Autumn Holiday 2013 - Part 4/4: Vietnam: Mỹ Sơn, the Mekong Delta, and Saigon

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Emily and I spent a week in the World Heritage city of Luang Prabang, Laos in October, then two weeks touring from the north to south of Vietnam into November.

In the last week of our holiday, before I came home and Emily continued to Cambodia and Thailand, we visited some amazing ruins at Mỹ Sơn, spent two days cycling around the Mekong Delta, and had a brilliant time in Saigon.

Sunday

We had a free day in Hoi An and arranged a trip to Mỹ Sơn, which is a site containing several ancient Champa ruins

We had been tipped off as to a good time to visit (most group tours departed after the 2pm for-tourists dance show) and indeed found the ruins moderately busy but not too much of a frustration for our cameras.

The ruins themselves, as you can see, were gorgeous, and surrounded by beautiful landscape too (being about an hours' drive out of Hoi An). We stayed there until sunset, which lit the ruins up even more beautifully.

We finished up the day in a restaurant that served me the most fantastic Thai green curry I've ever had. I've spent about an hour trying to find out which it was (no StreetView in Hoi An, alas!) but it shall have to remain a mystery.

Monday

We left Hoi An early and flew from Danang to Saigon, then drove directly to the Củ Chi tunnels site. After watching an amusingly propagandarish video that looked like it'd been played every day on a video tape since the end of the war, we were shown various gruesome booby traps used.

We were then given the chance to go into the (widened for tourists) preserved tunnels, which ten out of our sixteen-strong tour group decided to do. We loaded the tour leader up with our cameras since we were told it was going to be very tight, and headed into the 200-metre stretch. Every twenty metres or so there was an escape tunnel out for those in need, as the tunnels got slowly smaller until at one point we had to go down an incline backwards on our hands and knees.

Just as we were hoping to get to a really tight bit, we emerged out of the cave and it turned out that was all we'd get! Only four of the group actually made it to the end without running off out an escape tunnel.

Tuesday

Today we did a lot of cycling in the Mekong Delta through rural villages that looked like this!

Wednesday

In the morning we went to a floating market, by boat, passing a floating petrol station on the way. Each market boat tended to sell just one type of fruit of veg, and had a plant hoisted up on a pole so you could spot it from far off. We had a fruity snack in a floating riverside cafe.

We had a short sampan ride to our next overnight stay, a wood-built guesthouse on a largeish island on the Mekong Delta. We walked around the island, and, due to my watch being in the wrong mode, accidentally stayed out well after sunset. We got a bit lost in the dark as a thunderstorm brewed towards the South - one of the many tropical storms that we narrowly missed being battered by - but eventually found our way back in time for dinner.

After dinner we were treated to a selection of storytale songs, performed on an odd instrument I've not seen before, by the family who run the guesthouse. You can see the musician plucking a single wire while moving the aerial at the end to change the pitch.

Thursday

We had been told that with the storm coming in it wouldn't be unheard of for the water to be part-way up the walls in the room, which is why our beds were higher than most. (Un)fortunately we woke up and were not greeted by ducks swimming around our mosquito nets.

We left the guesthouse and drove back to Saigon after a short tour of a fruit farm on the river.

In the afternoon we visited the war museum, which had some horrific images of Agent Orange sufferers that I won't dwell on, before going on to the Reunification Palace, the seat of the South Vietnam government until the end of the war. The interiors were decorated in western 1960s style.

In the basement was some cool 1970s telecommunications equipment, in long non-descript grey corridors that I could imagine an old Doctor Who episode featuring.

In the evening we went to the Golden Dragon Water Puppet Theatre, which was a set of a dozen or so musical numbers featuring puppets emerging from a pool of water in the middle of the stage. They were clearly controlled from underneath but given that the acts lasted longer than someone could hold their breath, we're unsure what mechanism they were controlled by. The performance itself was fantastic; we would have gone again given the chance.

Friday

We visited the Jade Emperor Pagoda in the morning, which unlike the others we'd been to was actually largely in use by the city's general population. It was interesting to see how the general public interact with their religion.

We had a tasty crepe lunch on the edge of the central park, and went for a walk around the public gardens, which were beautiful. When crossing one of the busy roads in a hurry, Emily's hat came off, but a local man had seen and serenely sauntered out into the road to reclaim it for us. Saigon had turned out to be a really friendly place compared with what we had been told about it.

We finished up our last day together with a swim in the hotel's pool, and went out for dinner before the tour bus picked me up to take me to the airport.

Saturday

The fourteen-hour flight back home passed pretty well. By chance I got a front-of-section seat with legroom and it was also an aisle seat, and after I woke up the plane was dark and quiet for a good few more hours, so I caught up with my diary. Vietnam Airlines forgot to pack half the plane's luggage but mine turned up on my doorstep a few days later!