Throughout our travels, we had heard a number of negative things about Vietnam (especially the South) from fellow travellers....mainly the unwanted attention that tourists get from people trying to sell books, guesthouses, tuktuks, tours, etc. As such, we didn’t have high expectations from our first port of call, Ho Chi Minh City (previously called Saigon) but were pleasantly surprised by what we found. The city is very clean and tidy, with nice parks and gardens and apart from the chaotic traffic (we’ll get to that again) it is a lot more relaxed, organised and easier than we were expecting. It has a lot of nice architecture both in its old historic buildings as well as the modern buildings. We even took a taxi out to some random local market away from the backpacker/tourist area just to see the real Ho Chi Minh, and although it was a bit less polished, it was still a very nice place to stroll around.
By chance, we had bumped into two Irish girls (Emer and Noelle) that we previously met in Laos, and they made our stay even more fun. We spent our time hanging out with them and enjoying lots of margaritas :)
We visited the local War Remnants Museum which had a lot of interesting information about the Vietnam War (or as it’s known over here: The American War). The Vietnam version of events is very different from that portrayed in American movies and it was interesting to get their perspective. The museum is not for the faint hearted and shows plenty of gruesome images of the victims of the war and the effects of the chemical warfare used by the Americans (“Agent Orange” containing dioxin, the most poisonous chemical created by man).
One of the most popular sites around HCMC is Cu Chi tunnels. This is an underground tunnel 
network that once stretched out 200 km and is built in 3 levels going down to 10 m deep. Viet Cong (Vietnamese communists) were hiding here from Americans for almost 20 years. We got to go into the tunnels.... they were very, very small and dark and hot and claustrophobic... can’t imagine living there for 20 years. Can’t even imagine being there for 20 minutes. And this particular tunnel where we were was even enlarged for the tourists (cos Americans have big asses according to our guide).
network that once stretched out 200 km and is built in 3 levels going down to 10 m deep. Viet Cong (Vietnamese communists) were hiding here from Americans for almost 20 years. We got to go into the tunnels.... they were very, very small and dark and hot and claustrophobic... can’t imagine living there for 20 years. Can’t even imagine being there for 20 minutes. And this particular tunnel where we were was even enlarged for the tourists (cos Americans have big asses according to our guide).
The highlight of the trip to the Cu Chi tunnels was the opportunity to shoot an AK47. We had both fired guns before, but never a machine gun! The safety briefing consisted of “Who’s next? Ok, go!” and despite the extremely loud bang when the gun fired, the hearing protection consisted of a set of old Sony music headphones with the chord removed!! As much as we wanted to go crazy with the gun and spray bullets like in the war films, at €1 per bullet we decided not to get carried away.
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