Ao Dai

Oh dear - on a trip like this, how on earth do you choose only one photo!

This morning was spent at the Cu Chi tunnels, a warren of underground tunnels 70km outside Ho Chi Minh City, used by the Viet Cong to thwart the efforts of the US to crush them. They dug three layers of tunnels out of the hard clay, up to 10m deep and literally lived in there while setting up their own ingenious hand made traps to foil the enemy. They built ventilation shafts made to look like termite mounds at ground level and used the same soap as the enemy to throw dogs off the scent! The visit was fascinating, the ingenuity of the people was amazing if gruesome at times. Of course you could pay a visit to tunnels specially widened for tourists and some brave souls attempted to crawl along tiny ones less than a metre square.

The Self Made Weapons Gallery has such exhibits as the 'clipping armpit trap' and the 'see-saw trap' all designed for a slow painful death.

It was interesting to see that stereotyping is alive and well here - a model of a female fighter in full military gear was shown combing her hair!!

Later we spent an hour at the War Remnants Museum - rather harrowing and an hour was enough. Some amazing photos by Japanese photo journalist Goro Nakamura of people who had been affected by Agent Orange. I would urge anyone to check out his work to see how pictures of people with severe disabilities can be beautiful.

Finished of the day on a lighter note with a bit of snapping aroung the front of the Cathedral. Today's blip is a lovely group of girls dressed in traditional Vietnamese costumes - Ao Dai - who were the cause of great excitement. They were happy to have their photos taken with visitors, but I managed to catch them at this informal moment, and I liked the rucksack!

To end it all there was a bride and groom having wedding photos taken in front of the cathedral and I enjoyed snapping the ministrations of the photographer's assistants as they titivated!!

There are two other pics in my folio here

Vietnamese dinner rounded off an amazing day!! off to the hills tomorrow!