good morning vietnam!

My first stop in Vietnam was Ho Chi Min City or how the locals still call it, Saigon. The name was changed after the south lost the war, it is to idolize their founding communist leader, HoChiMin. (he is basically everywhere in Vietnam, they idolize him fully!) Anyway, my first visit in Saigon was the war museum. it was def eye opening since everything was anti-american and how we killed so many innocent people (but of course, the viet cong could do no wrong!) americans were even referred to at one point as "little devils" it was pretty different than the view we get in the US.

so this is the crazy crazy motorbike traffic in Saigon (aka Ho Chi Min City) it is def crazy but an organized craziness.

on my first day in vietnam i hired a motorbike driver, mr. jone, and he took me to the CuChi tunnels. which are the tunnels the viet cong dug to hide from the americans during the vietnamese war. they were so elaborate and complex and it was quite interesting on how the whole exibit was anti american (even though the south fought with the americans, the communist government runs the tunnels)
this entry hole was a very tight squeeze, those vietnamese people are tiny!

an american tank left over from the war

so, i finally fired my first and last gun, an AK47. Man it is so powerful and i was a horrible shot, haha!

squeezing through the tiny tunnels

Mr. Jone and me at his brothers restaurant (on opening day!) he was an awesome moto driver and he loves americans!he fought with the americans for three years in the "american war." his father actually was a general in the war and is now living in texas bc he would be put in prison if he still was living in vietnam. as i was chatting with Mr. Jone we were discussing where in vietnam i was planning on going and somehow by the end of the conversation he had convinced me to buy a motorbike?!?! what did i get myself into? so the rest of the afternoon Mr. Jone and i visited to many motorbike shops to count and finally after two hours of shopping around found a brand new honda bike for only $450! what a steal! I plan on riding it the length of Vietnam and then selling it when i get to hanoi. It should be an interesting ride!

on my second day in Saigon, Mr. Jone took a texan i met at the tunnels and me 100 km south to the mekong delta. it was a good excuse to go see the delta since i had to break my new motor bike in anyway. the mekong river is one of the worlds great rivers and the delta is one of the largest. it is so big that it has two tides a day and it is where all the rice needed for vietnam is produced (plus some for export!- thats alot of rice!!)

fishermen on the mekong delta- all the boats are so colorful!

kids playing in the canal waters

on the boat through the delta (the boat eventually broke down and we had to get towed though the canals which in turn made us hit every plant, boat, bridge, dock imaginable- quite the experience!)

inside the canals of the mekong delta (yep, thats someone's home)

The texan, being the true tourist he was decided to do every touristy thing imaginable. thus here we are eating cobra (he was brave enough to take a shot of the blood! YUCK!) It actually tasted alot like chicken, haha. they also served elephant ear fish, turtle, and squirrl.

boats on the mekong delta (many people live on their boats)

finally to end our day of "touristy activities" the texan insisted we have dinner on one of the floating boats in Saigon. we had rice noodles and a steam pot. it was so tacky with a horrible vietnamese women singing and handing out fake flowers. the boats name says it all "Saigon tourist boat" haha (never again!)