Ho Chi Minh City - December 5th

Today is our first cycling day so we have an early breakfast and then get the bus out of town to meet our bicycles.  Today we see the full extent of the traffic in Saigon, and I have to say it is not that bad.  Yes there are millions of motor scooters, but that is all, there are very few cars, and they all obey the traffic lights (more or less).  Our guide, Chi, bemoans the bad traffic, but he hasn’t seen bad traffic until he has been to Dublin on a rainy November weekday.

The fitting out of the bikes doesn’t take too long, and before long we are on our way.  It is a fairly easy day today, only 20km just to get used to the bikes.  We are going to the Cu Chi tunnels, an extensive tunnel system used by the Vietcong to attack the Americans during the war.  On the way we stop roughly halfway to catch our breath at a rubber plantation where we can see the sap being collected.  About halfway from there to the tunnels I get a puncture, and so after the mechanic fixed it we race to catch up with the rest, but fail, as they are all sitting waiting for us at our destination.

The tunnels themselves were vaguely interesting, although it would be very unsettling if you were American.  Apparently in the war decorations were given out for killing Americans.  You can say what you like about the Americans, but they at least have the decency to call their medals for Valour, Honour etc, not for killing.  Anyway as part of the tunnel experience you get to go down one and crawl along for 100m.  It is dark, hot and damp, and definitely not for the claustrophobic.  I’m glad I went down but there isn’t really much more to say about it.

After the tunnels we all had some pho, and then back to the hotel where it was a case of shower and sleep.  In the evening Dorota and I walked to a restaurant found on trip advisor, and got lost (because I was asleep when directions were given).  The food was very good when we eventually found it, but we did get to see parts of Saigon we didn’t intend.  We also saw all the Christmas decoration shops, and the sight of a fully decorated Christmas tree on a motorbike.