WILL'S PLACE: Saigon/MeKong Delta (Aug 3-8)

AAaahhhhh! Saigon! What a place! The people, the energy, the history, this is VIETNAM! After a short ride from Mui Ne beach I arrived in the capital, also known as Ho Chi Minh city.

The two pictures above are of the Reunification Palace. This was where the first communist tanks broke through the gates on April 30, 1975 officially ending the war in Vietnam. Many of the original phones and maps have been left untouched.......big deal. I can't believe the Vietnamese government swindled me out of a buck to see this place. Talk about boring! "This is where the southern government sat and had tea........this is where the cooks cooked their food...........this is a hallway that leads to..........another hallway. Man we got out of there quickly! On to the War Remnants Museum.

This is one of the most amazing museums I have ever been to. Having stuck mostly to the tourist trail in Vietnam, it's easy to forget that less than thirty years ago this country was being ripped apart by one of the most gruesome and inhumane wars that the world has ever known. While both sides were guilty of horrific displays of brutality against their enemies, this museum focuses mainly on the atrocities committed by American forces and the aftermath of Agent Orange. (Agent Orange is the cute little name given to the poison that is still effecting tens of thousands of American and Vietnamese citizens.)

Agent Orange was originally designed to destroy the dense jungle foliage. In theory this would expose the Viet Cong forces and reduce the amount of cover that could be used to launch an attack. Thirty years later this is the result. Think of it as soaking a country in bug spray and weed killer, a country that depends on farming the land and drinking from the streams for survival.

Each year thousands of babies are born both in Vietnam and in the United States with severe mental and physical disabilities.

Hundreds more don't even get to that stage. While NGO's and the Vietnamese government spend millions of dollars each year assisting families who have been affected by the chemical, current estimates reveal that agent orange will be in the soil for the next 400 years. I mentioned briefly that American children have been affected as well. During the campaign, the American government had no idea what the long-lasting affects of this spray would be, and in some instances they told American Gi's that it was merely deet intended to get rid of mosquitoes. Currently there are several organizations that involve groups from both countries and help them come to terms with what has happened.

This is what happens when you drop a "pellet bomb" near children.

The US massacre at My Son.

This famous picture was taken by a "Life " photographer who accompanied American GI's on a patrol. The troops were walking along a road when they saw two boys approaching. Without warning they opened fire. The elder of the two boys tried to shield his younger brother from the barrage of bullets but in the end it didn't matter. One of the soldiers casually walked over and fired a few more rounds into them at point blank range just to be sure. The fact that the soldiers did this knowing full well that the photographer was taking pictures demonstrates just how screwed up they were by this point.

This is what happens when you drop a "phosphorus" bomb near children. I took a whole bunch more photos of photos, including the famous one of the American troops smiling and holding up the severed heads of some of the VC they captured but I think you get the idea. Interestingly enough, this was the first war where the propaganda machine completely broke down because of the on-the-ground coverage that the troops received. While extremely different than what is going on in Iraq right now I do notice a certain pattern developing.

A threat or a supposed threat to the American sphere of influence takes place. This threat is then followed by a US military campaign that is generally backed by the American population who believe that they are in some form of danger. Accompanying that campaign are hundreds of reporters who show pictures of American GI's getting blown apart and atrocities that are commited against the indigenous population and the POW's. Unable to stand the constant bombardment of news coverage every night around the dinner table, Americans begin to question their motivations. Slowly, they start to voice the opinion that perhaps enough is enough. Eventually the tide is turned. Support for the war declines rapidly while the American viewers are forced to concede that that a pull out is necessary. The US pulls out, after an initial slaughter everything quiets down, people forget for a decade or so and then the process repeats itself. Vietnam, Somalia, Iraq are the most notable but certainly not the only examples of this cycle.

Let's lighten the mood a little! Here is Notre Dame Cathedral.

And here are the government buildings.

On to the good stuff! Even though I was brutally hung over on one particular morning, I thought a trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels would perk me right up! This vast array of tunnels is actually a network of catacombs that stretches for over 200km's! They were built in two stages, the first set of tunnels was completed during the Vietnam independence movement against the French in the 50's and the second system was completed during the 60's and 70's.

Perhaps the coolest thing about this exhibit are demonstrations of all the traps the Vietnamese laid for the American troops. This rotating door would drop a soldier ten feet onto a bed of spikes and then spin back into place concealing the victim.

Our guide, (who was a translator for US troops during the war and from what I could gather a covert VC member as well,) told us that this tank was blown up by an anti-tank mine and all four US soldiers inside it were killed. The bodies have been removed but everything else lays exactly as it did 30 years ago!

This lovely little invention was usually covered with leaves and would wedge a person in between two rotating pillars covered in spikes. A soldier did more damage getting out of this trap than getting in!

The "Folding Chair" trap. So simple yet to the "point." Sorry.

