Ho Chi Minh City HCMC

YEP thats right i'm in Vietnam baby, so far after 2 days we love this country!!! We've only seen a small part of HCMC mainly one street, a food market, a tourist shopping market, and a war museum however we already have plans to come back to Vietnam buy a motorbike and spend a good 2 months riding around the country (just like an episode of Top Gear). 

We are running out of time before Damien has to go back to Auz :-( so have the next week/half pretty well organised to see all the main things here, going to be a bit of a rush I think, however we have opts to fly to the next destination to maximise time, though have been looking at finances lately and its not pretty...

hostel life

ANYWAY we thought we'd do the city thing and do a bit of touristy stuff like markets...

being hassled as soon as we arrived at the market

and war museum stuff while in HCMC first going on a day trip to Cu Chi tunnels which showed you where the Vietnamese people would hide and get around the city underground. Pretty tiny spaces down there with not much oxygen, I felt very claustrophobic and just wanted to get out, I lasted 5 minutes and the soldiers lasted 9 years!!! Would have been horrible, eating, going to the loo, living with rats and snakes, babies were born down there. Wouldn't want to get lost either, they would stay down there for months at a time without seeing sunlight which gave them a lot of skin diseases apparently mushrooms were growing on their skin. 

pretty great hiding spot

he fits... just

I ALSO SHOT A GUN for the first time!!! Your pay about $1 per bullet and chose between 5 or so types of guns to shoot!! Was scary at first shooting the AK47 I closed my eyes the first 3 shots then opened them for the next 2, the M30 machine gun was pretty cool also... 

AK47

M30

We got back pretty late and starving after only having breakfast dinner then headed to the hostel for bed feeling wrecked, however we ended up staying at a cafe where I bought a book as got talking to some older blokes was a good night and got some advice on buying motorbikes, also one of the Auzzie guys is retired here living the life on the beach off his pension.

Went to Ve Vao Cong war museum which had a lot of photographs  of the war very very sad. Some of the torture techniques were absolutely insane can not understand how human beings can do that to each other.

We're leaving for the countryside tonight which will be great to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city, which is insane here so many people.