This is some of the lot of us on our first night in Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City, or HCMC if you don't want to write it all out. Both names (and initials) apparently are still valid. Kinda like me answering to Chris and Christopher, just without all the Communism and war and agent orange and reunification and stuff like that. No one ever refers to me as CHF though, as that would require some evidence-based care protocols put into place along with some healthier lifestyle choices when it comes to diet and exercise. And a smokehouse is opening around the corner from me, so that ain't happening any time soon, though perhaps sooner if the smokehouse wasn't opening.
You never know with these things.
Actually, given that I used the term "evidence based" there is likely a good argument for saying "yes, we do know" with these things. That be the "evidence" part.
Anyway, all of these folk look pretty healthy, and after about 9 days together at this point, still seemed to be, minus the standard wear and tear you'd expect from a holiday where beer is cheap and enablement abounds.
Now, the reason why you write sooner than later is so that you don't totally screw up the timeline based upon the memory skills that come with being around a bunch of enablers, not to mention having a sucky memory to begin with.
The Mekong River cruise I talked about last time happened while we were based in Saigon, or perhaps while we were in transition between Nha Trang and Saigon/HCMC. My apologies. The good thing is though that while I may be confused and prone to wandering, the camera doesn't lie, so all of this stuff still happened after that stuff did.
This stuff happens to be the big floral festival thingy that was happening along one of the streets near our hotel in HCMC as part of the Tet festivals, not to be confused with the Tet Offensive, which kicked off on January 30th, 1968 (conveniently on Tet, hence the name) and was the largest of the campaigns of the Vietnam War where North Vietnam made their big push on the south, ultimately resulting in the building shown at the end of this entry being turned from Independence Palace to Reunification Palace.
Which meant that all the linens needed new embroidery, but I doubt that was too big of a concern given everything else going on.
You know, the crappy part about screwing up the timeline and not checking my notes is that now I've got these fun facts that I've no longer the context to share within.
Who needs context.
Regarding Coconuts:
The first press is for milk, and you'll get about 6 litres of milk from 10 kilos of coconuts. The second press is for oil, and you'll get about a litre of oil from those same 10 kilos.
Songs to Sing Along the Mekong River...
Baa BAa Black Sheep.
Viet Nam. Ho Chi Minh
Both very popular, at least with our guide that day Lan, who aside from having these really lovely flowy black slacks, also made us sing.
Monkey in the Middle is a universally accepted pastime for children and adults to play together. Also universally accepted is the disdain one receives when one kicks the ball into the muddy garbage water nearby where you're playing.
The language of disdain, by the way, is more clearly recognized than the language of love, at least that has been my experience.
Back to the flowers at night.
There you go. Flora.
And look, more flora, just not in Saigon this time.
This particular jungle sits on top of the Cu Chi Tunnels, which are a series of tunnels, outside of Saigon, where northern resistance and sympathizers lived, hid, and fought the south and it's allies from.
This is me in one of the hiding holes. It's small. And when the lid is closed, it's pitch black.
And this is the firing range where you can pay loads extra to shoot all sorts of weapons from the period, including, yes, you guessed it, jeep mounted heavy artillery.
When we began our tour of Cu Chi we heard this almost constant weapons fire in the distance throughout our walk. My first thought, not knowing about the firing range, was that it was recording, attempting to add a certain ambiance to the experience. It seemed like a kinda odd Disneyland type of thing to do, and not necessarily in keeping with the austerity you might think comes with a place where you can imagine people running, killing, dying, along the paths or in the jungle you are walking through. Then you find out that nope, that's actually happening, there's a gun range.
I didn't try and wrap my head around it then, and I'm not going to attempt to do so now. It's alien to me, and I'm okay with it being that way.
And, like some of the other places I've been, I've got pictures, but I don't think I'm going to share them here. That can be for a chat some time when you come over. What I will say though was that it was good to be in that hole for a minute. I would have liked longer but there was a line - there is always a line - you almost want to become Prime Minister so they shut the place down for your private visit and you can spend all the time you want. It was also good to go into the tunnels and "walk" which starts as a hunched walk and gets to a crab-like crawl at some points, which still aren't the tightest by a long shot I might add. It's good to do because, I think anyway, it's important to try and experience, however flawed that experience may be, what life was like for many people. And no, I'm in no way saying I have any clue. I don't. I'm super lucky that I don't. Having an actual clue would mean having lived through some really horrendous stuff, and I am fortunate enough to not have done so. Having something come along and remind me of that, well, that's a good thing to have come along.
Time to shut up on that subject.
One more thing though, that I also should shut up about I expect but will toss out an observation about.
The tour at Cu Chi started with a short documentary film about the history of the tunnels and the war. Now, as a Canadian, and not one who has studied much history, my "knowledge" of the Vietnam War is very much based upon Hollywood movies, and, given my leanings in film, comedies. So let's just say it's skewed.
Watching a documentary on the Vietnam War in Vietnam is a very, very different thing though. It wa made by the Vietnamese, it tells their story, from their perspective. And this story is not in keeping with the bulk of the perspectives I'd been introduced to in the past 40 years of my life. Now, I'm not in the least surprised by this, and I am not one who had a set opinion to begin with. I'm pretty close to a blank slate for things I will admittedly say I know nothing about. So which is correct? Well, as with many things, the truth I imagine is somewhere in the middle. Now, the other interesting bit about this for me is this... I do some quick look ups on Wikipedia to help refresh, check a fact or two, or pick up some new ones to flesh out these entries from time to time, and this was one of those times, just a few minutes ago. The write up on the Cu Chi Tunnels strikes me as reflective of my perception of the authors bias, and perhaps the target readers. The section on life in the tunnels, which I spent several ours learning about on site, is a brief paragraph that tells you practically nothing. The section on the US campaign against the tunnels is extensive.
