Carry On Only: Last days in Saigon

The bike tour is done, my sore butt a faint memory. We head back to our guest house outside Saigon's city center and, with only a couple days left, we hit the ground running to ensure that all gets done on our list. We can't believe that our time in South East Asia is now nearly done. There is a melancholy in the air around us. A slight irritability with each other, coming from each of our random thoughts and emotions surrounding the end of our travels. We are excited to be close to the end as we are a little tired of each other. We are sad to be done as we wonder if we did all that we had hoped or thought we might do/experience/learn in our months of anticipation and planning. We anticipate routine, certain foods, missed family and friends but know it might feel like we never left all too soon on our return. We review all that we did. Our highlights. What colours we think each country is best represented by. We own our emotions so we can finish well (okay so owned them after a bit of irritability and teary emotions). But finish well we will!

One stop not mentioned yet was a day trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels. Our tour guide Kim did an amazing job laying out the history of Saigon and the time line of the French Colonial occupation, the struggle between north and south, the role of the various surrounding countries at different times and in different wars, leading up to the American/Vietnam war. The tour was of the amazing tunnels originally constructed by hand in the 1940's during the French occupation and expanded in the 1960's. Up to 250 km in length it housed up to 18,000 Vietnamese during the war. It is now a war memorial park with some tunnels reconstructed and widened allowing tourists to navigate and experience what life was like underground.

This was a moving and disturbing tour for me. As I hear M16's, AK 47's and light machine guns being fired off in the back ground, and as I see the horrific booby traps meant to sometimes kill or badly wound the enemy, or navigate the dark tunnels hunched over with sweat dripping down my back I am repulsed at war. There was so much psychological warfare going on and it did not take much imagination to think what it felt like for a Nebraskan farm boy to be dropped into this jungle with never ending heat, rain and humidity and being shot at by the enemy but never being able to see them. Or to imagine being underground and be in awe at how the Cu Chi people survived malaria (2nd killer to wounds), intestinal parasites of significance, slept, ate (a very bland daily diet of a root vegetable that tastes a little like potatoes), planned attacks, healed their sick, taught their young, wed and gave birth all underground. Imagine the hygiene and bathroom issues and air supplies alone...... Wow!

Our tour guide called himself a "good communist" with his father fighting for the north. Their belief and saying is: "to have peace, you must prepare for war". Each young person, if not going to university must join the army for 2 years and if you go to university, you need to do a 2 month training camp and pass a test that includes how to shoot certain firearms.

First stop along the way, crafts made by the victims of Agent Orange. Again, I refuse to photograph the horrific results of war from no hands, dwarfism, no eyes etc but did enjoy the reminder of the immense work and time it takes to make their handicraft. All by hand. Paid by the government. You can read yourself the controversy around if the USA should have compensated these victims of war, but they didn't, and I am not going into it.