On the road to Saigon

We now set off for the longest day of road travel, made even longer by the roads being clogged up by people travelling back to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) after the Tet holiday.The first real stop before lunch was to view the memorial site of the My Lai Massacre. We watched a documentary with an American presenter, linking a survivor of the massacre and a soldier who had taken part. We can remember the story unfolding in the late 60's. It was a sombre group who settled down to lunch and someone proposed a toast to peace. Our sights and sounds of Vietnam is certainly giving us a flavour of recent history and making us aware of the continuing effects of the Vietnam War such as the use of Agent Orange. There are still children being born who suffer the effects of this defoliant and some areas have not yet regrown.

On our journey there were so many sights to remember. We'll list a few:-

*People in the rice paddies planting rice, replanting where it is too thick and continuous working of the soil, all standing in knee deep water.

*Crazy traffic with lorries and buses overtaking other lorries and buses as well as the continuous line of motorcycles

*Bicycles and motorbikes piled high with vegetables, cardboard boxes, plumbing pipes, chickens by the dozen,pigs and anything else you might want to carry from one place to another.

*Children cycling or walking back from school in their neat school uniforms along Highway Number 1, even small children on their own, and needless to say no footpath.

*Potholes by the hundred, some as big as tank traps, on what is Vietnam's main highway.

*Many near misses.We will not be trying some of the manoeuvres at home or there would be major road rage incidents. They all passed with much tooting of horns and shrugs from our driver who was extremely laid back.

*Some spectacular viewpoints and road passes, but none as spectacular as the Hai Van Pass on the same road south of Hue.

We finally arrived at Quy Nhon to a hotel which was described as a "stopover" hotel, but it had a lovely swimming pool, and was an atmospheric place to have dinner.