After our bad start in Vietnam around Nameo, although things got better for us, we continued to hear more horror stories of bad tours and tourist rip offs along with being confronted with rude aggressive people. We decided against seeing Ha Long Bay due to the weather and the fact that not one other traveller we spoke to felt they got their money’s worth with a trip that turned out to be everything but what it was advertised as.

We continued to hear similar stories in Hanoi and Hue, invariably people were disappointed with their visits to Sa Pa (one of the countries minority village / trekking hot spots). Doing things off your own back in Vietnam is more hastle and more expensive than getting a tour and yet when you do a tour you are either hearded along with another 50 people or it doesn’t include half the things you are told it will. Independent travel is not very easy here, or maybe we are not trying hard enough… We met a Dutch chap who bought a bike and made his own way across the country and then we saw a hardcore Swiss couple near Hue who had cycled from Europe!

Vietnam is a beautiful country with a lot of history, but in my view, they are damaging the sustainability of tourism as an industry. A combination of rude people, rip offs and badly organised / run tours, I for one have no interest in going back. I’m yet to meet anyone who doesn’t want to go back to Thailand having been once, and as for Laos, I currently can’t think of any personal bad experiences (perhaps I should read over my posts). So, with the negativities over, let me talk of what we’ve seen in our brief time in Vietnam.

After Hanoi we moved onto Hue. A nice old royal town pretty much in the middle of the country. The place is quite picturesque as we saw by doing a motorbike tour where we were led around by a local guide. The town itself has pretty views as including the old royal citadel and the iron bridge (that is extravagantly illuminated at night) and is surrounded by a selection of Pagodas, royal retreats and previous kings’ tombs. One of the most naturally beautiful sights was some what sobering, “Bunker Hill” a fire base and lookout for American troops during the American War.

The following day we went on a tour of the DMZ (de militarized zone) which was set up to separate North and South Vietnam. As we were shown it was far from de-militarized. The tour was the biggest I’ve done in terms of numbers and most of the sights weren’t really much to see, it was more the history behind them that was of interest. The tour wasn’t a disappointment as I really wasn’t expecting much, however the guide annoyed me as he was miserable and not interested in answering any questions after reeling off his standard speech which sounded as though it had come straight from the lonely planet history section.

After seeing a war cemetery and museum, the site of the Battle of Khe Sanh and the old north / south border the highlight was a trip through the Vinh Moc Tunnels. An underground village where up to 300 locals lived in order to escape the American carpet bombing. It was incredible to see how so many people could live in such small dark and dingy conditions (I was unable to stand up straight and without a torch I could see nothing) but of course they had little choice.

Despite originally wanting to get out of Vietnam a quickly as possible, our two day stop off in Hue was well worth it.

Our train journey to Hue was horrendous. An overnight journey in non reclining “reclining” seat, screaming children, loud terrible music and lights that were not turned off throughout the night. Our journey to Saigon couldn’t have been more different. A nice four person sleeper compartment with ample time to enjoy the views of the coastline, read and get a good nights sleep.

Ho Chi Minh City, still known in the south as Saigon is a big contrast to Hanoi. Much higher paced, bigger and a lot more wealth were all clear to see. Not that I believed it could be possible, but the roads and motorbikes here are even more crazy and numerous than in Hanoi.

Our first day in Saigon was spent in the war remnants museum. Most people get round it in 2 hours, but it took us a full five. The photos and texts were morbid, shocking and really rather distressing. I left with similar feelings of those when I left Auschwitz.

There is loads of media out there on the atrocities of the Vietnam War so I won’t expand, however in a blatant infringement of the museum’s copyright, I’d like to share the following with you.

Of course a museum in Vietnam about the Vietnam is going to be one sided, but given the facts, that doesn’t make it any less horrifying.

The day after seeing the War Remnants museum we went of to the Cu Chi caves for a further insight into life during the war. Unlike the caves we saw in Hue, these were built in a pure military sense, rather than protection for a village population. Although spanning hundreds of kilometres they are tiny. The small section we went through had been widened to accommodate westerners but originally were no more than 70cm by 60cm. Yes, I am claustrophobic, yes I was scared.

The tour itself was mediocre, enhanced by a good guide but ruined by the size of the group. When I was able to get close enough to the guide to hear him I managed to pick up that he had been an interpreter / interrogator on the southern / American side. Along with seeing the atrocities and losing many friends our guide felt that with the communists winning put the country back about 30 years. He says that had the South prospered they would be comparable to South Korea and Malaysia now in terms of economic growth and business. In stead, after the war many suffered with too little food (we heard from another local that rations slips entitled an individual only 1kg of meat a month and minimal rice supplies – things are better now, Vietnam adopted an open market economy in the 90’s shortly after the collapse of the USSR) while our guide was sent to re-education camp for 3 years after the war. He was lucky, not only did he survive, he remained sane.

We decided to stay an extra day in Saigon and to have a break from the war (even switching on the tv in our room brought us war films and war documentaries) we wandered off to Cholon, the Chinese area, home to the biggest market I’ve ever seen. A huge two story building housing over 1400 separate stalls selling, well, pretty much everything.

Thinking it would be a shame to leave Vietnam without seeing the Mekong Delta we decided to take two day tour that took us from Saigon to Phnom Penh in Cambodia in the form of a boat trip up the Mekong. It was interesting but too much time was spent sitting on buses and too much dis organisation as we were passed between tour guides (some bad, some great). Mustn’t grumble, seeing the lifestyles in the Mekong Delta and relaxing on the boat beer in hand with four other English bods (Tom, Claire, Rob and Nick, made the trip enjoyable. In fact, have a read over Tom and Claire’s blog for a much more full and positive account (it is just too hot, and I can’t be bothered to write so much): Day 1, Day 2. (And if you’ve read all that and you’re wondering if I tasted the Fried Field Mouse, the answer is yes. It was great.)

I leave Vietnam with one final thought, and perhaps I’m showing my ignorance here but how can a country that switches to an open market economy still consider itself to be communist?