This post may or may not turn into a compilation of emotions that I felt while traveling through Vietnam. We have been told since the beginning, that there will be one port that opens your eyes – that changes your perspective on things – that leaves you as a different person when you leave that country. Well, for me, it happened in Vietnam. To my parents, brother and Nate, who were the only people I had the chance to briefly talk to before having to run through the port to catch the ship, it probably didn’t sound like that because I had been going going going for 5 days and truth be told, the reality of what I saw and what I experienced didn’t set in until this morning, after watching the live broadcast of the 2008 Presidential Election. And it actually started two nights before we got there, when we were shown a documentary called Bomb Hunters, which was directed by the husband of faculty member on the ship. It was the story of the people of Cambodia, and how the Vietnam War affected their current day lives. It showed us the brutal living conditions in present day Cambodia caused directly by the bombs that the American Government dropped. I had NO idea that there were even bombs dropped in Cambodia, and that the Cambodians go bomb hunting now to sell the metal as their only source of income, and extremely dangerous task. And once I started to think about it, I knew very little about the Vietnam War in general. Why? Because we were never taught about it in history classes. It was not a war that we won, so it is not a war that is talked about. I knew it was a controversial war, a highly unsupported war by the American people, but I didn’t know why. I had no idea why or how we got involved in Vietnam, so the 3 days of classes between Malaysia and Vietnam really opened my eyes. I heard facts and information that I had never thought about before, like we dropped 4 times as many bombs in Vietnam than we did in Europe during WWII. I had no idea over 4 million people were killed in this war, and the roles that the French, Japanese and Chinese held during the conflict. I had heard that the Vietnamese people are some of the most friendly to Americans in the world, and I thought, how is this possible? If we bombed the shit out of them only a few decades ago. Kesho, my radical, passionate sociology professor told us this the day before we pulled into port, “The Vietnamese know there is a huge difference between the American people and the American Government.” This, I came to find out, was eerily accurate. And here is what I did in Vietnam for 5 days…
Our ship got cleared around 12 noon (Oct 30…and might I add that the night before we had a “Halloween Party” on the 7th deck…we were the Spice Girls – original I know. I was Ginger Spice and we had few resources to work with, but lots of people were very creative!), 3 hours later than expected due to the tides of the river and the incapability of making it upstream faster. We had originally planned on going to the Cu Chi Tunnels that day, but needed to change plans because there wouldn’t be enough time. So Steph, Erica, Lacey & I took the shuttle to downtown Ho Chi Minh City (about 10 minutes from port) and found a tailor so that we could get custom made dresses. It was a little difficult with the language barrier, but we went to a place that former SASers had recommended. After describing the designs of the dresses we were looking for, they then sent us to Ben Than Market with the needed measurements and types of fabric that we needed. I found a beautiful silk print that is blue, yellow and pink- very loud and bright and fun that I loved. So I brought that back to the tailor and they took all of my measurements and said it would be finished on Nov 3rd! We grabbed a quick lunch at a nearby café and continued to shop in the market all of the afternoon. This place is huge, packed and cheap- a shopping paradise, basically. They except US dollars as well as Vietnam Dong, and have everything from TShirts, to jewelry to artwork to fabric to fresh flowers to china sets – all of different quality, and all negotiable. I don’t even remember all that I bought that night, but it was fun, despite the fact that we are all so over bargaining. It was exciting in the first 3 or 4 countries- now it is just annoying and stressful. We came back to the ship to shower and get ready then met Peter, Stacey and Jack to go out to dinner. Peter and Stacey are both vegetarian, so it was a little difficult finding a suitable restaurant, but we finally found one that was very nice and had delicious food. It was only the beginning of what seemed to be hundreds of spring rolls and pho (noodles) over the next 4 days. After dinner we went two doors down to a German bar that some of our friends were at, and the bartender was a really sweet Vietnamese girl who spoke decent English and was so friendly and helpful showing us a map and explaining where we were and how to get to where we needed to get to- she was lovely. So we walked a few blocks to a club called Apocalypse Now. Ironic, huh? That proved to be a fun place that was of course swamped with SAS but had good music and dancing and caused me to stay out too late as usual.
