Ho Chi Minh: City of the Motorbike

Hello dear blog readers from . . . Chiang Rai province, the northernmost province in Thailand and right on the Myanmar border!  Before I start this new adventure, I have to wrap up my old one, so this post is about Ho Chi Minh City, aka the city of the motorbike.

                                            

I thought traffic couldn't phase me after Bangkok, but boy was I wrong.  Ho Chi Minh has around 5 million motorbikes, and people carry EVERYTHING from trees to beds to 3 other grown adults on their motorbikes.

Rather than join the motorbike frenzy, we opted to be peddled around by "cyclo" drivers - the cyclo used to be a Viet Nam staple, but thanks to the motorbike, it is now a dying breed.  Our peddlers were mostly old, war scarred characters.
                                     
                                    

In addition to feeling uncomfortable crossing the street, this was also the first place I have been where I have felt uncomfortable being an American.  (Yes, I am a proud to be an American and usually feel pride in my country when I travel).  Our first day, Alex and I went to the War Remnants museum where we saw graphic photos and sad stories about both the war's toll on Viet Nam and the lasting remnants of Agent Orange, the chemical that the U.S. Army sprayed over all of South Viet Nam in an effort to clear jungle.  In addition to devastating crops, wildlife, and villages then, even now children are born with gruesome birth defects a generation or two later.  Once we saw the museum, I felt like I could not get away from the "handicapped" as they call them - they seemed to be everywhere, on the streets, in coffee shops, painting art for tourists.  I know war has lasting mental effects, but I did not appreciate that it could have such lasting physical effects until I traveled to Ho Chi Minh City (still also called Saigon).  We did find some cool projects helping out the Vietnamese people, like this awesome cafe, Sozo, who carry out their work for the glory of God (click here to learn more),

                                      

And this handicapped art making facility, which houses at least 100 Vietnamese suffering from Agent Orange birth defects:

Alex insisted on buying this huge ceramic urn there (not sure where it will go...)

The handicapped art making facility was a stop on the way to the Cu Chi Tunnels, just north of Ho Chi Minh.  The U.S. soldiers built their base on top of this 250km long tunnel network and spent months trying to figure out why they were getting shot at in their tents at night - before they discovered that the Viet Cong soldiers were literally living beneath them.  In a nutshell, why this was not our war. . .

                                 

Me being a tourist . . .

 (where did I go?!)

And Alex being a tourist (shooting an M-60, one of the only guns which is illegal to own in the U.S.)

At the beginning of the tour, our entire tour group, along with several other groups, watched a dated propaganda film about the Cu Chi tunnel system, which started off with scenes of the idyllic peasant life in the Cu Chi tunnels before the Americans, "like a band of devils, swooped in to destroy this peaceful village way of life" (quoted from the film).  Needless to say, I could only nervously chuckle to the other non-American tourists after the film!

Fortunately, modern Viet Nam likes Americans well enough, partly due to the fact that their economy was depressed until the first Bush administration began lifting economic sanctions in the early 1990's (though the U.S. only extended normal trade relations to Viet Nam in 2001).  We spent the rest of our time exploring the Mekong Delta by boat, where much of the country's rice is grown and coconut candy is made:

We found cool things in the river, from locals picking the "water coconuts",

To the water buffalo itself!

I will miss the Viet Nam PHO (pronounced "fah") and its super strong iced coffee!