Maja Nordlund

I've never felt more happy that I've been listening to 'Born in the USA' by Bruce Springsteen. Otherwise I wouldn't have a clue what role Saigon played in the Viet Nam war, what Viet-Cong was or what America did in this country. I didn't really think this war was so interesting in school, so I'm glad you can learn from music. One thing I do remember is from the movie Apocalypse Now. There they sprayed the forrests in southern Vietnam with the herbicide called agent Orange, to kill the vegetation were the Viet-Cong hid.

 

Anyhow, me and Evelina walked around in the city center on our first day, which we later learned is still called Saigon, even if the whole city area is now called Ho Chi Min-City. We saw the copy of Notre Dame, and the famous postoffice designed by Gustave Eiffel. Ended up at a nightmarket (as somehow we alwas do..) were you could buy everything you can by in a nightmarket and much more!

 

 

 

 

 

The next day we wet on a tour on the Mekong delta, were we visited coconut candy factories, honey bee farm, local villages and went for a ride in a rowingboat in the narrow river delta. A nice tour, but not the most exciting day in my life.. Good if you have a day over and wanna see the life on the river. Very cheap, so you won't waste your money!

 

 

 

Next we visited the Cu Chi tunnels, about one and a half hour from central Saigon. Here was the place were the Viet-Cong army had their headquarter, in a long network of narrow tunnels in the ground. The villagers felt left out from the Vietnamies goverment so they helped building the tunnels for the northern army to hide in. This is why the American couldn't discover them even after they killed the forrest with Agent Orange. We got to try the tiny entrances in the ground, and crawl through the tunnels (that acctually had been enlarged after the war ended so the public could fit in them). It was really cool to see how this system had been used trough the war, and how the different sides were thinking, but the whole area felt a bit faked. The entrances had been widened, just as the tunnels, and all the traps were rebuilt, so nothing was actually from the war.

 

This trip was even cheaper than the Mekong delta, so we didn't feel like we'd wasted any money, but it wasn't that exciting and powerful as we thoughtit would be. After, we went directly to te war museum, were we got more info about the whole war and the life afterwards for all the people who got affected by Agent Orange, both then and nowadays. It was mostly pictures with belonging texts, and some of them could be really brutal, especially the ones of vicitms being indirectly affected by the toxin. Their boides and brains havn't been normally developed, asome looked like they wouldn't be able to live with their injuries. This, I can tell, was well worth the 75 US cent entrance fee!