Our morning was an interesting drive from Can Tho to Saigon, which is by far the largest city in Vietnam with an estimated population of 14 million. It was an interesting drive and gave us a general view of the country side and villages which line the road the entire way. In addition as we got closer to Saigon we saw many rice fields that had just recently been harvested (they are brown) or ones ready for harvest (they are yellow). About a quarter of the way along the drive we crossed the Mekong River on the first modern bridge built over this mighty river. It was built in 2000 with financial and technical assistance from Australia. Just before this bridge we had a "rest stop" at the most amazing "travel plaza", the restaraunt was huge, like an open sided 747 hanger and it had a collection of giant fish easily a meter long.

Once in Saigon the official part of the days tour got under way.

The first item on the agenda was a tiny house which was built specifically as a staging area for the Tet Offensive of Jan 30th 1968.

A local businessman (who is now considered a national hero) who owned a construction company bought the land with the intent of building a house with a basement (an unusual feature in Vietnamese houses) as a storage area for 2 tons of weapons and munitions to be used in Saigon during the Tet Offensive. At the time this house was in the same neighbourhood as the house of the head of the South Vietnamese Secret Police and was therefore less likely to be searched.

There were three such "Tet" storage locations in Saigon.

Next was a walk through a neighbourhood of really tiny houses. Checkout the photo of the man doing the cement rendering and the one after it. Those houses are not much more than a meter wide. The second one is not much wider than the door and needs an external ladder to reach the second floor.

Apparently these houses are contrversial as the government wants to resume the land probably for high rise appartments.

The final stop of the day was an old appartment building, built by the French, where many of the apartments have been turned into boutique coffee shops. We dropped into one of the shops for midday coffee.