Saigon

Well I struggled to sleep last night as for the first time in days I was feeling better. Anyway after not much sleep we were up and on our tour about 8:30am. Our first stop was a Cao Dai Temple about 3 hours away. It is a religion which is a mixture of Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism and Muslim. We got to watch in on there midday mass and there were probably about a hundred followers all wearing white and the priests of different religions wore different coloured robes. It was boiling hot standing up on the balcony watching the ceremony but was good to see. After that we got back on the bus and headed for a quick lunch stop at a little shed on the side of the road. A little scared and not wanting to get sick again I went for the fried rice and didn’t eat too much but it seemed ok. We then headed about another 90 minutes to Cu Chi tunnels to see life through the Viet Congs eyes! We watched a 1970’s communist propaganda video with the Americans described as Crazy Devils killing beautiful innocent young women and children. We then got to wonder around the area which is now Jungle but was completely bombed and cleared during the war. They have since replanted trees and now trees are regrowing from the original plants. There were quite a few massive bomb craters from B52 Bombers and there were different huts set up to show what life was like with a hospital and where they made there weapons etc. While we were walking around the jungle there were guns going off and echoing around from the shooting range but it added to the atmosphere of trying to imagine what it was like back then. We saw some of the VC’s traps they used against their enemy and they were quite gruesome. To Rudi’s excitement our next stop was the shooting range and as we got to the kiosk next to it the sound of guns being shot was almost deafening. I couldn’t believe how loud they were. Anyone who wanted to shoot different guns could purchase bullets…not cheap for Vietnam but very cheap compared to shooting ranges at home apparently. Rudi chose to shoot an AK47 and a M60 Machine Gun. We headed down to the shooting range and still no ear protection so was even louder. Rudi quickly grabbed me some ear muffs because I wouldn’t take my fingers out of my ears to grab them myself and we headed over with our Gun man to the AK47. One guy went before us then Rudi had a go and the bullets jammed a few times or they were defective so a few no fires but he got to shoot about 7 or 8 and then I very nervously stepped up and the man showed me how to hold it and I fired my first bullet! It was pretty cool! I got to shoot about 4 shots. We then headed over to the M60 and we had purchased 10 bullets and we were going to shoot half each. Rudi shot his 5 in less than a second so I let him have mine as it meant more to him then me to shoot it! Was a pretty massive gun and looked pretty crazy as Rudi shot it! Got it on video but it was all over pretty quickly! We both loved it! We then joined the rest of the group out of whom not many chose to shoot the guns! We wandered around more and came to a tunnel entry that had been widened and had steps going down for tourists. We had a very small young man guide us into the tunnel and I was first in! hehe! Even though the tunnel had been made higher and wider it still was very tiny. I was walking crouched down as small as I could go and Rudi had to crawl and in parts go on his back. Was quite the experience. We went 40mt in the tunnel and then we decided to get out as it was a sauna down there and not the easiest to breathe! It is hard to imagine how they survived in these tunnels when they were smaller. We headed back to the bus and were very happy to have the A/C blasting! The drive home was slow as the traffic was unbelievable. There were just motorbikes everywhere! We had a nice Italian dinner and now home to rest up for another tour tomorrow to the Mekong Delta!