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South
China Sea w/ Randy & Elizabeth continued 3
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An
average bicycle load in Saigon |
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Reunification
Hall,
where the North and South came together again. |
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Elephant
feet
on display |
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Chinatown
Market
in Saigon. |
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MORE
of
everything. Fresh Sacks of Peppercorns, and Peppers, Fish of all
types, clothing....... more than 5 Wal Marts. In the space of a Kmart |
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This
place
is for offerings, full of Incense hanging everywhere. Buy some
for an offering and let it burn.
A fellow out front has small Finches in a cage, for 1$ you can let
2 of them go. Some of the ones that have been caught and released a few
too many times walk around the Temple floors |
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Dragons
everywhere
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At the Cuchi Tunnel Museum 70 kilometer from Saigon..
This is close to the area of the IRON TRIANGLE, where the
B-52's
dropped endless bombs, the entire area was napalmed and bulldozed, and
the VC still lived underground in over 250 miles of tunnel system. Not
comfy, however. This entrance had been greatly enlarged for the typical
American Tourist's fat ass. They were having trouble getting people to
go in before. There was a 160 foot section left the original size that
I went through. Now I am a pretty small and flexible guy, 5-7 165
pounds,
and squatted down all the way. My head hit the top and scrubbed off a
bat,
which flew on ahead.
My
shoulders both touched the sides,
and in some spots had to use my hands. The guide, it seemed, was
sprinting
on ahead with no problem.
The
thought of trying to carry munitions,
cannons, running through here with saturation bombing going on above
all
day only to go in the rice fields at night makes me
weak.
Tourists could fire AK47 and M16 rifles for 1$ a round. In the
background
you here this POP POP POP. I have tried to imagine
the
feeling of being in that area in wartime, as I was just young enough to
miss the draft. I now have a little better idea, but still cannot
imagine
the terror.
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The
entrance
is well hidden. They hide the entrance quickly for every new
tourist group. They have a flat hatch that flips up, reinforced with
concrete,
so you cannot tell a difference when pounding around, trying to find
it.
A little dirt is kicked over it, and the entrance is invisible. it goes
down in fast, and looks pretty scary. He asks if anyone wants to go in.
This is not the tourist tunnel, but a regular one. Nobody wants to, and
he says "good" .
The walls of the cave are
as hard as cement.
There are three levels, with cooking,
schools, medical rooms, storage. The medical unit was a bed with a
canopy,
small Doctors bag, and a light.
No one knew the entire cave layout
for fear of torture victims talking. Some were wrapped with barb wire,
and beaten in the stomach until the stomach lining was vomited out.
|
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dining area |
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This
is
an
actual underground oven used by VC, with a smokeless chimney.
The rules were, no talking, no smoke, no leaving a trace when walking. |
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Some
homemade
traps. The square one is a foot trap you bury in a hole.
When you step in it a spike goes in your foot, and you cannot remove
the
trap. The ones in the hole rotate to poke your leg as it goes in. |
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This
is
a set of swinging traps, that come down from
the trees. |
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The
VC
used a lot off unexploded bombs to make into smaller traps. Many
cluster bombs fell in this area.
|
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Back
to
Ho Chi Minh City, people getting home from work for a little
night life.
The young people here seem to know about as much about
the war as the kids in the states. Almost nothing. The just want to
work,
have fun, and be left alone. Just like us! |
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This
is
my adopted guide. He starts to politely have conversation and shows
you around, then politely asks for a donation . Many languages
spoken
here. A very competitive atmosphere for the kids, selling things to us.
They all live in a village nearby. |
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The
four
faces of Bayon, at Angkor Thom. |
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Approaching
Angkor
Wat. |
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The
view
from the top off some very worn, steep, and dangerous stairs.
That is my tired group, down there.
This is a wonderful temple. Almost every surface
has engraving and was encrusted with ornamentation. |
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The
view
of Jungle. Many sounds, Monkeys, bugs, birds. |
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These
are
some of the thousands of relief's that encircle the
Temple. This one depicts the area that people fall through to one of
the
32 levels of Hell with ETERNAL FIRE being the
"final
stage". The many levels between were vividly shown
many
types of beheading, garroting, boiling, feeding to insects,
skewering..........
A Cambodian policeman offered to show us around, (much like the young
man
did earlier for a donation. Hmmm.) and explained much of the temple to
us. He asked if we thought we would go to heaven or hell. We
said,
we did not think think it was our decision, but heaven might be nice.
He
told us that the way his life has gone, he expected to end up in hell,
but did not want to be on the lowest level being tortured. He wanted to
be one of the guys doing the torture.
We tipped him 5$
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Afternoon
view.
Right when we were leaving. busloads of people began
to gather for a big meeting of the opposition party in Cambodia. We
were
glad to be leaving. They all looked very happy, and it was quite a
varied
group of people.
After this, we moved
on to Thailand and the city of Bangkok.
I did not get any Pictures of Bangkok. Awesome place.
We had the grand tour of the Temples, saw the 47 meter long Reclining
Buddha,
(covered in gold) and the infamous Pat Pong district.
We saw some
very interesting folks there. From the two guys with
deformed
legs, dragging themselves with their arms down the sidewalk pushing a
hat
with the head for change, to the naked women dancing on the bar tops
doing
bizarre acts for dollars, to the obvious tourists, the stream of
humanity
seemed endless.
Rode in a TUK TUK and thought about going back.
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|
Scooter
Therapy
Inc
12 North
Few
Street | Madison,
WI
53703
toll free
1-800-411-1543 | local 1-608-255-1520
fax
1-608-255-1587 | E-mail
|
|
Scooter Therapy
Inc
12 N. Few
St
Madison, WI
53703
toll
free 1-800-411-1543
local
1-608-255-1520
fax
1-608-255-1587
E-mail
Hours:
M-F,
9-6 Saturday, 10-3 CST
|
