Cu Chi and Mekong Delta Day Tour

It was my parents and siblings first time in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, so I decided to book a combined tour for two top attractions, Cu Chi and the Mekong Delta day tour, since our time in the city was very limited.

Cu Chi tunnel

My family exploring the small canals and waterways in the Mekong Delta on a wooden row boat.

On our way to the Cu Chi Tunnels tour, we stopped by the Vietnam Lacquerware and discovered this little gem. This facility was opened to provide opportunities for locals with disabilities to work and interact with others, and many of the employees are second- and third- generation locals who are still affected by the effects of Agent Orange. My family and I were so blown away by the quality of their work that we decided to purchase some wall pictures as souvenirs. After the quick tour, we got some fresh refreshments at the small cafe outside.

Vietnam Lacquerware

Vietnam Lacquerware

Then we continued our drive to Cu Chi,  which is located 50 kilometers south of Ho Chi Minh City. It is known for its original 250-kilometer tunnel system and is a popular tourist destination for both local and foreign visitors due to its contributions to the Vietnam War.

One of the ant hills in the Cu Chi tunnel complex. There are holes in the mud mounds, which are air shafts for the tunnels.

Cu Chi tunnel

My ever so curious three year old nephew.

We were on a small group tour with a very comfortable size of 12 in total, and our guide, Tommy, was full of information about the tunnels and the Vietnam war. As soon as we arrived there, our guide processed our entrance tickets while some of us rested under the shade of the tree and others used the toilet. When everyone was ready, we walked inside and watched a short documentary of Cu Chi during the war.

Watching a short documentary of Cu Chi during the Vietnam War.

One of the booby traps

sticking trap

Door trap

In one of the underground rooms.

This unique and historically significant underground city is incredibly well-preserved and fascinating. Seeing the booby traps, trap doors, secret passageways, battle strategy rooms, hospitals, underground living areas, and crawling through one of the tunnels, was like stepping back in time, and you can’t help but be impressed by the ingenuity of it all as well as admire the resilience of those who have lived and fought there.

My dad crawled through one of the tunnels.

My sister and my three-year-old nephew started to descend into the tunnel.

It was my son’s first exploring the Cu Chi tunnel and learning about the Vietnam War.

My son tried rifle shooting.

But before we crawled through the tunnels, we took a short break at the restaurant area while my son tried some rifle shooting. It was fun! Then, we walked to the tunnels. We all crawled through one of the tunnels, including my parents, who are in their sixties, and my three-year-old nephew. My dad is quite big, and at times he found it tricky as the tunnels get narrower the further they go, but he eventually did it! The tunnels are a fantastic underground system, and crawling through one of them already gave us the creeps. Imagine living in them. Amazing people!

We had lunch at Ben Dinh Restaurant in Chu Chi tunnel complex.

Plenty to eat.

Then we had lunch at the restaurant. The menu was balanced and served in generous proportions. Everything that was served was authentic and delicious. We even got to try their typical fish dish “Tapioca” and drink pandan leaves tea.

One of the customs that the locals in the rural areas of the South of Vietnam still practice today is placing the tomb in the middle of the rice fields.

Aboard the wooden pump boat to Unicorn Island.

After lunch in Cu Chi, we continued driving for two hours through the paddy rice fields to the Mekong Delta. Then, we took a cruise on the Tien River to Unicorn Island, passing by Dragon, Phoenix, and Turtle Islands. Our first stop was at a traditional house made of coconut trees, where we learned about the parts of the traditional house in Vietnam and how it differs from other houses in the country. We then got to try honey and tea, fried bananas, and peanut candies. We also got to try to hold a beehive and my son carried a big and heavy python on his shoulders. From there, we took a cart ride and stopped to listen to some Southern Vietnamese Folk Music performed by the island’s locals while we were enjoying fresh tropical fruits from the garden. Later, after walking through the garden, we boarded traditional wooden rowboats to explore the canals and waterways. It was beautiful. Our final stop was at the coconut candy factory, where we saw how it was made all the way up to the packaging. The Mekong Delta is Vietnam’s southern treasure trove. It is a truly unique ecosystem with diverse communities that can be found nowhere else in the world.

My son holding a beehive.

My son carried a live, heavy Phyton on his shoulders.

Fresh tropical fruits from the garden.

Horse ride on the island

Then we returned to Tien Giang by boat. While cruising down a raging river, our guide, Tommy, gave us cold, fresh coconut water.  It was very refreshing. When we arrived at the boat dock, we hopped into the van and drove back to the city for another two hours.

