Cu Chi Cu Chi Cu

….Then I woke up at 5:45 am. I was asleep for thirteen hours! Dear lord! I felt great, to say the least. Woke up, showered, had a good amount of time to eat, got on the bus for Cu Chi tunnels. Great visit. We watched an interesting video from the Northern Vietnamese perspective of the war. A lot of talk about the courage and valor of Viet Cong guerillas (of which there was certainly, the men and women of the Viet Cong were dedicated and loyal soldiers), and some intriguing description of certain people. Several of the Viet Cong depicted in the videos were awarded “Medals for killing Americans”, an interesting designation to hear as an American. But, at the end of the day, it was a war being fought, and I can’t say I have an ill feelings towards anybody involved. It’s certainly not my place. At any rate, we bore witness to bomb craters, terrifying booby traps used by the Viet Cong, the smells and sounds of a live firing range, the epic tightness of a real Viet Cong tunnel. I only needed to crawl on my hands and knees once; the rest of the time was in a Gears of War style crouch run. I could dig it. Very hot and sweaty, and everybody was yelling and using up my oxygen. It was fine though. Once I lose my laziness I’ll post the video I took: with a flashlight in one hand and my camera in the other, I documented the whole three-ish minute venture from start to finish. I thought it was cool. We had lunch at Cu Chi as well. They fried a whole freaking fish and put it on the table. Impressive. Next was a visit to the War Remnants Museum, which had some awesome hardware: a Chinook, a Huey, some planes, M-48, M-51, three howitzers, two anti-aircraft batteries (one flak one machinegun), and a lot of bomb casings. There was also a model prison, which was absolutely terrifying/shocking. The conditions that the prisoners were subjected to definitely portray they original name of the showcase: the War Crimes Museum. It was awful. I don’t even want to describe what the prisoners went through. After this, however, Dr. Berman had recommended a souvenir shop for us to visit, which had some really nice things in there. Pricey, but nice. We also took a stroll around the bend, where we found the Lion’s German Brewery, at which we placed a reservation so that we could take our Vietnamese friends out and pay them back for the amazing two weeks they had shown us. After a run in with the worst cab driver ever and a whole lot of frustration the half of us that had gone in that specific taxi showed up a half hour late for our reservation. I had American food (BBQ Pork Spare Ribs) and it was a strange experience. I still felt it necessary to use the chili sauce I usually throw on squid and octopus. It’s weird what total cultural immersion will do to you. After that we had dessert and Snowee Ice Cream, a Swiss invention of epic proportion. So much ice cream. I partook in a joint effort between Laura and I, sampling and Apple Pie concoction and a Strawberry Cheesecake concoction. I ate a lot. And, for once, that brings me to right now, writing this blog on time. Well. Now that we’re here, this is kind of awkward. Eh jeez. Bye.