Ho Chi Minh/Saigon Whatever

I've been to Vietnam before so I didn't take many pictures there, but I did have some new experiences and met some good people.
Tania and I once again got on a bus complete with small seats and weird videos (this one seemed to be a horror movie of some sort judging by all the red light used) and got driven to Vietnam.
We stopped at one point for a break and parked right next to road side vendors that were selling cooked bugs; that you could pay for and eat. Seriously, there were crickets and grasshoppers and I'm sure one or two other types, but I couldn't identify them. A Vietnamese girl had gotten a bag of them and was happily munching on them and explaining the different tastes of the bugs to a group of Chinese men who were completely fascinated by the whole concept and were convinced to test them out. It was interesting to watch and also interesting because they were all speaking in English.
We got to the border and all had to get off the bus and go through immigration, which went quickly and smoothly. Welcome to Vietnam. We all piled back on the bus and carried on our merry little way only to have the bus stop a couple hours later so they could fix the air conditioning. That was a fun little layover.
You can sit on the bus, which is rapidly heating up to oven like temps or you can sit outside where it already is at oven like temps, but there's a breeze. Sometimes.
Anyway, the ac got fixed and we made it to our destination safe and sound, found a hotel and went to dinner with a girl we'd met on the bus. We had to be driven across the city to the restaurant, but the food was excellent and completely worth it.
Saigon doesn't seem to have much to offer aside from shopping and war remembrance.
I was traveling with a back pack that did not have any room for souvenirs so the shopping didn't hold much lure for me. As an American the war remembrance was strange.
I do not have a clear understanding of what the war in Vietnam was about or why the Americans got involved in the first place. What I do know is that it was essentially one atrocity after another and the Vietnamese bore the worst of it.
We went to the Chu Chi tunnels, which are tunnels that the Vietcong dug to hide from "the enemy" and used to ambush "the enemy." Most of the tunnels are too small for a regular sized Westerner to fit into, but they nicely enlarged one section of tunnel so we could experience what it would have been like to crawl through them. One big difference was that they had the tunnel lit inside so it wasn't exactly the same. The section of tunnel they send you through (if you want to) is 100 yards long, but there are exits every 20 yards. I don't normally consider myself to be claustrophobic, but my heart was racing by the time I climbed out at the first 20 yard mark and that was in a lit tunnel. I can't imagine what it would have been like pitch dark and wet from rain.
Here we are descending to the depths. It's actually not that far underground, which makes me wonder how often they had to deal with cave-ins, but most of the tunnels held up to repeated bombings.

This is an entrance. They were deliberately sized so the Vietnamese could fit and the enemy couldn't. Our guide told us that 80% of the Vietcong forces could fit and 20% couldn't. Do you know why that 20% couldn't?

One section of the tour is handmade traps that were dug into the ground and disguised.

This is a chair trap. Step into the middle and get impaled by the spikes. Interestingly most of the ground dug traps were designed to harm, but not to kill. Unless of course you got trapped there and bled to death. The only one that seemed the most likely to kill was the large tiger pit with big spikes.

This was the background behind the pit traps. It was strange being American and knowing that my country perpetrated so many atrocities. The only stake America really seemed to have in this war was to use it as a testing ground for weapons, chemicals and types of fighting.
There is a letter in the War Remnants Museum from Ho Chi Minh to President Truman requesting assistance from the United States to help Vietnam remain an independent country and people. It was never answered.

Saigon is a busy city and the traffic is absolute lunacy. To cross the street you try and wait for a break in traffic (which could take a long time) and then just walk. Keep a steady pace and try not to run. The drivers just move around you. It's terrifying and kind of life affirming all at the same time.
The people are also really in your face. They will follow you and keep trying to bargain with you. It's really annoying. Overall I'm not a fan of Saigon.