the museum.

what was suppose to be our last full day in saigon was our trip to the cu chi tunnels. (well, actually it was suppose to be the day before, but we overslept and the agency was nice enough to let us switch our ticket to the next day!) we combined the tour with a temple that is apparently the biggest of its kind in the country, and it was interesting but seemed more like a waste of time because it took us 3x as long to get there as we spent there. the tour of the tunnels was slightly disappointing as well, but the tunnels were still amazing. when they told us that entire communities lived underground for years without seeing sunlight, i was shocked. i had thought that the tunnels were just used by guerrillas. there was a section of the tunnels that were bigger than the rest and this is where we were allowed to climb through. it was super hot and really tight in some spaces, but out of our entire group, i was the only one to make it through to the end :P

the big temple.

meghan in a man hole.

inside the tunnel. cannot see how small and dark they really are!

when i finished the tunnels.

i suppose the other thing to mention about or time in this city was that we had a place we hung out at almost every night with the same people, ones we had actually met back in cambodia. we went to go2, one of the backpacker hot spots, every night for their happy hour on the roof. there were a few times we ventured out to try to find another place that maybe had some dancing, but apparently dancing and vietnam do not mix well. so, we spent most of our time learning 'international drinking rules' and other such games from the english boys. all in all, good times.

the result of some rule in some kind of drinking game....