Dani and I both had to wake up at 430am to get to the airport, so it was kind of a hectic, frazzled morning for the both of us- we were both headed to Hanoi (the capital) but she was going with SAS and I was traveling independently with 5 other friends. The 6 of us were able to catch a cab and get to the airport, luckily, with enough time to spare because there were problems with my reservation and long story short I wound up having to buy a new one-way ticket from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi and had to pay cash – luckily I had $100 USD on me, but they were all single dollar bills, so that was comical because I had to pay $87 and Peter has pictures of me behind AirAsia desk looking up my reservation because they didn’t speak any English. That was frustrating, but there was nothing I could do so I just had to deal. The airport was MUCH smaller than we anticipated, but our flight left on time so that was nice. I naturally conked out as soon as I sat down on the plane, and woke up when we landed….and Eric told me the news that we did not land in Hanoi, but he did not know why. Eventually we figured out that the runway in Hanoi was flooded, so we were circling for awhile, but then had to land because we were running out of fuel. Luckily a very nice man who spoke good English came up to help us because he could tell that we were distraught (this is now at a tiny airport that only has 4 outgoing flights a day that all of Hanoi’s flights were being diverted to). We basically figured out that we were only 70km from HaLong Bay, which is where we were planning on driving to from Hanoi the next day anyway. They said it should take only about an hour and a half, compared to a 3 and a half hour drive from Hanoi, so we did not get back on the plane, found a driver, and went to HaLong Bay! It was a little overcast, but not raining, so we were able to charter a boat for the 6 of us and go spend the day on HaLong Bay, which is one of the seven wonders of the Ancient World. Nothing can describe it, not even the pictures, but it was absolutely beautiful and breathtaking and magnificent all at the same time. The rock formations are certainly wondrous. We went into a few beautiful natural limestone caves and got to hike through the dense forests surrounding the bay. We also had a delicious feast of fish, shrimp, squid, rice and vegetables on the boat, and then went out for an hour long kayaking adventure, where we could go through small caves and navigate through narrow canals. It rained a little bit, but was quite refreshing. After that I took a brief powernap on the boat because I was dead tired, and we were only out for another few hours before heading back to where we started! After negotiating some prices, we were able to hire a driver to go back to Hanoi. This was at about 5pm, so we planned on arriving around 9pm. Well, about 2 hours into the drive, we hit torrential downpours. And talk about a language barrier, our driver spoke NO English. He did have a friend who spoke broken English who he would call every once in awhile and have Peter talk to her, but even that was a hassle and difficult. I don’t even know how to recount the last 4 hours of our ride, but basically the rain was SO hard and SO steady that the streets were flooded to the point where people were walking around in water up to their wastes. Cars were abandoned, people riding their motorbikes were struggling to walk them through the puddles, buses were breaking down left and ride, and we would sit in one spot for 20 or 30 minutes at a time. At one point our driver wanted us to get out and start walking, but we refused because we had no idea where we were or where we were going. Long story short, we eventually made it into downtown Hanoi in the Old Quarter. He didn’t know exactly where our hotel was, so we just got off at the Hilton, assuming they could point us in the right direction since we knew we were close. It was about midnight at this point, so we obviously paid the driver much more than we agreed upon and after another short cab ride finally made it to the Hotel Gecko, which was a lovely place tucked away in an alley. We crashed HARD that night, I was asleep in seconds from laying down, and the morning rolled around way to quickly. Breakfast was included, so we headed downstairs and talked to the manager (a 25 year old girl from Australia who just started working there 3 weeks ago) and she gave us some good pointers, where to go, what to do, what to eat, etc. So we set out in the heavy rain around 930am with quite an ambitious itinerary. Our hotel was right near Ho Kiem Lake, a beautiful location, despite the fact that the lake was flooded – but we were able to see several of the pagodas and temples around the lake, and the Martyr Monument. We walked to the Opera House (which was closed unfortunately) and St. Joseph’s Cathedral and then caught lunch at a nice café. Then we made our way to the Revolutionary Museum- which took about 2 hours to go through. It was quite an eye opener seeing the perspectives of war from the Vietnamese instead of the Americans. It was more than a history lesson could ever teach me, seeing everything from newspaper articles to bombs that were dropped to all different types of flags. The museum was broken down into sections. The first was the struggle for independence for almost one hundred years, the second was the Resistance War (known to us as the Vietnam War) and then the end was their steps to building a unified nation. I am not a museum person, and I loved this one because I learned so much that I feel like I should have known, but was never taught. It was absolutely horrifying to see images and read facts about what the American Government did to millions of innocent civilians in a war that to me seemed pointless. I think after that museum we all felt extremely moved and definitely effected by what we saw and learned in only 2 hours.