Mama and sis were cruising to Unicorn Island.

Aboard a rustic boat, ready to explore the small canals.

It was my son’s first time to explore the Mekong Delta as well as the small canals.

This full-day tour took us from Ho Chi Minh City to two popular attractions: the Cu Chi Tunnels and the Mekong Delta. While I know that a one-day tour is not enough, we did our best to make the most of it. It was a long day, but we had a great time learning about its fascinating history, getting a glimpse into local life, taking a boat ride down the Mekong River, and enjoying the picturesque scenery of the surrounding countryside. It was well worth it.

It was a long day, but we’d seen a lot.

Little Lilly travel tips:

1. Our tour includes a hotel pick-up, an air-conditioned minivan, an English-speaking guide, entrance fees, boat trips, lunch, fruits, mineral water, and coconut fresh juice.
2. When visiting the tunnels, you don’t have to go down into a tunnel, but this is an option should you wish to. 
3. Bring a towel and bug or mosquito spray. 

7 days backpacking trip with my friends

Traveling with my old good friends is to me one of the healthiest and most positive things I can do to strengthen our friendship.

Angkor Thom

I was chuffed to bits that my friends who I hadn’t seen for so many years visited me and my family in the Penh. I was also grateful that my boys gave me some time to join backpacking trip with them!

Bayon Temple [Thanks to my friend Gb for taking this photo]

Our 7 days backpacking trip provided us the opportunity

1. to develop a deeper bond and to get to know each other more. Those fun, crazy, and stressful situations helped me get to know them even better. Even though we have known each other for a long time, traveling together allow us to deepen our friendship in ways neither of us expected.
2. to make lifelong memories and mutual experience to savor together. These shared stories would be things that we can reminisce about forever especially since we haven’t lived near enough to each other to have many common experiences in recent years. Personally, these shared travel stories become really, really important.
3. to break the ice when the 4 of us meet new people on the road and these travel stories bring about some genuine laughs.

with my good friends at the Angkor Wat

Also, one of the best parts of our trip was the planning stage. We didn’t tire of our endless travel chat and it was perfectly acceptable when Ga messaged us at midnight with all her urgent and essential questions like which hotel we were going to book, flight changes, which clothes to bring, or simply talking about all the amazing places we wanted to visit together – got all of us super excited for the adventures

Ta Prohm [Thanks to Carl for this photo]

My friends and I backpacked from Siem Reap, Cambodia to Phnom Penh City, Cambodia, to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and then back to Phnom Penh for 7 days. And since it was my first backpacking trip with them, I decided to share our awesome memories together.

with my friends in Angkor

Wander the wonder of the Angkor Temples in Siem Reap

Wandering the wonder of the Angkor Temples (one of the most important archaeological sites in South-East Asia) with good old friends was just awesome. First we visited the amazing relic and extraordinary Angkor Wat, built in the 12^th century and dubbed as the largest religious monument and one of the finest monument in the world. We spent a half-day exploring the Angkor Wat, and even though there were hordes of tourists at that time, the view was still breathtaking, and it was worth it.

Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat

Bas reliefs

After lunch, we headed to the most fascinating temple in Angkor – The Bayon Temple – where there were 200 plus gigantic mesmerizing faces adorn this incredible temple. Truly it’s the cheeriest of them all.

Bayon Temple

Then we continued to Ta Prohm Temple, a temple known for massive trees growing out its walls. This temple was also featured in a movie “Tomb Raider”and Indiana Jones movie. These giant trees appear to melt into the meticulously hewn stones, binding them together or tearing them apart in extraordinary fusion of nature and man is a juxtaposition of order and chaos. Indeed, Ta Prohm is a perfect harmony of nature and architecture.

Ta Prohm

Ta Prohm [Thanks Gb for this photo]

Chill at the PUB Street in Siem Reap

After temple trekking, we chilled at the PUB Street – a happy pedestrian with amazingly excellent vibe. It was a very lively place and there was so much fun and joys. We grabbed a bite at the Temple Restaurant. We had Cambodian soup and Tom Yum and it was good.

Temple Restaurant [Thanks to Carl for this photo]

PUB Street [Thanks to Carl for this photo]

Early morning splash in the pool

I love how we started our day – quick early morning splash in the pool at Naga Gate Hotel. To me, it was an easy way to get my exercise for the day and provide me some poolside relaxation. Plus, it was cool making the half-awake commute to the pool and getting into a completely still, flat, placid, calm and cold pool while the rest of the world was still asleep.

