Vietnam supplemental

I had several photos I wanted to include in the previous post, but halfway through found myself hitting up against Blogger's storage or upload limit for a single post. Therefore, here's a few more pictures relevant to the previous post.

Hanoi:

Uncle Ho lies in state. I didn't take this one (I wouldn't risk it) but shamelessly stole this one off the web. Not a great image for quality, but this is exactly what it looks like.


Hoi An:

This is the famous covered bridge originally built by Japanese traders four hundred years ago (this sadly is not the original, but the structure pictured here dates back over two hundred years). It's the icon of Hoi An, so much so that it's depicted on the back of the 20,000 dong bill. The wood carving on the inside was lovely, but I never got a good shot of it that captured the detail.


More Ho Chi Minh City:

Another shot of the main park in Saigon.



Here was my favorite part of the park: a section devoted to Southwestern Succulents. I was wondering how they kept them alive in this humid climate, then we noticed that they were all planted up high with carefully planned drainage so they never sit in water, even during monsoon.



Sadly, it's difficult to photograph in the tunnels of Cu Chi, but here's one more (by request) for scale. These are the "widened" tunnels that have been adapted to meet the tourism needs of Westerners. On the previous post you see Amy emerging from one of the actual, unaltered exits. Here she is in one of the expanded sections:




Here's a cool shot: what appears to be an ordinary leaf pile, but is in fact a chimney for the one of the tunnels many kitchens. If you look closely, you can see the cooled smoke gently spilling out of the leaves, not rising like hot smoke does. You'd have to be right on top of it to see it. The VC did all of their cooking in the predawn hours to hide it that much better.



One more from Cu Chi. Here our guide Hai ("my nickname Hai Fat Man. Easy for you to remember when you see me so fat" so you see what passes for fat in Vietnam) demonstrates the various types of booby traps laid around the tunnel entrances. Later, these same designs were adapted to be placed inside the tunnel entrances, once the Tunnel Rats started working.


Hai was an interesting dude. When he introduced himself, he apologized for the quality of his English (which was excellent) by saying "I have not spoken it for twenty years." We guessed that this meant he had worked for the Americans during the war, and this was later confirmed by one of the other guides from the same company.

Reunification palace seen from the street:


The President's personal gambling room. I don't know why this one made me giggle like it did, probably because it looked so much like the set of an Austin Powers movie. "Hit me again, President Diem, Baby."


Cambodia post coming soon. Just bought my ticket for India: I land in Dehli on the 16th.