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Leaving Nam

Theinversespoon
2005-11-10 17:34:09

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22 Apr 2002

After the war museum we turned to Beer Saigon to drown our sorrows and take the edge off my sunburn agony. I also managed to locate a chemist who gave me cream for second- and third-degree burns, after she had me stripped off in the front shop area with a magnifying glass up against my skin. I think she lingered too long over the freckles, and I tried to explain that she needn't worry, that those were normal. Ben's laughter didn't help any.

We treated ourselves to some Indian food (par for the course when keeping company with a pom), and it was by far the best Chicken Korma I have had to date. We then woke the family we are staying with, when we came back a tad too late and crashed in our stiflingly hot and humid room with the broken fan and nylon sheets – eeeugggh!

Today we went to the Cu Chi tunnels and crammed ourselves down little holes that the Vietnamese guerillas used for years as their homes during both the French and US wars. I honestly do not know how they did it. The tunnels are tiny, and the feeling of claustrophobia was overwhelming. I came out the other side soaking wet with perspiration – I think we got only the tiniest of clues as to the atrociousness of this type of existence, and we weren't even being bombed.

I also decided to fire a gun for the very first time. I fired 2 shots on an AK-47 (Russian) and nearly hit the target, but my game had clearly improved by the time I moved on to the (American) M-16 as I hit the target. Quite chuffed with myself as this opens new avenues in the career department – how much are snipers making these days? This got the adrenaline pumping, but if I thought I had trouble hearing before...

We spent our last days in Nam meandering the Mekong Delta. It's an intricate web of little waterways, with people living on houseboats or right on the river's edge.

This will be the last of our ...