And we're back!
Hey all,
This blog, like all of Livejournal, has become a bit of a sad relic, a testament to the times when people actually wrote full paragraphs that they wished their friends to read. But it has some good travel memories, and so I will continue to blog here.
Jessica and I are fortunate enough to have a big chunk of time off before we start our new jobs. We will be traveling in Southeast Asia until late November, so about 2.5 months in total. You can read her blog for her versions of things, or read here for the obviously more hilarious and interesting version of our travels. She'll probably have more photos though.
Without further ado, an account of a first few days.
Our trip started in Vietnam. We flew into Saigon, and spent a few nights there getting over jetlag and doing some shopping. So far, I really like Saigon. It has that buzzing, interesting feeling of a large city in a developing country, with comparatively little grime and poverty. From what it sounds like, the past 15-20 years have been very good to Vietnam.
The only touristy things we did were the "Reunification Palace", which was the equivalent of the White House of South Vietnam, and visiting the Cuchi tunnels, a complex series of tunnels from which the Vietcong launched guerilla attacks against Saigon during the war. The tunnels were, unsurprisingly, claustrophic but cool. Our tour guide was informative and had a pretty good set of jokes to dish out. Even more interestingly, the tour opened with an old propaganda video about the bravery of the soldiers in the tunnels, but was followed by an introduction to the tunnels by a guy who had worked for the South during the war, training American troops. Weird juxtaposition.
Anyways, some interesting facts:
-The name "Charlie" came the name "Victor Charlie" for VC (Vietcong). That's probably pretty common knowledge, but first I heard of it.
-There were about 16,000 troops in the tunnels at its peak, living in about 250 km of tunnels.
-They couldn't, shall we say, #2 in the tunnels for a variety of reasons, so they had to sneak out at night and make use of the river. Apparently, the, shall we say, "payload" of 16,000 troops arrived fairly regularly each night at the American base downriver.
-The Americans were so frustrated by the tunnels, that they designated it a "free fire" zone or something to that effect. Artillery could be fired at any time into the area, for no reason in particular. Planes returning from bombing runs would drop spare bombs or napalm on the area, just for good measure. Towards the end of the war, when it was fairly clear the North would win, the Americans carpet-bombed the whole area, possibly just out of spite.
We are now on an island called Phu Quoc, just south of Cambodia. It's only recently become a tourist destination, so there's a lot of construction going on. It's also about 2 weeks before the season officially gets started, and many hotels have yet to open and are still under construction. It's a little eerie wandering down the beach and seeing about 1 tourist for every 3 restaurants. It's an awful lot like that one time in Cherating, except I can afford nicer accommodations this time.
This blog, like all of Livejournal, has become a bit of a sad relic, a testament to the times when people actually wrote full paragraphs that they wished their friends to read. But it has some good travel memories, and so I will continue to blog here.
Jessica and I are fortunate enough to have a big chunk of time off before we start our new jobs. We will be traveling in Southeast Asia until late November, so about 2.5 months in total. You can read her blog for her versions of things, or read here for the obviously more hilarious and interesting version of our travels. She'll probably have more photos though.
Without further ado, an account of a first few days.
Our trip started in Vietnam. We flew into Saigon, and spent a few nights there getting over jetlag and doing some shopping. So far, I really like Saigon. It has that buzzing, interesting feeling of a large city in a developing country, with comparatively little grime and poverty. From what it sounds like, the past 15-20 years have been very good to Vietnam.
The only touristy things we did were the "Reunification Palace", which was the equivalent of the White House of South Vietnam, and visiting the Cuchi tunnels, a complex series of tunnels from which the Vietcong launched guerilla attacks against Saigon during the war. The tunnels were, unsurprisingly, claustrophic but cool. Our tour guide was informative and had a pretty good set of jokes to dish out. Even more interestingly, the tour opened with an old propaganda video about the bravery of the soldiers in the tunnels, but was followed by an introduction to the tunnels by a guy who had worked for the South during the war, training American troops. Weird juxtaposition.
Anyways, some interesting facts:
-The name "Charlie" came the name "Victor Charlie" for VC (Vietcong). That's probably pretty common knowledge, but first I heard of it.
-There were about 16,000 troops in the tunnels at its peak, living in about 250 km of tunnels.
-They couldn't, shall we say, #2 in the tunnels for a variety of reasons, so they had to sneak out at night and make use of the river. Apparently, the, shall we say, "payload" of 16,000 troops arrived fairly regularly each night at the American base downriver.
-The Americans were so frustrated by the tunnels, that they designated it a "free fire" zone or something to that effect. Artillery could be fired at any time into the area, for no reason in particular. Planes returning from bombing runs would drop spare bombs or napalm on the area, just for good measure. Towards the end of the war, when it was fairly clear the North would win, the Americans carpet-bombed the whole area, possibly just out of spite.
We are now on an island called Phu Quoc, just south of Cambodia. It's only recently become a tourist destination, so there's a lot of construction going on. It's also about 2 weeks before the season officially gets started, and many hotels have yet to open and are still under construction. It's a little eerie wandering down the beach and seeing about 1 tourist for every 3 restaurants. It's an awful lot like that one time in Cherating, except I can afford nicer accommodations this time.