@ Naga Gate Hotel in Siem Reap [Thanks Gb for this photo]

Exploring the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda in Phnom Penh

When we were rested and refreshed, we explored the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda. We went there at around 3.30pm, and I think it was the perfect time to visit the palace as there were only few tourist. We paid $10.25 for the entrance fee (which is quite expensive) and we stayed there for an hour. My friends were awed by the beautiful architecture and the magnificent collection of gold in the Silver Pagoda. The Royal Palace is certainly a place of history; and a worthy place to visit if you are in the city.

The Royal Palace

The Silver Pagoda

The Royal Palace

Strolling around the River and Lazying at Le Moon Sky Bar in Phnom Penh

From the palace, we strolled around the Riverside, a colourful place and a nice spot for tourists and Khmer people alike where you can enjoy a nice breeze and local activities – play different games, walk, and relax. It’s also a great place for everything – restaurants, bars, markets, Mekong boat cruise, and many more. After strolling, we lazed at the Le Moon Sky Bar while savoring tea and coffee and enjoying the commanding views and the open-air rooftop breeze.

Visit S-21 (Tuol Sleng) Museum and Choeung Ek Killing Fields in Phnom Penh

The Tuol Sleng Museum and the Choeung Ek Killing fields are the saddest places we’ve been to. Our tour there was very interactive and the audio guide provided us with very good information of the events – about 3 million Cambodians were tortured and killed by their own people. The recorded testimonies from the survivors and guards are very grounding. Such a harrowing and sad piece of history but a must go if you visit Cambodia and definitely worth having the audio too as it gives you a very descriptive and realistic outline of the two places! We spent about an hour in Tuol Sleng Museum and an hour and a half walking quietly in the Choeung Ek Killing Fields.

Choeung Ek Killing Field

Choeung Ek Killing Field

Choeung Ek Killing Field

Devour Vietnamese Street Food and walked around the walking street

One thing I love about Vietnam is their sooo delicious street food. After our tour at the Cu chi tunnels, we dropped off at the Ben Tanh Market to grab Vietnamese street food. It’s an ideal inexpensive spot selling many types of food and drink. The atmosphere there was relaxed. We especially enjoyed sitting the hustle and bustle. In the evening, we walked around the very lively Bu Vien walking street, a great street of bars, clubs and streetwise food. There were a lot of tourists and locals alike, jamming the road. We walked up and down the street and sampled some drinks and food as we went along. We sat into a few little local bars, devoured local tasty food while we watched the world went by. It was fun!

Vietnamese food

Vietnamese food. [Thanks to my friend Carl for this photo]

Bui Vien Walking Street

Bui Vien walking street [Thanks Ga for this photo]

Crawl at the Cu Chi Tunnel

We spent half day to visit the Cu Chi Tunnel. Our guide showed us how the Viet Cong outwitted the Americans at every step with their primitive but quite effective weapons. We learned how the Viet Cong and the local people constructed the tunnels, the infrastructures (hospitals, kitchen, conference room, etc) and the various traps – booby door trap, window, rolling, etc. Our guide also pointed out the bomb craters with collapsed tunnels entrance, the termite mounds covering the bamboo air tubes to the tunnels and the camouflage entrance to the tunnels with multiple firing positions. We also learned that the Viet Cong used sandals made out of used rubber (from an old motor bike or car tire) and cut out a foot print to trick the American soldiers as they thought that the trail of footprints they had picked up was heading one way but instead they were heading the opposite way. During the tour, we crawled 60 m out of 200 km tunnels – it was really an amazing experience! Can you imagine living in the tunnel for many years? Certainly our visit to the tunnels was a wonderful insight into life during the war in Vietnam.

Inside the tunnel. [Thanks Carl for this photo]

The rubber slippers used by the Vietcongs.

The rescue entrance

Shop in Ho Chi Minh

We went shopping at the Ben Tanh Market, one of the huge markets in Ho Chi Minh with a large range of products – food, bags, clothing, etc. It has a good atmosphere and good products. Just like in Cambodia’s markets, there is no fixed price in this market, so you need to learn how to bargain. If you are foreigner ask for 40-50% off when you bargain across the board. Overall, we had so much fun in the market especially when bargaining.

@ Ben Tanh market [Thanks Carl for this photo]

Meet my family in the Kingdom

My friends got to meet my family in the Penh for the first time. As a way of welcoming them into our simple abode, we offered them cooked meals. I’m grateful that my hubby cooked food (Gratin Dauphinois, Coq Au Vin, Cantonese Rice, toast salmon, etc.) for my friends. And on the last night (before they fly back home), we took them to one of our fave bistro in town to chill. For two nights, round the table with good food and a fine wine, we had one of the best and most fun discussions. Indeed, it was such a fun and great moment for all of us!

