March 9, 2005 Ho Chi Minh City (also known as Saigon)

This was our first "wake-up" in Vietnam. The Rex hotel serves a wonderful breakfast in their dining room. There were plenty of local dishes but also made to order omlettes for us Westerners. Fresh fruit here is a real treat with my favorite being watermelon which they grow year round.

We then traveled north of Saigan and made a brief stop at a fascinating cemetery. Only North Vietnamese soldiers are allowed to be buried there. We were told that the few South Vietnamese soldiers originaly interred there were dug up once the North"won" the war. The war memorial there was beautiful but dedicated to what was "the other side". The beauty of our small group is that we can experience things impromptu. We encountered a very old man (late 70's) who lives nearby and walks there daily on his battle ravaged legs to "caretake" this respected cemetery...you might compare it on some small scale to Arlington Cemetery in the US. Through our guide/interpreter we learned that this man fought during the French occupation. It was fascinating.

From there we travelled 60 km northwest to the wartime guerilla stronghold of Chu Chi tunnels. They consist of three levels of tunnels which extend over 60 miles total and provided the VC access from nearby Cambodia and on into Saigon. It has now been developed with interpretative exhibits, walking paths and numerous entry points into the maze of tunnels. Vietnamese exhibit guides accompany you and check out any portion of the tunnel you may wish to enter so that your experience does not include an encounter with snakes, bats or other hazards. One of the gals in our group (3 gals out of 12 people) had a bat try to make a nest in her hair while she was down there so obviously the exhibit guides missed one.

These tunnels were specifically carved out to accomodate the small stature Vietnamese soldiers and entrap and US soldiers who may try to enter them. Thankfully they have enlarged afew of them for tourist purposes. In my search for adventure, I entered one of them...very step, deep steps and then low clearance that required you to hunch overfully at the waist and even at some point crawl. I had been warned and dressed accordingly...it was a definite experience that left me with a new respect for the soldiers who were forced to utilize them during wartimes.

Next stop today was at a rice patty in Tay Ninh province for one of our participants to visit the battle field site where his father was killed. He had pictures to share with us of his father and his service. Through a website posting of one of the pictures he had made contact with another vet who was there when his father died. The man still had his battlefield maps with the spot marked so even after 35 years we were able to search it out and allow the son to place some closure to the past.