From there we tried to get to the Hoa Lo Prison, where American pilots were held captive by the French Colonizers (which I will explain later) but it was just about to close when we got there, so we would have to go the next day, which was fine because we were pretty drained from sightseeing all day. So we lightened the mood a little bit by shopping! What else?! We just walked around some markets and bought a few things…before heading to a cute pizza place for dinner which was nice because I can’t remember the last time I ate pizza. From there we went to the night market, where we bought so much in the first hour that we had to go back to the hotel to drop everything off before continuing. Stacey and I went back to the market after dropping off our goods and Sam & Peter went to get massages. Once Stacey and I finally said no more, we found a cute balcony restaurant because we were in the mood for dessert. Once Stacey saw Vegetarian Spring Rolls on the menu, she immediately had to get them, then we saw they had a whole vegetarian menu, which was really exciting because it was the first place we had seen that! So I had some great ice cream while she had spring rolls before heading back to the hotel around 1230am – the boys were already asleep from their massages, haha. The next day, we had even more to do, so we were up and out by about 830 to go to the “backpack capital of the world” as we called it. I kid you not when I say there were hundreds and hundreds of knockoff North Face backpacks for as far as we could see. I’m also not kidding that about 2 hours later…between the 4 of us we bought 21 North Face bags. RIDICULOUS, we are aware, but it was so worth it. Stacey got 9 for less than $100 USD. Some are better quality than others, some are fake and some are real, it can be hard to tell. But they are manufactured in Vietnam, so regardless, they were dirt cheap. I bought a new pack for myself which I have been looking forward to all trip because the buckles on mine are all cracked and there are holes in it – I mean, I have had it since about 7th grade, so it was time. Around the corner from Backpack World was Shoe World, where I bought a pair of really fun black & pink sneakers for dirt cheap. Of course, at this point we had to go back to the hotel to drop everything off. From there we hired a driver for the day and had him take us to whatever other sights we wanted to see, because there was a lot to do. We started off by heading to Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum. His body was in Russia, so it was not open and we could not go in the tomb, but we were able to see the Changing of the Guards which was pretty neat, and also see his House, as well as the Museum. The Presidential Palace was also right there, we didn’t go in but the grounds were absolutely beautiful. From there we headed back to the Prison which was again quite the eye opening sight. It was a French fun prison where hundreds of Vietnamese were held captive, and later where many American pilots were kept for quite awhile, including Senator John McCain. The prison was considered Hanoi Hilton by the Vietnamese because they claimed that the American soldiers had it so easy that it was barely a prison. There were pictures of the pilots playing volleyball, watching movies, cooking Thanksgiving dinner, and playing instruments. It was interesting to see it from their perspective, once again. Who knows what it was really like? McCain I suppose.
After the prison we went to the Museum of Ethnology which was interesting to see all of the indigenous tribes of Vietnam and learn about all of the different ethnic groups that make up the country. By this point we were pretty much burned out of museums and the such, but it was still a fun museum with lots of visuals which was good because I was over reading. We headed back to the hotel to take a quick nap before showering and getting ready for dinner (we went back to the same place Stacey and I went the day before) and got a FEAST since it was our last night in Hanoi. Then we headed to the Water Puppet Show, which is quite the interesting form of entertainment in Vietnam. They are hugely popular, and sell out every night, usually a day or two in advance. Basically, it is a pool of water with a curtain that puppeteers stand behind waste high in water and maneuver the puppets out of our view all around the pool of water. There is also a live band a singers that play on the side of the stage. There is no way to describe it without showing pictures and videos to you all – it is just a very bizarre theater arts that I am so glad we went to see because it is such a cultural staple in Vietnam. Stacey and Sam went to do more shopping after that while Claire, Eric, Peter & myself went to get foot massages which were amazing. I had never had one before, and it was glorious, and they served us hot tea! A 30 min foot massage for $4USD…who would pass that up?? After that we were exhausted and ready for bed! We woke up around 530 to catch a cab for our 8am flight back to Ho Chi Minh City. I had bought a Lonely Planet Japan guide book so I stayed up the whole flight reading about what I was going to do in Japan and transportation, etc. I think it was the first flight ever that I did not fall asleep during, which was pretty notable…and also which made my pretty tired for the