Fun Tuktuk ride

Tuktuk ride is one of the most common public transportation here, and it was one of the fun experiences we have had while showing some places in Cambodia to my friends. We took a tuktuk wherever we went. While riding a tuktuk, we felt alive in traffic from the fellow tuktuks, motorbikes and cars. It was fast, cheap, fun, we got “fresh air”, and we love the wind in our hair.

tuktuk ride

Enjoy the long bus ride

Even though there are local flights available from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh and from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh, we opted to travel by bus to see more of the countryside. We traveled with the Giant Ibis Bus Company and the ticket (one way) was $18 per person. From Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, we nearly missed our bus as we were 10 minutes late. Luckily, the staff was kind enough to wait for us. It took us about 6 hours to reach the capital city. On our way to Ho Chi Minh City from Phnom Penh, we missed our bus at 8.30AM. We tried to catch it but we couldn’t – it already went far, so we decided to go back to the bus station. Fortunately, there were still some seats available for the next bus trip at 12.30PM – we were relieved! We went to the bus the station 30 minutes early before the departing time to make sure we wouldn’t miss it again. The entire bus trip was good and comfortable. The bus provided us a wet tissue, and small snacks (savory bread and a small bottle of water). There was wifi and there were outlets on every row. The bus stopped 3 times (1 stop for lunch and 2 stops for toilet). The road occasionally took us to the river, we saw stilt houses, small children walking on the road from school and we past beautiful scenery of rice paddies. We saw the countryside – poor but beautiful. Indeed, the 22 hours bus trip (6 hours SR to PP, 8 hours PP to HCM and 8 hours HCM to PP) was a nice journey, and no such thing as dead time.

Bus ride to Ho Chi Minh from Phnom Penh [Thanks Carl for this photo]

Bus ride to Phnom Penh from Siem Reap [Thanks Carl for this photo]

Certainly, traveling with these 4 good friends was awesome as they augmented the epic-ness of the adventure.

 

Cu Chi Tunnels in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam- A Taste of the History Books

Another highlight activity when we traveled to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam was the visit at the Cu Chi tunnels. During this trip, I would say history is brought to life. I couldn’t imagine the suffering these great people of a great country went through for the sake of their freedom.

I nearly fell into this tunnel. Luckily, I was able to grasp at the ground.

The Cu Chi tunnels was the traditional way the Vietnamese used to fight against the Americans. It was their way to make surprise attacks and then vanish unobserved. The tunnels run over 200 km. Some are shallow and some are dug deep inside the hills. I was impressed on how resourceful and creative the Vietnamese were.

I am amazed how they did this.

The exhibition was very interesting and the history surrounding the tunnels was fascinating. I learned a lot about the Vietnamese history and the Vietcong in particular. I also learned how long people lived in these tunnels, how they set traps and dismantled bombs for spare parts and scrap metal.

The traps!

Another trap!

The tunnels are cool to see. To me, it was a unique experience when I crawled through the tunnels and I couldn’t imagine what life must have been like for the soldiers staying inside the tunnels for days with no air and light. While we were crawling, we chickened out after only going 60 meters into the tunnel.

Inside the tunnel.

Apart from the tunnels, there are also hospital rooms, meeting rooms and kitchens. These were used to take care of the people staying underground. You can also see bomb craters everywhere, which reminds you of what actually happened there. There is also a gunrange where you can pay to shoot using a variety of different firearms if you wish. While we were walking through the jungle, we heard shooting which actually makes the experience more real. But, we didn’t get a chance to try it because it was already dark when we finished the visit.

Off to the tunnels.

We booked a tour with Luxury Travel Vietnam and had a great time. The tour was very affordable and they picked us up in a bus. Our guide was good and spoke fluent English. This place was on my bucket list and I was not disappointed.

Our guide gave us some more details about his experience of the war.

I would definitely recommend visiting the Cu Chi Tunnels while you are in Saigon if you are interested in the history of the war.

Little Lilly travel tip:

1. It takes about 2 hours by bus from Ho Chi Minh to get to Cu Chi Tunnels.
2. If you wish to get inside the tunnel, you can choose how far you want to go such as 20, 40, 60 or 100 metres.
3. The tunnels are tight and would be cramped for tall or overweight people.
4. Make sure you wear trousers.
5. Make sure you take a torch with you as it is needed for the crawl on the dark.

Have you visited Cu Chi Tunnels? How far have you crawled?