Couldn't resist. I am a guy after all!!!

The Vietnam sandal company never really took off in the West after the war....even though their foot apparel was made with our car tires.

This is a bomb crater made by a B-52.

Allow me to explain a little more about the tunnel systems. For demonstration purposes, part of the tunnel has been opened up and expanded to allow tourists to get a feel for what it was like to be a VC fighting in the war. The tunnels are composed of three levels all 2m, 6m, and 8m bellow the surface.

When our guide asked who wanted to go down bellow, two other people and I descended into the catacombs. The tunnel is designed so that if someone starts to freak out and have a panic attack, there are exits every thirty meters. There are also a few dead ends to keep you on your toes and the whole thing is lit up my mini bulbs. Except for one problem. After about seven or eight minutes, the three of us were down in the tunnels and all the lights went out. It was completely pitch black and we were all 6m's underground in a space that was about as big as your average washing machine. No big deal, I thought to myself. I'm not claustrophobic or anything, we'll just keep crawling forward until we see an exit. Because we had gotten turned around in the tunnels I found myself in the lead. I took the above picture with my camera to get a sense of whether anything lay ahead. The flash gave me half a second of vision and off we went. After two more minutes of crawling, for some reason I stopped. I had no idea why, there wasn't any reason to but something didn't feel right. The guy and girl from my group behind me encouraged me to keep going but I told them to hold on for a second. I took out my camera, aimed it in front of me and snapped off a quick photo.

Less than a few inches from my hand was the drop down to the third level. If I had taken one more step I would have plunged face first in the darkness and landed on my head 5 feet bellow! Slowly, I crept down the hatch and after hearing that my two companions made it down safely I continued to crawl forward on my hands and knees. I was now 8m's bellow the surface. All of a sudden I saw a faint beam of light up ahead and I breathed a sigh of relief! The second exit to the tunnel was right up ahead! I was just about to round the corner when I saw a faint little glow bobbing a little farther down the tunnel. As it got bigger I realized that someone was coming form the opposite end with a head lamp.

"What's going on?" I yelled. "How come you're coming this way?"

As the light got closer I could see it was a girl with who I took to be her boyfriend. The girl spoke first.

"There's a snake down here!" she yelled.

"You're kidding," I replied in disbelief.

"No," said her boyfriend, "she's not. And I know my snakes, I'm from South Africa. This ones poisonous and we should get the hell our of here!"

The five of us raced up the ladder into daylight and told the nearest guard what had happened. He was skeptical at first but sure enough when word spread they jumped into action. Luckily the five of us were the only people in the tunnels at that time so after sealing off the entrance, a few guards got together and descended down into the final exit.

And emerged with this!

"No pictures, no pictures!" they yelled. (Probably because if this got out the tourism would take a nose dive.) Yeah right...........like I'm not going to take a picture of this!!! And just think, if those two people with the head lamp hadn't been in the tunnel with us I would have crawled right into that thing in the pitch darkness on my hands and knees, 8m's bellow the surface with nowhere to go! Karma baby, yeah!!!!!

This is an example of an underground kitchen. I really shouldn't have included this picture as it's pretty anti-climatic compared to the rest of this section. Just pretend you're still in awe. There you go!

After all the excitement I decided to take it easy the next day and head to the fine arts museum. Oh shut up, I do to have culture!! This one's called, "I am here."

"Catfish."

"When drinking water, remember where it came from." Very deep. Just like me.

This one was my favorite. "Sea at Night."

The next day I got scammed into going into the Mekong Delta. Apperenlty, if you want to take the slow boat up the Mekong River into Cambodia you have to spend one night in this shitty little town in the middle of nowhere. When we got off the bus I was nervous because my driver Ming (pictured here) took me back to her place and tried to get me to marry her daughter. I was a little put off, seeing as she was only 11 years old, but luckily Ming found out I went to the Fine Arts museum the day before and suddenly lost interest.

Okay, seriously. My boat stopped off at a native village and this woman is making rice paper.

This in an average dwelling on the river. Some of these people have absolutely nothing. The children play naked in water that I wouldn't even touch. I had never seen povert like this up close and it was pretty sad.

They do get good sunsets though.

Since it was included in our package, our guide forced us all onto a rowboat in the pouring rain the next day. It looks like I'm laughing here but I assure you it was all for show!

This is the local resaurant. You might have heard of it before, it's called "Cholera." No? Are you sure? Well it's a conglomorate of the much more famous "Typhoid" chain, that's just been bought out by "Dysintary."

This is a fish farm located right beside "Cholera." No joke. It smelled so bad I threw up a little bit in my mouth and then had to swallow it.

The best thing about this place was the kids. They are very cute and one can not help give them a couple of bucks here and there as it means the world to them. I'm starting to see why Angelina Jolie has made them this season's new handbag.