The Adventures of Mactowne

Hello, Saigon. Vietnam greeted me with open arms, and it's pretty much been that way all along. I got into the airport in the afternoon, got some dough out of the ATM (one million Vietnamese dong, thank you very much), then started the taxi negotiations. My reference point was the 5 year old copy of LP that Lacy had given me, so I knew prices were probably going to be a bit higher than the 60,000 dong they paid. After lots of hassle and one guy who even had the audacity to quote 300,000 dong ($18) through a big smile, I got a guy that eventually gave in and used the meter. I made it into town for something like 130,000 dong, much delayed by the motor bikes here. The sheer volume of people on motor scooters is just incredible. I've taken several pictures, but it's very difficult to capture in a single frame. There are about 4 million of them in a city that's probably less than 2 miles on each side. Just incredible.
The taxi dropped me near the main backpacker strip (Pham Ngu Lao) and I started around looking for a place that was in the old LP. It had since closed, but another place (possibly in the same building) welcomed me in for $9 a night. Not too shabby either. I settled in and then went back out to find food. I had a quick meal at a corner pho place, then wandered the streets a bit to get my bearings. I noticed lots and lots of tour companies, which pack most tourists that come through here onto little buses to run around and see everything from here to Cambodia. I'm usually pretty averse to such things, but I was faced with a major language barrier, my usual time shortage, and a basic ignorance of what all there is to see. I decided to sign up for a tour out to the Cu Chi tunnels the next day, which would finish with a half day around the city. I wandered around a bit more that night, then turned in.
The next morning I was up early to meet the tour place right across the street from the hotel. I joined up with a few other people, then we all walked over to some other tour office to board a bus. It turns out that these dozens of offices all pretty much feed their people to one or two companies that actually run the tours. But, they're still so cheap that it doesn't seem to matter. The ride out to Cu Chi was kind of long and I think I fell asleep, but we eventually got there and made a hasty, crowded walk through the place to all these recreations of the Viet Cong tunnels and booby traps. They also had an American tank that was destroyed (mostly) by a land mine on display. The whole thing was pretty interesting, and my first real view of the war from the Vietnamese perspective. The Viet Cong were also extrememly clever with most things they did to stay alive. It's really not surprising that it was such a losing battle for the Americans. When you're standing there in the middle of the former battle ground it feels a bit like you'd be walking into a maze with threats looming on all sides and no good information about how to do your job. I think it's probably similar to the urban warfare conditions guys have been seeing in Iraq, where you can't hope to level the playing field when your enemy knows it so much better than you do. So, political reasons for the whole conflict aside, it was obviously just a hugely insurmountable task from a tactical standpoint. And now, only 33 years later, the Vietnamese welcome American tourists into the site with open arms and never once display any kind of resentment for the nationals of a country that terrorized that area so recently. I think that's the most impressive part.
The last attraction at the tunnels is this shooting range. This is one of very few places in the world where it's legal to fire such things as AK-47s. At $1 per bullet, it's not exactly cheap, but... when else could I ever do that? I'm really not big on guns at all, but I decided to go for the AK-47 and ten rounds. This guy gave me some hearing protection (about as effective as the lightly padded headphones from a 20 year old Walkman), loaded the banana clip, and let me have at it. The gun is mounted to a little wall, so kick back is minimal and the range where you can aim is quite limited as well. This keeps it all safe, so I was glad to see it, even if I couldn't move around much. I clicked through the ten rounds pretty quickly on semi-automatic and totally forgot about the full auto capability until the guy wanted to sell me more bullets. I was happy with what I'd already done though, and my ears were already ringing, so I left it at that. We then took the ride back into the city and swept around the major sights there, which included the Reunification Palace (where VC tanks broke in in 1975, hung their flag, and claimed Saigon), the Notre Dame Cathedral (pretty basic French cathedral that doesn't hold a candle to the stuff in Europe), the Central Post Office (big post office... with shops for cruise ship passengers), and I think that was it. I could've walked between these things easily enough, I later discovered, but this was a good way to get quickly through some things that turned out not to be that interesting afterall.
I grabbed dinner at a good Indian place later that night (cheap Indian food will cease to exist as soon as I leave Asia) and ended up signing up for a three day / two night Mekong Delta tour. With my little bit of time here I decided to just maximize it in the southern region and leave the rest for the next visit. I wasn't crazy about the tour option, but again, it solved a lot of logistical problems. I got pretty well ready to go that night, slept, then rose early to check out and get on the next bus. More to come...

posted by Matthew MacLeod @ 1:01 AM