My second time in #Vietnam🇻🇳 I just spent time in #HoChiMinhCity, or #Saigon, as some people still call it. While not super interesting in itself it is usually the base (amongst others) for a tour to the #CuChi tunnel system, about 2h towards the Cambodian border. A complex network of tunnels in a booby trapped jungle gave the Americans a massive headache and thousands of soldiers died in sneak attacks by the Viet Cong, shooting them from behind or luring them into bamboo spike traps, laced with tree poison. So naturally they carpet bombed the entire jungle from B-52s, with napalm and #AgentOrange, a chemical which caused an ecocide and disabilities & health problems that are still visible today. Many bomblets did not explode and the #vietcong repurposed them for makeshift tank mines, or, as I later found out in Cambodia & Laos, locals (especially children) get severley injured or die, to this day by unexploded ordnances in the countryside.
I don’t usually do organized tours but for 16€ this was a bargain, just for the transport alone. And it wasn’t the only thing that was cheap, I got all my laundry done for about $2 and for another $2 a nice tailor lady on the sidewalk fixed my small backpack. It was nice to eat some fresh Banh Mi again but the whole idea of this trip was to explore the next 3 countries so I took the bus to Phonm Penh after a few days #mar2024
