The Mammoth Journey!

A welcome lie in on our last morning in SE Asia and we packed ourselves up for our Odyssey back to Brisbane. We had time for a bit of shopping and haggling around Ben Thanh market and more DVD purchasing. Bumped into the Irish teachers again and arranged to meet up with them for lunch. Comedy moment when a small Vietnamese boy escaped from his mother and grabbed hold of Bronna's bottle of water giving her a major shock and much apologies from the mum!

We got ourselves a taxi to the airport for $4 (Hotel offered to do it for $12!). Saigon airport is a bit strange - old and decrepit and certainly won the award for most uncomfortable seats.

The flight to KL was fairly boring and only took just under two hours. We got off at KL airport and prepared ourselves for our 14 hour wait for the Perth flight. Bought myself a replacement digital camera and got the next model up. Then we killed the next 14 hours drinking, eating and playing pool. We caught the Germany v Sweden 2nd round match too. About 2am we both tried to get some sleep by curling up on some seats (after having locked our valuables away in a left luggage locker). I had my carry on bag as a pillow and put my travel towel over my head and managed to get a few hours of kip. I don't think Dave got much at all unfortunately. I was woken up by a group of Indian man holding a conversation right by my head.

We had breakfast and a few more games of pool and eventually it was time to board our flight to Perth. It was a bit of an improvement from the Saigon - KL flight: we had movies and better food. Five hours to Perth and then another hour through customs and quarantine. We got grilled by customs agents on why we flew from KL to Brisbane via Perth. Apparently saving $500 isn't a good enough reason! My official wasn't too bad but Dave's was evil.

We declared all of our wooden goods and had to queue through quarantine but there was no problem once we had our inspection. Only took a few minutes, which was a nice change! Unfortunately it got worse as we had to wait nearly forty minutes for a bus to take us to the Domestic terminal, and it still managed to drop us off at the wrong end (right end for Qantas passengers though!).

We checked in for our flight and had about a six hour wait so we grabbed dinner and I called Mum & Dad before settling down to read. At one point, due to a three hour gap between flights we were the only people in the terminal. Eventually left for Brisbane just before midnight and managed to catch a bit of sleep on the flight.

Brisbane was a breeze compared to Perth as we didn't have to clear customs. We landed at half five and were at Jamie and Colleen's by sixish just in time to see Coll before she went to this place called w-o-r-k. Not sure what it is. Jamie, being a saint, had recorded England v Ecuador which had happened while we were in the air. Like all the other England games we'd seen it was very dull but at least England won.

Both of us put our heads down for a bit to get some sleep and then had a relaxing afternoon emailing and doing washing.

In the evening we went out for dinner with Jamie, Coll, Chalky, Rowan and Lieze. Really nice to catch up with everyone especially Lieze who was beginning to show a little! (i.e. she's pregnant for those of you who are a little slow...!)

We tried to stay up for the Australia v Italy game and just about managed it but I did fall asleep when the penalty decision happened (as did Jamie so only Dave was awake to see it!!).

The following day Dave and I headed off to the Whitsundays!

The Mekong Delta

A very painful 6AM start for our Mekong Delta tour. Bit of a debacle on collection - there were seven people on the bus when we got in and five were on the wrong bus. We also collected two people, drove around the block once and they got off again. Eventually we were off. About a three hour drive and we both slept most of the way as we didn't have much sleep the night before.

We arrived at the river and caught a car ferry across to the other side. The river was really wide at this point - at least a couple of hundred metres, and we aimed down the river, round an island and then disembarked at a port the other side dodging the cars as we got off. Our guide then took us down a side alley and we boarded a small thin boat and we pushed out into the river.

It was pretty cool cruising down the river, and it appeared even larger from our tiny little boat, especially as there were some really big vessels. We cruised past some fishing boats moored up on the bank and got off at a rickety little jetty and, somewhat gingerly, got off.

This stop was at a place that made coconut candy and we were handed a piece as we arrived. Tasted pretty good although it was hot. They showed us the process of making it from the coconuts all the way through to the finished produce. We bought a bar each as it was only 15,000. We were also given some quite foul tasting green tea before heading back to the boat.

