All change at the border

We have made it to Vietnam, and yet again how different it is to its neighbouring country, Cambodia. The change happened almost instantaneously. We got off the bus at the Cambodian side, paid our overdue fee's as we has overstayed by 3 days. All very civil, nice, quiet, calm. Got on the bus again, and got off 100meters later at the Vietnamese check point. All very confusing as the coach driver kept all of our passports and insisited on handing them out to us by calling out our names, in a Cambodian accent. Xss and I were called forward on a strangled version of 'Edward?' his middle name.

So we drove off from here onwards to Ho Chi Minh, but no we had another check point 10 meters further on. A very offical and military Vietnamese man got on, no smiles and deamnded to see all our passports again. He was not friendly but abrupt and curt. there was an air of seriousness about him that made you stiffle your giggles. Well, no-one had lost their passports over this 10 meter gap so we continued on our way. As we drove off again, the black stage of dusk set in, Brothers in Arms came onto my eye pod, and they were burning the fields off to the right of us. What better setting than to gaze out of the window looking for left over tanks from the Vietnam war!

Since we have so little time left, we are trying to make the most of it so have been on numerous day trips and have had very little sitting around (although we have slept in until 12noon at least two days). First we went to the Chu Ce tunnels where the VietCong hid from the americans during the war. They had made the tunnels bigger so that us westerns could fit down, and i could run along them quite comfortably if i bent over 90degrees at the waist. However the real holes i would of had to crawl down on all fours, and with over 100km of them, and some dug at depths of 10 meters down i think i would have been acused of helping the Americans when i died of a panic attack and blocked the way.

Ho Chi Min seemed like just another big city so we went to the 'War Remnants Museum' formally called 'The Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes' and then left for the beach side towns. The Museum was intersting and i learnt a lot, but now different from their neighbours Cambodia! Here were all these stories of resistance, Hero mother (mothers who were honoured for losing several sons to the war effort), and documentation of all the crimes of the Americans. Nothing on their part or their strategies, but how they had been picked on, withstood adversity and had come back fighting. Vietnam was not down for long, infact it seems that the war and agressive bombing hardly got them down at the time despite 3 millions people dying (only 1million were fighters the rest were women and children).

Well, now we are leaving the beach again for more culture in Hoi An, we are going by train which i am very excited about! I dont really know why this seems exciting but it is.