Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)!

We were meant to spend longer in Ho Chi Minh City, but had instead extended our stay in Cambodia to visit Siem Reap, and so in the end we only had one day to see it. We only really wanted to go there to find out about the history, visiting the tunnels where the Viet Cong would hide out during the war, and after taking a tip to see the war museum.
The tunnels were very interesting, and we learned about the intricate architectural designs used to prevent anyone from finding them such as horrible looking metal traps and trick tunnels leading in different directions. Thousands of people lived under the ground for twenty years meaning many people were born and died there. This inevitably led to lots of illnesses due to poor ventilation and lack of sunlight or exercise. They had to come up with solutions to get rid of excrement, and another problem they had was cooking food, as if they let the smoke appear over ground this would mean their hiding place would be found. We got to go down inside the tunnel which was surprisingly small and uncomfortable to crawl through. The tunnel is also a lot wider and taller than it used to be so it's hard to imagine how awful it must have been!
The war museum showed us a different side to the war, seeing it from the side of Vietnam, such a war torn country. We know of it as 'The Vietnam war' yet to them it was 'The American War'. The photographs were very disturbing, showing very gruesome images. I have studied about the effect these images had on the world's support for America in the war through the media, and so it was interesting to see, yet at the same time they were some of the most distressing photographs I have ever seen. It was horrible learning about the effect that the chemicals still have on people today several generations down.
We went out for a few beers afterwards (we needed them after our heavy day) before getting a plane to Vientiane so we could spend Christmas day in Vang Vieng. We are going to go back to Vietnam to explore Hanoi in January before my journey to India.