last day in Vietnam!! So right when we landed in Ho Chi Minh we decided last minute that we would have time to go to the Cu Chi Tunnels if we did it quickly. So we found a driver, and drove about an hour and a half to the tunnels. THIS was an eye opening experience. I will be honest when I say that I didn’t know much about the tunnels at all, I even think part of me thought that the Americans lived in the tunnels. Well, how wrong I was. We saw a video at the very beginning of the tour which was in our eyes, ridiculous. It just seemed like such propaganda against the Americans, talking about the people of the Cu Chi region who were reigned as heroes when they shot down the “American devils”. But it was truly impressive the 250km of tunnels that they constructed. All of the ones that we went through (except for one) were enlarged by 40% so that tourists could walk through them, and that is NOT comfortably. We were all hunched over, our backs were touching the top of the openings. There was one that we did go through that was 70 meters long, that honestly was quite frightening. Stacey legitimately had a panic attack because it was so dark and so claustrophobic. We were literally crouched down on the ground and all sides of our bodies were touching the walls and ceiling and it was extremely difficult to walk through. I could not imagine how this is the way the people of the Cu Chi region lived during the whole war with the Americans, and how they won from living in those conditions. We felt bad because we kind of had to rush through the rest of the tour because we needed to get back to Ho Chi Minh, but we were SO glad that we went there to see the dense jungle that so many soldiers lost their lives in and where we fought in a war for so long- it was really the first time I had been to a place where I knew so many thousands of American soldiers died from war. Never would I have imagined…
The two hour ride back to Ho Chi Minh got us to the ship around 4pm, and on ship time was 9pm. We all had certain things that we had to do, including going back to Ben Thanh market for several different things, and then going to the tailor to pick up our dresses/suits. I got to the tailor around 630pm, which turned out to be an hour long mess. The dress was beautiful and fit really well, except for this little bubble that was right in the middle of the dress. Basically, they sent me across the street to the third floor of this apartment building, where about 15 tiny Vietnamese women and girls were sewing there little hearts out, and it was craziness up there for 45 minutes. First they tried to iron it out, but that was not going to work, so they had me in the dress, out of the dress, drawing with chalk, stitching while it was on me, ironing more, stitching more, taking stitches out…basically mayhem. And none of them spoke English- and I just wanted to leave for 2 minutes to get my bag since Stacey was still at the tailor with it, so that they could go do what they needed, but they never let me. So after 45 minutes I told them I needed to leave and just kind of took the dress and left- and I didn’t actually try it on the final time, but that is OK I can get it fixed at home if it still needs more. By then it was about 745pm and we had to get back to the ship because there is typically a lot of students getting on the last hour, so a long line is possible. So we rode on motorbikes back to the port. Somehow Steph and I both got on to one, but she got the helmet and I didn’t…and I had bags of stuff- it was quite interesting – then I burned myself on the exhaust pipe when I got off but it was OK. I saw a pay phone across the street which I had a calling card that I had bought in Hanoi….but of course like all other public phones in Vietnam it was broken. Luckily there was a nice man who saw how much distress I was in and let me pay him $2USD to use his phone, so I was able to talk to my parents for a few minutes, then Darren for a few minutes which was SO nice. I was on the phone with Nate when I saw an SAS shuttle bus come in, which usually means that there are a LOT of people on it, which a LOT of stuff, and there was no way I was getting stuck behind them on the gangway, so I hung up and then RAN to the gangway, and luckily beat them by only a few minutes, and had 40 minutes to write 10 postcards. So I apologize to those who are getting postcards from Vietnam and they are so messy and frazzled, but I was on quite the time constraint! So that was my Vietnam experience, and it didn’t settle in until the next night when we had a panel of faculty members on the ship who told personal accounts of their lives during the time of the War and how little I knew…how my family had been affected and the entire country. It was an emotional night to say the least of stories being told and the highest of feelings coming out to the whole shipboard community. I am too tired to write about the election right now, but perhaps if I have time in the morning, I will write more about that. Let’s just say, almost everyone on the ship has Obama Fever, and no one went to class this morning because we were all crammed into the Union watching the live coverage that we were able to get. Many tears were shed and it is surreal not being anywhere near the United States for this day that will forever be remembered in American history.
