Day 3- Mekong Delta and Cu Chi Tunnels-3/24/09

Our day started at 8 am...Phil, Kayla, Sam and I got up and met our tour guide and driver at the entrance to the port. Our tour guides name was Khang. He spoke pretty good English and learned some it in school but most of it from being a tour guide and practicing his English regularly. Our first destination was the Cu Chi Tunnels which is where the Vietcong (the north) created an underground network of tunnels where they lived, ate and planned all their attacks from. It’s a very complicated network of tunnels that led to the loss of many American lives due to the advantage the Vietcong had living in these tunnels. It took about an hour to get to the tunnels from downtown Ho Chi Minh. Once we got there Khang took us to go watch an introductory video. The video was in English and was from the point of view of the Vietnamese (something none of us had ever experienced) and it was very difficult to watch. They kept talking about how they would give awards to the people who killed the most Americans and many other demeaning things to an American watching the video; we had to get up and leave as we couldn't watch it anymore. To learn history it is important to know all sides of the story, sure in school we learn about all the terrible things Agent Orange did to the people living in Vietnam but never once had we heard the perspective of the communist party who won the war and is still very much in power in Vietnam. It was a hard perspective to grasp all at once but it became easier to decipher the fact from the fiction as the trip went on. After the video Khang took us to a large map which showed all the tunnel paths and showed us a diagram of the typical tunnel. He also showed us the wicker basket that they used to dig the tunnel, something we imagined would be very labor intensive and difficult. There was then an entrance to the tunnel that we got to try and fit into. There is no way anyone over 200 pounds could have fit in the entrance and definitely no way an American soldier with their gear was getting into the hole. The Vietnamese are smaller naturally and were also suffering malnutrition at the time because of their poor diet from living in tunnels. There was then a cruel display of many of the booby traps the Vietcong used against the American soldiers and the terrible ways they would be hurt or killed. On the wall behind the traps there was a gory painting of American soldiers being hurt or killed in each of the traps. We then had the opportunity to climb through the tunnels. They were really small, narrow, dark and hot and my mom would have flipped out if she was in one. It amazed us how much quicker our guide could go through them than us as he was smaller than us and also had more practice going through them. After we got in the tunnels we just walked around some more and there was a shooting range to shoot some of the guns but it was $1 a bullet so it wasn't really worth it. We got back in the car and headed for lunch on the riverfront and we were really glad we had our guide who could order for us and tell us what everything was. In the afternoon after lunch we headed back out on the road to go on a boat ride through the Mekong Delta. The style of boats they use are called "snake boats" because they are really long and skinny. Our first stop on the ride was to a shop where they showed us how they made a rice popcorn, kind of like rice krispies. They also made coconut candy which was like a taffy and was really good. We bought some of each and continued on our way back out on the boat. All of the boats have eyes on the front of them so they can "yield off evil spirits." We continued on through the delta for an hour or so passing lots of cool looking boats, lots of villages and kids playing in the water. I got a lot of good photos of the villages and submitted one of them to the photo contest on the ship so we will see if it wins for 30 free internet minutes. Soon after we docked and got back in the car to drive to the ferry that would take us across the water to Cantho City where our hotel was.

After crossing the river and a quick car ride, we arrived at the "Golf Cantho Hotel" as we were upgraded hotels to a 4 star after only paying for a 3 star. We checked-in and headed to our two rooms. Phil and I went out to check out the view on the balcony and he points to the plant on the porch and says "look there is a bird in there." Just as he said this, the sliding glass door was open and the bird flies into our room. I immediately say "close the doors so we can keep the bird in the room so the girls can see it." Phil then slides the doors closed really quickly, only the bird was already trying to get out of hotel and got slammed in between the two sliding doors. We were shocked and couldn't believe what was happening, while at the same time thinking this was hilarious…I mean seriously, what are the odds that would happen. We immediately scream to the girls who were in the room next door to "get over here, there is a bird in our room." The bird is not dead, making slight little movements and bleeding pretty bad and we had no idea what to do. I mean first aid on a human, maybe dog or large mammal sure no problem…but a bird, what do you do?? We all sit there trying to figure out what to do, at this point the birds eye is swelling up and coming out of its socket. Sam said we should throw it off the porch so it could fly away, but there is no way it could have flown and its not like its fellow birds are going to care for it in some hospital they have. We figured the most humane thing would be to kill it somehow but we had no idea how to and no one was volunteering to do so. I called down to the front desk saying "there is a bird lying on the ground in our room," and they clearly did not understand because no one was sent up to the room. I was hoping maybe they would upgrade us again since there was an almost dead bird in our room. After several minutes Phil tries calling again and clearly they were not understanding due to the language barrier. Phil finally goes down to the front desk to try and explain the situation to them. He ended up making bird noises and gestures and they finally understood with a look of shock on their face and sent up two cleaning ladies. One cleaning lady goes up to the bird with a plastic bag and then once she gets right near it, she runs away and retreats into the bathroom very freaked out. The other lady then comes in and scoops the bird away and briskly walks out of the room with it, never knowing what she did with it. They then come in and clean up the crime scene a few minutes later, scrubbing the blood of the carpet with toothbrushes.

After the incident with the bird, we decided we needed to go check out the life in Cantho City, Vietnam…or make a nightlife of our own. We went out to dinner with Khang and started our night there. After we ran into some SAS kids who were on an SAS trip that went to the same place for the night…very coincidental and there are many towns in the Delta and once again they were in the same place as us. We went to a restaurant for some drinks first and then went to a karaoke bar where they owner of the place couldn’t have been happier we were there bringing him business. We sang a bunch of throwbacks, some Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears and many other classics. When we got back to the hotel, Kayla decided she was going to play a trick on Phil while he was in the bathroom and made a shrine for the bird on its death spot out of bananas and a glass. We all pretended like we had just seen it for the first time and kept saying "the cleaning ladies must have come in here and made this shrine for the bird." He went to bed thinking this was the case as I didn't tell him until the morning.