We arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare and joined the queue for our check in. An elderly Vietnamese couple seemed to be trying to subtly push in! Caroline (French girl) turned to me and said. "Come on Ros, you are British, are you really going to let this happen?" The other nationalities in our group all agreed in unison.
I was under pressure, what was I to do? Yes it's true, as far as us Brits are concerned, queue jumping is the worse thing anyone could do. But at the same time us Brits don't generally like to complain and cause a fuss. I was stuck in some kind of paradox! I turned to my fellow Brits, who just stared back at me. I looked around for Liz, she's a Northern lass from Manchester, she wouldn't have a problem confronting this poor little defenceless Vietnamese couple, not like us soft Southerners. But she was outside smoking!
It was up to me now; I took a deep breath, then turned towards the couple and threw them a look of distaste as I squeezed my trolley in front of them and allowed the rest of my group in front of me. That showed them! I smiled smugly at my friends, then we all watched as this little Vietnamese couple smiled at us and continued on their way over to the First Class check in desk next door!
A few hours later I stepped off the plane in Saigon (aka Ho Chi Minh city). The weather was hot and humid and we were yet again confronted with roads filled with speeding motorbikes. To give you an idea of how busy I mean; apparently the city has a population of 9,000,000 of which 7,000,000 ride motorbikes!!
The roads were just as scary to cross as the ones in Hanoi, maybe slightly worse as they were much wider. And as seems to be the trend in Asian countries; even though vehicles are supposed to be driven on the right hand side of the road, the general rule of thumb is, just drive on whatever available space can be found - and out here that includes the pavement! As far as zebra crossings go, I think they are purely there for decoration as are roundabouts and even the traffic lights! Or as Sam(bo) pointed out: "Green is for; go, amber is for; quick before it changes to red and red is for; oh who cares I'll just go anyway".
And so our tour in Saigon (the old capital of the south) began with a cyclo tour.
Now a cyclo is not like a tandem as some of us originally assumed. A cyclo is in fact a bicycle that has a front facing passenger seat with foot rest attached to the front wheel.
We all nervously climbed into our respective seats knowing our lives were in the hands of the Cyclo drivers who were whizzing in and out of the oncoming traffic! We had been warned that if we got scared, not to scream or jump about as that was more likely to cause our driver to crash, plus we were advised to strap our cameras to our wrists and hold onto them with both hands when taking pictures as there were a few unsavoury characters that would snatch them and our bags as they sped by.
Boy, was I looking forward to this part of the tour?!
In fact, it turned out to be quite exciting and much more fun than being stuck on a bus. My driver pointed out various landmarks to me in his broken English and I only had to catch my breath once as we suddenly cycled diagonally across a triple carriageway, with oncoming traffic, just to park up on the other side of the road!
We were dropped off outside The War Memorial Museum and looked up at the building looming just in front, each of us wondering what horrors were in store. We took a deep breath and went inside.
Horror does not even come close to describing even half the images on display. Images from The Vietnam War and interviews so shocking that everyone walked around the rooms in total silence. Some of the photos reminded me of pictures I had seen of the Concentration Camps from the Second World War that had taken place only a couple of decades before! Begging the question, 'Will things ever change?'
The second floor was an exhibition of photographs and interviews from survivors and victims of Agent Orange - a most deadly dioxide found in the herbicide that the US Military used during their chemical warfare programme against Vietnam. Used as a 'defoliant' to destroy crops, it is estimated that 400,000 people were killed or maimed by it. And still it's legacy lives on with thousands of children still being born with horrendous physical and mental disabilities due to their parents now carrying faulty DNA due to exposure to Agent Orange.
I was quite relieved to have run out of time before being able to look around the upper floor. I had seen enough and even though I was fully aware we were being informed by 'One side' I was still disgusted.
We left on our cyclos in contemplative silence.
Our next stop was the old Post Office, a large and beautiful piece of architecture. Built in typical French style, still containing the telephone booths, which no one seems to need anymore since the invention of mobile phones.
And our final visit for that day was a Christian sight, it was a cathedral, known as Notre Dam! Although I am not Christian, it was nice to finish off at such a serene place after such an upsetting afternoon. I even said a little prayer ... At The Notre Dam in Vietnam.
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