Our ship got cleared around 12 noon (Oct 30…and might I add that the night before we had a “Halloween Party” on the 7th deck…we were the Spice Girls – original I know. I was Ginger Spice and we had few resources to work with, but lots of people were very creative!), 3 hours later than expected due to the tides of the river and the incapability of making it upstream faster. We had originally planned on going to the Cu Chi Tunnels that day, but needed to change plans because there wouldn’t be enough time. So Steph, Erica, Lacey & I took the shuttle to downtown Ho Chi Minh City (about 10 minutes from port) and found a tailor so that we could get custom made dresses. It was a little difficult with the language barrier, but we went to a place that former SASers had recommended. After describing the designs of the dresses we were looking for, they then sent us to Ben Than Market with the needed measurements and types of fabric that we needed. I found a beautiful silk print that is blue, yellow and pink- very loud and bright and fun that I loved. So I brought that back to the tailor and they took all of my measurements and said it would be finished on Nov 3rd! We grabbed a quick lunch at a nearby café and continued to shop in the market all of the afternoon. This place is huge, packed and cheap- a shopping paradise, basically. They except US dollars as well as Vietnam Dong, and have everything from TShirts, to jewelry to artwork to fabric to fresh flowers to china sets – all of different quality, and all negotiable. I don’t even remember all that I bought that night, but it was fun, despite the fact that we are all so over bargaining. It was exciting in the first 3 or 4 countries- now it is just annoying and stressful. We came back to the ship to shower and get ready then met Peter, Stacey and Jack to go out to dinner. Peter and Stacey are both vegetarian, so it was a little difficult finding a suitable restaurant, but we finally found one that was very nice and had delicious food. It was only the beginning of what seemed to be hundreds of spring rolls and pho (noodles) over the next 4 days. After dinner we went two doors down to a German bar that some of our friends were at, and the bartender was a really sweet Vietnamese girl who spoke decent English and was so friendly and helpful showing us a map and explaining where we were and how to get to where we needed to get to- she was lovely. So we walked a few blocks to a club called Apocalypse Now. Ironic, huh? That proved to be a fun place that was of course swamped with SAS but had good music and dancing and caused me to stay out too late as usual.
Dani and I both had to wake up at 430am to get to the airport, so it was kind of a hectic, frazzled morning for the both of us- we were both headed to Hanoi (the capital) but she was going with SAS and I was traveling independently with 5 other friends. The 6 of us were able to catch a cab and get to the airport, luckily, with enough time to spare because there were problems with my reservation and long story short I wound up having to buy a new one-way ticket from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi and had to pay cash – luckily I had $100 USD on me, but they were all single dollar bills, so that was comical because I had to pay $87 and Peter has pictures of me behind AirAsia desk looking up my reservation because they didn’t speak any English. That was frustrating, but there was nothing I could do so I just had to deal. The airport was MUCH smaller than we anticipated, but our flight left on time so that was nice. I naturally conked out as soon as I sat down on the plane, and woke up when we landed….and Eric told me the news that we did not land in Hanoi, but he did not know why. Eventually we figured out that the runway in Hanoi was flooded, so we were circling for awhile, but then had to land because we were running out of fuel. Luckily a very nice man who spoke good English came up to help us because he could tell that we were distraught (this is now at a tiny airport that only has 4 outgoing flights a day that all of Hanoi’s flights were being diverted to). We basically figured out that we were only 70km from HaLong Bay, which is where we were planning on driving to from Hanoi the next day anyway. They said it should take only about an hour and a half, compared to a 3 and a half hour drive from Hanoi, so we did not get back on the plane, found a driver, and went to HaLong Bay! It was a little overcast, but not raining, so we were able to charter a boat for the 6 of us and go spend the day on HaLong Bay, which is one of the seven wonders of the Ancient World. Nothing can describe it, not even the pictures, but it was absolutely beautiful and breathtaking and magnificent all at the same time. The rock formations are certainly wondrous. We went into a few beautiful natural limestone caves and got to hike through the dense forests surrounding the bay. We also had a delicious feast of fish, shrimp, squid, rice and vegetables on the boat, and then went out for an hour long kayaking adventure, where we could go through small caves and navigate through narrow canals. It rained a little bit, but was quite refreshing. After that I took a brief powernap on the boat because I was dead tired, and we were only out for another few hours before heading back to where we