Day 59 - Hello Madame Saigon . . . C C Tunnels, Piña Coladas and power cuts

This place is littered with French architecture.

Day 59 - 21st August

6am in Ho Chi Minh is an interesting experience. People are wide awake, exercising, dancing and doing early business. We were left on the roadside and made our way to our hostel just a few hundred yards down the street.

It was a nice place, clean and with nice thick pillows - how I miss a pillow that isn't as flat as one of daily banana pancakes I eat. We booked up tours for the Ci Chu Tunnels (Me, Sèbastien, Julie and Anne for a half day, Jordy for a full day) and quickly checked in.

We had a light breakfast at a bakery and then set off for the day.

The two and half hour bus ride was OK. Not a lot of bumping and well air conditioned. I could live with it. We made a pit stop half way as usual to see how the locals worked and made items for us Westerners. It did make me feel bad for them but not enough to make me part with any money.

Booby trap.

One of the cramped tunnel entrances.

When we arrived at the tunnels, our tour guide took us around, showing us where his father had served and also the different places the Guerrillas or Viet Cong had built tunnels, laid booby traps and how badly the Americans had attacked them. If I'm being honest, I think it was a little one sided, making out that all the Americans were evil. Granted, what they did in principle was horrific, the balance is not quite there to make it an accurate account of both sides of the war.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the tour, feeling a little claustrophobic in the tunnels and Julie jumping at the surrounding gun range fire, but all this contributed to me getting a feel for how it might have been at one point during the war.

The lady want Coladas, we got Coladas.

When we returned, Anne and Sèbastien took naps whilst Julie and I went for Piña Coladas. It was nice chilling out, waiting for Jordy after an intense day at the war tunnels.

This was delightful.

As were these.

When he returned, we went out for dinner. We'd had a pre-dinner snack of noodles and kebab beforehand but it wasn't enough to fill us up. Julie had an eventful meal, first being shaken by a sudden power cut and car backfiring which sounded like a bomb and then a cat jumping down on her in the candlelight as we all laughed.

The selfies had to be done. Anne's is priceless!

I had a migraine coming on, my neck was all taut. So I headed back for a lay down. This was not well favoured with the group, who wanted to go out but after an hour, I was feeling better. We sat in a bar on the rooftop and had piña coladas before Jordy headed back.

The four of us went to play pool and I Skype home. My little niece, Emmy is getting bigger and she is looking as cracking as ever. I can't wait to see her again.