I'll leave it at that as I am once again moving into things I know little about. Time to shut up and move on.
Look, it's the palace.
And what did the palace teach me?
That Secret Agent Man was not the only really cool thing that came out of 1966.
You never know with these things.
Actually, given that I used the term "evidence based" there is likely a good argument for saying "yes, we do know" with these things. That be the "evidence" part.
Anyway, all of these folk look pretty healthy, and after about 9 days together at this point, still seemed to be, minus the standard wear and tear you'd expect from a holiday where beer is cheap and enablement abounds.
Now, the reason why you write sooner than later is so that you don't totally screw up the timeline based upon the memory skills that come with being around a bunch of enablers, not to mention having a sucky memory to begin with.
The Mekong River cruise I talked about last time happened while we were based in Saigon, or perhaps while we were in transition between Nha Trang and Saigon/HCMC. My apologies. The good thing is though that while I may be confused and prone to wandering, the camera doesn't lie, so all of this stuff still happened after that stuff did.
This stuff happens to be the big floral festival thingy that was happening along one of the streets near our hotel in HCMC as part of the Tet festivals, not to be confused with the Tet Offensive, which kicked off on January 30th, 1968 (conveniently on Tet, hence the name) and was the largest of the campaigns of the Vietnam War where North Vietnam made their big push on the south, ultimately resulting in the building shown at the end of this entry being turned from Independence Palace to Reunification Palace.
Which meant that all the linens needed new embroidery, but I doubt that was too big of a concern given everything else going on.
You know, the crappy part about screwing up the timeline and not checking my notes is that now I've got these fun facts that I've no longer the context to share within.
Who needs context.
Regarding Coconuts:
The first press is for milk, and you'll get about 6 litres of milk from 10 kilos of coconuts. The second press is for oil, and you'll get about a litre of oil from those same 10 kilos.
Songs to Sing Along the Mekong River...
Baa BAa Black Sheep.
Viet Nam. Ho Chi Minh
Both very popular, at least with our guide that day Lan, who aside from having these really lovely flowy black slacks, also made us sing.
Monkey in the Middle is a universally accepted pastime for children and adults to play together. Also universally accepted is the disdain one receives when one kicks the ball into the muddy garbage water nearby where you're playing.
The language of disdain, by the way, is more clearly recognized than the language of love, at least that has been my experience.
Back to the flowers at night.
There you go. Flora.
And look, more flora, just not in Saigon this time.
This particular jungle sits on top of the Cu Chi Tunnels, which are a series of tunnels, outside of Saigon, where northern resistance and sympathizers lived, hid, and fought the south and it's allies from.
This is me in one of the hiding holes. It's small. And when the lid is closed, it's pitch black.
And this is the firing range where you can pay loads extra to shoot all sorts of weapons from the period, including, yes, you guessed it, jeep mounted heavy artillery.
When we began our tour of Cu Chi we heard this almost constant weapons fire in the distance throughout our walk. My first thought, not knowing about the firing range, was that it was recording, attempting to add a certain ambiance to the experience. It seemed like a kinda odd Disneyland type of thing to do, and not necessarily in keeping with the austerity you might think comes with a place where you can imagine people running, killing, dying, along the paths or in the jungle you are walking through. Then you find out that nope, that's actually happening, there's a gun range.
I didn't try and wrap my head around it then, and I'm not going to attempt to do so now. It's alien to me, and I'm okay with it being that way.
And, like some of the other places I've been, I've got pictures, but I don't think I'm going to share them here. That can be for a chat some time when you come over. What I will say though was that it was good to be in that hole for a minute. I would have liked longer but there was a line - there is always a line - you almost want to become Prime Minister so they shut the place down for your private visit and you can spend all the time you want. It was also good to go into the tunnels and "walk" which starts as a hunched walk and gets to a crab-like crawl at some points, which still aren't the tightest by a long shot I might add. It's good to do because, I think anyway, it's important to try and experience, however flawed that experience may be, what life was like for many people. And no, I'm in no way saying I have any clue. I don't. I'm super lucky that I don't. Having an actual clue would mean having lived through some really horrendous stuff, and I am fortunate enough to not have done so. Having something come along and remind me of that, well, that's a good thing to have come along.
Time to shut up on that subject.
One more thing though, that I also should shut up about I expect but will toss out an observation about.
The tour at Cu Chi started with a short documentary film about the history of the tunnels and the war. Now, as a Canadian, and not one who has studied much history, my "knowledge" of the Vietnam War is very much based upon Hollywood movies, and, given my leanings in film, comedies. So let's just say it's skewed.
Watching a documentary on the Vietnam War in Vietnam is a very, very different thing though. It wa made by the Vietnamese, it tells their story, from their perspective. And this story is not in keeping with the bulk of the perspectives I'd been introduced to in the past 40 years of my life. Now, I'm not in the least surprised by this, and I am not one who had a set opinion to begin with. I'm pretty close to a blank slate for things I will admittedly say I know nothing about. So which is correct? Well, as with many things, the truth I imagine is somewhere in the middle. Now, the other interesting bit about this for me is this... I do some quick look ups on Wikipedia to help refresh, check a fact or two, or pick up some new ones to flesh out these entries from time to time, and this was one of those times, just a few minutes ago. The write up on the Cu Chi Tunnels strikes me as reflective of my perception of the authors bias, and perhaps the target readers. The section on life in the tunnels, which I spent several ours learning about on site, is a brief paragraph that tells you practically nothing. The section on the US campaign against the tunnels is extensive.
I'll leave it at that as I am once again moving into things I know little about. Time to shut up and move on.
Look, it's the palace.
That Secret Agent Man was not the only really cool thing that came out of 1966.
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