Next stop was our lunch stop and we got a bowl of pho (noodle soup) and then the usual rice, meat and veggie dishes. After lunch we got some entertainment from a girl and two elderly gentlemen who performed various Vietnamese songs for us. The three French girls kept stifling laughter throughout and it was a bit funny as the notes seemed to be all over the place.

We then cruised through some of the canals that spread around the delta like spiders webs. We could see various life along the way from fish traps, houses in the reeds and we even got a little girl to wave at us. We encountered a small boat being paddled towards us and everyone got excited, got their cameras out and started taking pictures only to find out that it was a tourist boat and they were wearing Vietnamese hats. We were to go on these boats too but first was a quick trip to see a big snake which was nothing more than a photo opportunity before heading back to board the canoes and paddled our way out of the reeds to the main river. Well, we didn't actually do any of the paddling ourselves.

We got back into our little boat and headed back slowly up the river to where we started and boarded the ferry to head back. Fairly uneventful drive back and then we had a bit of a rest before heading out to dinner. We bumped into Laure-Anne while we out - she had just arrived in Saigon, and ended up sat with the three Irish teachers, Mike, Laure-Anne, Ben and Scott as well as two Irish guys we'd met on our Mekong Delta trip.

The Cu-Chi Tunnels

Up early (again!) for our trip to the Cu-Chi tunnels just 20km north of Saigon. It took over an hour to get there due to all the motos, then bad roads outside the city.

The Cu-Chi tunnels were where the Viet Cong hid from the Americans while staging their attacks on Saigon. There was a labyrinth of 220km of tunnels with areas to sleep and cook as well as hidden entrances.

We were first taken to see a video (thankfully nothing like as bad as the one in the presidential palace which we only sat through two minutes of before leaving). It was still full of propaganda though.

We then entered the main area of the tunnels. We were shown one of the secret trapdoors that the VC used to escape from the Americans. We couldn't see anything under the leaf litter at all until the guide cleared it away to reveal this tiny little door - only about six inches wide by fifteen inches long. He climbed into the hole and brought the door down over his head. A few other people went down but there was no way Dave or I would have fitted in there. A couple of fairly petite girls got in but one less so petite girl (and she was not in anyway fat) only just fitted in (her hips got a little stuck). We saw a couple of the not-so-secret entrances where they could bolt if surprised. The entrance was still tiny. If the Americans found the entrance and blew it up with a grenade it wouldn't matter as the tunnels led away quickly so no VC would be injured.

We saw a VC trench with tunnel entrances and a typical VC camp. The guide showed us some 'dead mines' which were essentially suicide grenades for taking out American tanks. There was a wrecked American tank in the middle of the forest too. We had a short break by the firing range where you could fire an AK-47 amongst other things. It added something to the atmosphere of wandering round the site because you could hear the firing all over the place.

After this was the opportunity to go through a section of tunnels. The entrance was fairly wide and we all stopped for photos at the entrance. The main section of the tunnel was about 3 foot high and so while it wasn't crawling on hands and knees it was still fairly claustrophobic. Dave didn't help by nicking the torch!! The tunnel went on for about 100m but there was an exit at 30m which everyone came out at except Dave and a guy called Mike who bravely pushed on for the whole 100m. Especially Mike who we'd had to persuade to go down in the first place!!

We finished off the tour with the kitchen area and a taste of some of the roots they ate - did taste a bit like potatoes. They showed us how they prevented the smoke from cooking escaping and being seen, which was by placing a large stone over the whole and thus the smoke escaped in tiny puffs all they way round. The stone was covered in leaf litter which further prevented the smoke (and the stone) from being seen.

We exited through our third gift shop for the day and headed back into Saigon. We met up with a few of the people from the tour including Mike and a collection of Irish teachers in a bar and had a good drinking night. Randomly saw several people from a travels in the bar including Ben and Scott who we watched the first England game in Hanoi with and two other English guys from the same game who's names I can't remember.