Vietnam Saigon - Day 3 (July 8, 2010)

We are leaving Vũng Tàu (头顿) by the coast of the South China Sea.

Previously, only China declares territorial rights to the islands in the South China Sea. Now, Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia join in to claim sovereign rights to the many islets in the South China Sea, after detecting rich under-sea oil fields.

Hope they could reach peaceful settlements. After the Sino-Vietnamese border war 3 decades ago, VN deported all those citizens with Chinese origins, from Northern VN to China. Some of the deportees took sail to HK and got into brutal civil war with the South Vietnamese in refugee camps.
Click here, for a video lecture on the Sina-Vietnamese War 
(It does not represent my view.)


In Vietnam, Buddhism and then Catholicism, have the largest groups of followers.

Here is a temple for a whale, which took a sunbath on the beach.

Địa Đạo Củ Chi (Cu Chi Tunnels/古芝地道)

In this presentation room,

... the local tour guide shows on the map that Cu Chi Tunnels (shown in red color), where some Viet Congs hid, is only 70 km to the north-west of HCM City (shown in black color at the right bottom corner).

A demonstrator shows how quickly he could disappear, via a small rectangular hole, into an underground tunnel.




Go...

Going...

Gone.


(The twists and turns in the underground tunnel would largely protect him from any grenades pulled and dropped in after him.)

One tour mate follows suit, and disappears from his wife successfully, although for only a minute.

Click here, to watch the action on YouTube video

We then all get into an half-height underground tunnel, point our upper bodies forwards, rub shoulders against walls, and bend our knees.  


Here's the entrance.


Wooo! Very hot inside. 
Click here, to watch the inside of the tunnel on YouTube.

Then, we check out some booby traps,


Click here, to watch a YouTube video on booby traps

and how tire sandals are made from truck tires (soles) and their tubes (straps). 

Hello, comrades in tire sandals.                                                              

Tired and retired to your hammock, comrade?

Good-bye.  
Good-bye to wars.  
Good-bye to brutal wars.

Retreating to Saigon. 

About 95% of residents move around on motorbikes. 

We are optimistically suggested not to carry bags when walking on the streets, because any bag-grabbers on motorbikes could definitely move faster than tourists on feet. 

Another phenomenon on the streets is the power lines, messily hanged to the poles over our heads.

Photo session with a Vietnamese beauty in national "ao dai", before dinner at a restaurant.