Tet 2007

It’s quite festive around the city at the moment due to the Chinese New Year.  The place doesn’t sleep!   It’s a very controlled/peaceful environment filled with music and laughter, and my hotel is right in the middle of it!

The more and more I becomed with these people, the more and more I like them…especially the chicks!  They have an arrogance about them that I enjoy…not overbearing, but nice.  I think I will enjoy spending much more time in this country in the future.  I’ll tell you…I like this place much better than Thailand,  and I’m still in the south!  An Aussie I met the first day here said he came on a holiday eight years ago and stayed!  haha!  He said, "Don’t judge the country by the people of life in the south…the farther north you go, the better it gets.  God…I can’t WAIT to check out the north! 

I went on a tour of a giant tunnel network previously used by the Viet Cong.  By the way…I saw a couple of street signs on the way to the tunnels which amused me.  On one was written, "Viet Store."  What popped into my head for some reason was Excuse me ma’am…but to you carry any of the ‘cong’ version?   Get it?  ‘viet cong’?  Ok…perhaps it’s only funny in my head…but THIS one will be considered funny by all – Remember the name of the currency here?  Dong?  I saw another sign which listed the name of the business operating beneath it as "THE GOLDEN DONG"!  haha!  Ok…on to the tunnels…

This network consisted of more than 200k!!!  It ran all the way to a river in one direction and consisted of three different levels of tunnels.  One thing I thought was interesting was that the people would live above ground until the damn Yanks would approach in their bombers.   There were numerous craters on the mountainside from American planes.  They had loads of booby-trapped places everywhere.  I’m going to have to finish this later…I am suddenly overwhelmed with the munchies or something.