Vietnam Trip Day 10

This day was our last day in Vietnam.  The whole trip I was fascinated by how many motorbikes there were and I was always trying to take a photo of them.  Our guide told us that our route this morning took us through a busy traffic area, especially since we left so early.  I tried to get a few good photos, but it is still so hard to really tell just how many motorbikes there were.  I never really got any photos of some of the crazy things people carried on their motorbikes like 15 ft steel beams, boxes and boxes of things, 4 or 5 people, etc.  It was crazy.

This morning we were on our way to the Cu Chi tunnels.  These tunnels were used in the Vietnam war by the Viet Cong and were part of a huge network of tunnels in Vietnam.  There were living quarters, hospitals, kitchens for cooking.....people stayed down there for a very long time.  They were very small as the Vietnamese people are small.  When we first arrived we were given sort of an overview of the tunnel and shown a very anit-American propaganda movie.  This photo is a model of just a segment of the tunnel system.

Here is a photo of one of the tunnel guides showing us one of the actual hidden entrances into the tunnel. It's crazy small:

Here's a photo of another opening.  Of course at the time the openings were hidden by brush, etc.

There was an opening that larger Western tourists could go in and could crawl to another opening.  Max did this, but I didn't.  I had eaten at an Indian restaurant the night before and something did not settle well with me and I wasn't feeling my best that day.  The entire trip we had eaten street food, fresh veggies, etc.  All the things you hear that you should be careful about - and I had no problems.  The last day, I eat in a big city restaurant and get a little ill.  It slowed me down a bit, but not too much.

The Viet Cong had some crazy and viscous traps that they set.

One thing Max really enjoyed was having the chance to shoot an AK47.  Being in the military, he had shot almost all types of weapons but never this one.  He was psyched and was actually a pretty got shot!!

After the Cu Chi tunnels, it was time to start heading to the airport for our journey back to our Sakhalin Island home.  Of course on the way we stopped at one last temple.  Max called it a generic Buddhist temple.  It was some strange mixture of Buddhist, Hindu, Confusion ism and some other religions.  There was also something about snake (worship) as there were a lot of snakes in their statues.  I think it was a religion that is not real widespread and may be in decline.  Most of the participants were older people.  It was really interesting to see the service and to listen to the music.

Now here we are at the airport waiting for our flight from Ho Chi Minh City in the south of Vietnam back to Hanoi in the north and then our flight back to Sakhalin. 

It was a fabulous trip.

Love to you all!
Karen