07 November, 2012

Vietnam - Cu Chi tunnels and Bitexco Skydeck

Todays adventure, included a drive to the Cu Chi tunnels, via a handicapped working facility that were making the infamous lacquer artwork. Here they made 'mother-of-pearl' inlays, 'duck-egg' inlays or simple painted lacquered works. I could appreciate the art, but its not my style either... (a thing that I had a strong dislike for, was that after the tour, there was an expectation to buy, and the sales lady was hovering, asking something for family... Something for friends... Please help the handicapped people... I told her that I did not like these works, I can appreciate the time/effort, but I was not buying today...)

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Anyways, we drove for about 30-40 minutes and arrived at the Cu Chi tunnels. It was already very hot, and humid, and there were quite a few tour groups here; mainly Japanese. We first stopped in a little movie theatre where we watched just how the Vietnamese fought, and it wasn't at all pretty. I had a Japanese man sitting behind me, who simply just would NOT shut up, so I turned and 'shhhh' him, so disrespectful of him to be talking to his mate on opposite side of room... We then started walking around, trying to fit into the access holes for tunnels, and failing, and then into a trench. We saw a US Army Tank that was destroyed, and saw many ventilation stacks that kept the tunnels 'cool'.

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Soon enough, we arrived at the riffle shooting area, and the opportunity to have a shot, was too good to turn away, and we bought a round of 10 to share (4 & 4 & 2). Afterwards though, we 'splurged' and got 20 rounds for the machine gun, M60 Riffle, now THAT was fun!!

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And finally, we arrived at the entrance to a tunnel, that had been slightly enlarged so as tourists could access, down, down, I started to go through 'squatting' and shuffling, but in the end, relented and crawled on my hands and knees... It was hot, cramped, and even though I have done a bit of caving, it was uncomfortable... But, I am SO glad that we did it...

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We then headed back into Saigon for lunch, and a visit to the Reunification Palace, which was a bit of a let down, the Post Office, stunning building, before heading back to the hotel for a swim and a freshen up.

After a short cool down, the pool was nice, we headed for the Bitexco Financial tower, which has a skydeck on level 49. We arrived JUST on sunset, and we stayed until it was dark to get some additional photos...

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It was a long day...

Hoo roo for now...

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1 comment:

  1. A rainbow building!
    I have lacquer wear from Myanmar. My friend used to be part of the Aussie Diplomatic Corp over there. Very interesting process.
    Leanne @ Deep Fried Fruit

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