Good Weekend Vietnam - Day 2

We woke up for another full day of touring and had the included breakfast at our guesthouse which consisted of the best baguette we have had in Asia coupled with butter, jam and unlimited bananas on the side. Topped up with single serve drip Vietnamese cup of coffee, it was a wonderful way to start the day as we don't get quality bread that often in Singapore. (Sorry for the lack of photos).

Following breakfast we headed to the Cu Chi tunnels to experience some more war time remnants.

The Cu Chi tunnels are a part of the immense tunnel network that the Northern Vietnamese army used during the Vietnam-American war to live, hide, and attack the American and Southern Vietnamese soldiers. The Cu Chi tunnels are currently 75 miles long and estimates are that they were much longer during the war and likely connected in someway to a much larger network of tunnels.

The tunnels themselves were very small and contained tiny entrances for soliders and civilians to slip in and out of. The network also had expanded areas for cooking, eating, planning, making clothes and weapons, etc. These were large openings in the tunnels but were necessary as people spent days or weeks in the tunnel network and had to perform all the necessary daily functions underground. The tunnels also had an traps built into them to prevent enemy soldiers from infiltrating the network.

A diorama of the tunnel network

One of the entrances

Carrie Entering the Tunnels

Entering the tunnel in one of the original entrances

Going, Going...

Gone (this was literally the same spot where Charles was entering)

Booby Traps

Besides the tunnel network we also saw how they traditionally made rice paper for those wonderful fresh spring rolls. 

Rice Paper being cooked

Rice Paper Drying

Tourists could also fire an AK-47 or a variety of other guns, we passed on this as Charles has already done it and you could only shoot a few bullets and not on automatic mode. 

After the Cu Chi tunnels we headed back into Saigon to finish off the day with some sight seeing and dress making. Yes you read that right...dress making.

Of course I was not really involved with this process, unless you consider 'standing around' to be involvement, but Carrie was able to commission a dress to be custom made by a tailor for about $30. Carrie wanted a traditional Vietnamese looking dress with pants and she sought it out, bargained for it, and got the tailor to make it overnight so we could pick it up the next morning. It was great to get exactly what she wanted and exactly the right size since it was made just for her. <<I didn't even pay him to say that!!!>>

After the successful tailor trip, we headed to the old part of Saigon to see the post office, the cathedral, and the old city hall. All of these buildings were remarkable because they are still intact from the early French colonial times in the 1800s and provided an awesome juxtaposition with the modern architecture of the sky scrapers currently being built.

Cathedral

Outside of the Post Office

Inside the Post Office

City Hall

These were the last few tourist stops of the day and we headed to a rooftop bar at The Rex Hotel to enjoy the sunset. The Rex Hotel was the location of the daily press conferences by the US military during the Vietnam War.

Following that we went to an upscale dinner for a splurge and then off to sleep before our final day in Saigon.