Good Morning, Vietnam!

Well, I’m sure I will continuously say I have a new favorite country, but right now Vietnam takes the cake. I had a wonderful time in Southern Vietnam. I stayed on the ship each night which kept me very energized and didn’t take much out of me, but I still got to see some awesome sights of Vietnam as well as really feel like I got to know Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon.)

The first day I spent in the city walking around and exploring. Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) is really a cool city. The streets are lined with shops and street vendors and it is a bustling place. Crossing the street is quite an adventure because there are no driving laws. Half of the 8 million people in HCMC have mopeds. Imagine this many mopeds driving down the streets with no laws, just suggestions. Crosswalks are for the most part not useful and the best way to get across the street is to just start walking and the mopeds will go around you. We walked all around taking in the city and saw some of the prominent sights. Later in the afternoon, my friend Morgan and I decided to have dresses made. This is one of the most popular things to do in Vietnam because you can find great tailors on every corner. Her sister did SAS two years earlier and so she planned to use her tailor and I tagged along. We picked out our fabrics at the huge marketplace with about 30 fabric stands to choose from. I had a dress in mind and picked out 2 meters of white lace and a white liner and 1 meter of black silk for about $10 USD. It took us a while to find the tailor but it was kinda fun getting a little lost. It was around rush hour and people just stop on their mopeds on the side of the road and pick up dinner without even getting of their bikes. When we got to the shop, I sketched my dress in pencil on a piece of paper and they measured every part of my body and every length necessary. They charged me $27 USD for the work which they considered expensive because of the layers and trimming. I picked it up 48 hours later and it fits perfect. I couldn’t be more excited!

The second day I spent a lot of time on a bus going to and from the Cao Dai temple and Cu Chi Tunnels, both in inland Vietnam. The bus ride was awesome. About half the ride was spent driving through the city (HCMC is huge) and half the ride was through agricultural areas. The Cao Dai temple was beautiful; but it was quite garish with all of these pastel colors and designs. The religion of CaoDaiism is fairly new (the last century) and is a blend of Confucianism, Daoism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. We even got to watch a portion of the noon service which was great. The men and women are separated and dressed in all white. There was singing and chanting the whole time. We next ventured to the Cu Chi tunnels. This is a sight where many Vietnamese lived between the 50’s and the 70’s. They were originally used for the Viet Cong and then expanded and used as protection from U.S. troops in the Vietnam War. On our way there it began pouring. We walked through the jungle of Cu Chi in the pouring rain. I was soaked up to my knees, but it made it feel quite authentic. We got to make our way through the tunnels, but I only went 30 meters (you could have gone up to 100). I got the picture pretty well: it would have sucked to live in a tunnel system. Some children never saw the light of day until they were four or five.

The third day I hung out in the city again. I took an English tour through the Reunification Palace (formerly Independence Palace) which was the home of the President (comparable to the White House) during the 60’s and 70’s. The architecture was pretty 60’s mod and the basement was really cool because it was a bomb shelter and communication and planning center for the war. (Reminded me of the guys office in I Dream of Jeanie) I also strolled the marketplace this day, got a massage, and picked up my dress! My 1 hr. full body massage was $4.50. Pretty crazy!

The fourth day I went with SAS to visit the Mekong Delta which was an amazing experience. The Mekong River is the 10^th largest river in the world and there are tons of islands along the river. Most of the inhabitants are farmers or fishers but the villages are quite established on these islands. I bought a conical hat and wore it all day which made the experience a little more fun! We took a large boat out around the delta and made a few stops at different docks around the river. Our first stop we stopped at a small outdoor coconut candy factory. We got to sample some and bought out some of the types of the candy. We then trekked through this tropical jungle passageway passing a few small homes and so many different fruit trees. We stopped at a family owned house/restaurant where we were able to sample some of the fresh fruits which we could see growing around us. We had pineapple, papaya, grapefruit, dragon fruit and longyon fruits and played with these two little Vietnamese girls who were adorable. We went to another dock and took horse carriages around the village and walked through a neighborhood with no paved roads to a bank of the river where we hopped on small sampan boats. This is where there are four people sitting in the boat and one standing on the back rowing. We went down this long narrow stretch of river with jungle foliage on each side. For lunch, we ate at a local restaurant where our fish was served to us standing up, scales, eyes and teeth and all. This fish was straight from the River. It was really great fish, you could eat it straight off the bone or wrap it up in rice paper with noodles, mint, and pineapple. That was awesome! We were all really sad to leave the Mekong Delta that afternoon; I really wish I had chosen a trip where I could have stayed longer. Upon returning to the ship my friend Jess and I ran into town so she could get a dress made too (she had been in Cambodia the first three days). We ate dinner at Pho 2000, a small fast Pho restaurant, which I wanted to note because it was completely decorated with large pictures of Bill Clinton eating there and with all of the staff. Pho (pronounced Fu) is a very traditional Vietnamese food and is basically noodle soup with whatever meat you want in it as well.

My last day I was really privileged to get meet a very famous photographer from the Vietnam War. Myself and a few other students and faculty went to the home of Huong Van Cuong, a former UPI photographer. Cuong took the fourth most expensive picture from the Vietnam War. The China Press paid $1 million for it. The first is the man with the gun to his head, second the naked napalm girl, third the burning monk, and fourth is Cuong’s photo of the last plane leaving Vietnam with refugees. He spoke to us all about his work and he was really inspiring. His photographic focus is suffering women and children and you could really get the sense that he felt his work was a service to the Vietnamese. He shared with us some stories and lots of pictures. He had to go into hiding for nine years after war and hid all his films so they wouldn’t get destroyed by the Vietnamese government. Eventually when he went back to HCMC he married and his wife got pregnant, but was arrested and jailed for 7 years and didn’t get to meet his son till he was six. They assumed that any one with a connection to the United States was part of the CIA and that is why he was arrested. So I felt really lucky to get to meet this guy, he was soo welcoming and nice. After, we visited the War Remnants Museum which was really intense. I thought that Hiroshima was gory, but here they actually had unborn fetuses in formaldehyde to display birth defects from Agent Orange. Much of it was interesting, though.

So now that Vietnam is at the top of my list it is my recommendation for a great place to visit. I hated to leave. I definitely want to return, especially since I didn’t see any of Northern Vietnam. It really resonated with me because it was a place that is so different from home and the differences are so easy to recognize. And while you get to experience this drastically different society, the people I saw were pretty content and even though it is a developing country I didn’t have to feel bad for the people. I was able to enjoy the country and enjoy the differences without feeling like I wished I could change things. I could just absorb their culture. I absolutely loved the times I just got to walk around the city.

My Thailand plans have gone back and forth in the last day, but I think I have a pretty solid plan now and I am excited. I will be seeing Bangkok and visiting an Island off the coast of Thailand. There were plans to visit a rainforest national park and stay in a tree house and I am very sad to say those plans were foiled. Nevertheless, I am very excited! Now I just need to figure out how to say “not too spicy” in Thai.