A cloudy day at the beach. This particular spot has a pretty bad reputation for aggressive touts, but there were absolutely none to be found on a blustery day. It was 25 degrees, nice waves, so we jumped on in, much to the bemusement of the Chinese tourists who came wandering past, dressed for wintry conditions. Also, on the evidence here, we can confirm Apocalypse Now’s contention that surfing is not a popular sport in Vietnam.
View from our window: Earth Villa Hotel, Hoi An, Vietnam. 11:23 am, 30 November 2013.
Hoi An is famous for its tailor shops. I’m not yet sure whether that’s because they’re good, or simply because there are loads of them (I believe over 500 and they certainly seem to make up around half the total businesses in town, including one with the somewhat controversial name of My Lai). With all that choice, selecting a shop was probably more difficult than the fabric or cut, but we both ended up getting a few pieces from the ladies at A Dong Silk. So we’re now in a position to settle the quality issue.
Hoi An’s streets — a World Heritage Site, and beautifully vibrant, even on a cloudy day.
Da Nang — Vietnam’s fourth-largest city. We were only here for a morning en route to Hoi An, but a stroll around yielded a pretty cathedral, a busy market, a cool suspension bridge tricked up as a dragon (the head breathes fire on big holidays), and very good, very cheap, coffee.
View from our window: Rainbow Hotel, Da Nang, Vietnam. 07:56 am, 28 November 2013.
We took a trip up to the Cu Chi tunnels, north of Saigon. Built over the course of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, what started as small shelters under villagers’ huts was gradually developed by the Viet Cong into a remarkable multi-storey, twisting 250 km web that went right into the suburbs of Saigon itself. The system was so complex that, during the war, the Americans found whole hospital facilities, complete with operating rooms for surgery, tanks and artillery pieces, and even theatres, all deep underground. The guerrillas who fought down there did so for years and years, living off the odd
Cycling north of HCMC through open fields, suburban villages, and rubber plantations. So sweaty.
Saigon has loads of tennis courts scattered around the centre of town — far more than any other city I’ve visited. And all were busy, throughout the day.
The War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City was formerly called the The House for Displaying War Crimes of American Imperialism and the Puppet Government. The name has changed but the tenor remains the same. Broadly speaking, the first floor commemorates all of the people who protested the US presence in Vietnam, with special emphasis on acts of self-immolation, and some remarkable notes of apology from American servicemen. The second floor is dedicated to American atrocities generally, with a whole gallery focusing on Agent Orange effects, and another section on My Lai. The third floor is more about the