Saigon to the Mekong Delta

So, back to my thoughts on the War Remnants museum. Having just come back from the Killing Fields outside Phnom Pen I feel like this entry may be mostly gloom and doom, but we have certainly seen some thought provoking places over the past week or two.
The War Remnants museum in Saigon is presented very bluntly - there's no escaping the horrors of war with photos of people dead and dying, photos of the effects of Agent Orange on war veterans and their children as well as reproductions of cells where the Viet Cong soldiers were held. Much of the photography itself is amazing if hard to look at.
The day after we visited the museum, we took a tour out to the Cu Chi tunnels a few Km outside Saigon. The tunnels are a huge network and are part of a much larger network of tunnels that underlie a lot of Vietnam. The tunnels were the location of several military campaigns during the war. They were used by Viet Cong during combat, as hiding spots as well as serving as communication and supply routes, hospitals, food and weapon caches and living quarters for numerous guerrilla fighters. (yes, I'm paraphrasing from Wikipedia...). Going through the tunnels themselves I found a very claustrophobic experience, even for the few metres that we crawled. They are very low, very narrow and very dark. As well as crawling through the tunnels we were shown an extraordinary variety of methods used to trap and hurt American soldiers, most of which were constructed using the remains of American weapons. There was also the option of firing machine guns in the shooting range - something we resisted. The sounds of gunfire as we walked around the site was quite disconcerting.
At this point of our trip to Saigon, Kev fell ill with what could be flu, but we suspect may have been Dengue Fever. He certainly had all the symptoms and was mostly confined to the room for about a week. So, not too much to report from the rest of the time although I did get out for a bit of sightseeing, including visiting the Reunification Palace, the place where the war ended in 1975 when a North Vietnamese Army tank crashed through it's gates. These days it's a museum open to the public.
On our last day in Saigon, with Kev feeling a little better, we went with Amy and James to a water park, which was really fun. Kev and I then headed off to the Mekong Delta for a trip down the river to Cambodia. On our first day we took a bus from Saigon for a couple of hours to reach the river. We then went to see a floating market, and then to see rice wine, coconut candy and rice paper being made. The snake wine was less appealing to try than the other goods, especially with a huge live python in a cage watching you. After that we took to bicycles (I am now a cycling pro) and cycled to a restaurant for lunch,. Then it was off to another boat for a sunset cruise down the river. This part of the trip was beautiful. It was fascinating to see how the river provides everything for the people living in the area - transport, food, water, somewhere to wash, somewhere to sell their goods...
We spent the night in a floating hotel, then the next morning went to see a fish farm and a minority Muslim village. The fish farm was crazy - a huge number of fish in a small area which turned into a jacuzzi when a handful of food was thrown to them. The village was interesting, but unfortunately the school that we would have visited was closed. And then off to Cambodia! My first border crossing on the river. It was quite a strange way to enter a new country, but very relaxing and peaceful. Once we got off the boat we had a short drive to Phnom Pen with a great guide on board. His first words to us were 'I can say thank you in 15 languages'. At least, that's what we thought he said. He then proceeded to show us, and we realised he did, in fact, know how to say thank you in 50 languages. And he did.
So now we're in Phnom Pen and have spent the past 2 days sightseeing. The contrasts in the major sights here are unbelievable - once minute you're looking at a sight where thousands of people were tortured, the next at a grand palace full of gold and solver and jewels. But more about that in the next entry!