It’s a Small World After All - Farewell Saigon

On our last day in Ho Chi Minh City, Kristen and the kids visited the Cu Chi Tunnels and I recovered from the Saigon Sweats…more on the tunnels shortly.


The highlight of the day took place at about 8 p.m. as we were walking through the Ben Thanh Market killing time before we went to the train station for our 11 p.m. departure to Danang (tangent: every time I see the word Danang, I am reminded of Robin William’s great turn as the American DJ in Good Morning Vietnam…Danang me, Danang me, take a rope and hang me…)…when we ran into Debbie and Joe Kuffner, neighbours of ours from Fourth Avenue in Ottawa. This is a city of 8.5 million in a country thousands of kilometers from Canada and there were Debbie and Joe wandering the same market in their last three weeks of a 5 month adventure they were taking with their boys. Of course this called for a beer and catch up. We met Debbie and Joe about 12 years ago through our friend Mike Coulson (a follower of this blog) and had not seen them, we reckon for about 4 years – some time before we left for Melbourne. It was serendipitous and certainly a fantastic “small world” story!! Safe travels for the rest of their journey and check out their blog as well for more family adventure stories.

And earlier on the same day, while I recovered at the hotel (and avoided the four hours in the bus), the kids and Kristen went to the Cu Chi Tunnels, a series of tunnels built by the Viet Cong during both the French resistance and American War. These were well hidden series of tunnels for living and transportation and of course avoidance of the American troops. Interestingly these tunnels have been “westernised” which means that they have widened them to allow overweight Western folk to fit through the tunnels. The trip was deemed a success including some stories of encountering bats in the tunnels which seemed to freak Joshua out a little.

By the time the troops returned to the city, I was feeling much better (thankfully) and we decided to take a break from the local cuisine (at the request of Joshua) and enjoyed some local pizza that was very good. After checking out of the hotel we expanded our “western culinary day” by going to an ex-pat pub to watch the Collingwood/Carlton football match and have French Fries - very good if not completely overpriced but definitely enjoyed by all. Once in awhile, it is important to have a vacation from the vacation.

Off to the train station for our on time 11 p.m. departure for Danang and Hoi An!! A 15 hour odyssey that could prove intreresting...