started! After negotiating some prices, we were able to hire a driver to go back to Hanoi. This was at about 5pm, so we planned on arriving around 9pm. Well, about 2 hours into the drive, we hit torrential downpours. And talk about a language barrier, our driver spoke NO English. He did have a friend who spoke broken English who he would call every once in awhile and have Peter talk to her, but even that was a hassle and difficult. I don’t even know how to recount the last 4 hours of our ride, but basically the rain was SO hard and SO steady that the streets were flooded to the point where people were walking around in water up to their wastes. Cars were abandoned, people riding their motorbikes were struggling to walk them through the puddles, buses were breaking down left and ride, and we would sit in one spot for 20 or 30 minutes at a time. At one point our driver wanted us to get out and start walking, but we refused because we had no idea where we were or where we were going. Long story short, we eventually made it into downtown Hanoi in the Old Quarter. He didn’t know exactly where our hotel was, so we just got off at the Hilton, assuming they could point us in the right direction since we knew we were close. It was about midnight at this point, so we obviously paid the driver much more than we agreed upon and after another short cab ride finally made it to the Hotel Gecko, which was a lovely place tucked away in an alley. We crashed HARD that night, I was asleep in seconds from laying down, and the morning rolled around way to quickly. Breakfast was included, so we headed downstairs and talked to the manager (a 25 year old girl from Australia who just started working there 3 weeks ago) and she gave us some good pointers, where to go, what to do, what to eat, etc. So we set out in the heavy rain around 930am with quite an ambitious itinerary. Our hotel was right near Ho Kiem Lake, a beautiful location, despite the fact that the lake was flooded – but we were able to see several of the pagodas and temples around the lake, and the Martyr Monument. We walked to the Opera House (which was closed unfortunately) and St. Joseph’s Cathedral and then caught lunch at a nice café. Then we made our way to the Revolutionary Museum- which took about 2 hours to go through. It was quite an eye opener seeing the perspectives of war from the Vietnamese instead of the Americans. It was more than a history lesson could ever teach me, seeing everything from newspaper articles to bombs that were dropped to all different types of flags. The museum was broken down into sections. The first was the struggle for independence for almost one hundred years, the second was the Resistance War (known to us as the Vietnam War) and then the end was their steps to building a unified nation. I am not a museum person, and I loved this one because I learned so much that I feel like I should have known, but was never taught. It was absolutely horrifying to see images and read facts about what the American Government did to millions of innocent civilians in a war that to me seemed pointless. I think after that museum we all felt extremely moved and definitely effected by what we saw and learned in only 2 hours.
From there we tried to get to the Hoa Lo Prison, where American pilots were held captive by the French Colonizers (which I will explain later) but it was just about to close when we got there, so we would have to go the next day, which was fine because we were pretty drained from sightseeing all day. So we lightened the mood a little bit by shopping! What else?! We just walked around some markets and bought a few things…before heading to a cute pizza place for dinner which was nice because I can’t remember the last time I ate pizza. From there we went to the night market, where we bought so much in the first hour that we had to go back to the hotel to drop everything off before continuing. Stacey and I went back to the market after dropping off our goods and Sam & Peter went to get massages. Once Stacey and I finally said no more, we found a cute balcony restaurant because we were in the mood for dessert. Once Stacey saw Vegetarian Spring Rolls on the menu, she immediately had to get them, then we saw they had a whole vegetarian menu, which was really exciting because it was the first place we had seen that! So I had some great ice cream while she had spring rolls before heading back to the hotel around 1230am – the boys were already asleep from their massages, haha. The next day, we had even more to do, so we were up and out by about 830 to go to the “backpack capital of the world” as we called it. I kid you not when I say there were hundreds and hundreds of knockoff North Face backpacks for as far as we could see. I’m also not kidding that about 2 hours later…between the 4 of us we bought 21 North Face bags. RIDICULOUS, we are aware, but it was so worth it. Stacey got 9 for less than $100 USD. Some are better quality than others, some are fake and some are real, it can be hard to tell. But they are manufactured in Vietnam, so regardless, they were dirt cheap. I bought a new pack for myself which I have been looking forward to all trip because the buckles on mine are all cracked and there are holes in it – I mean, I have had it since about 7th grade, so it was time. Around the corner from Backpack World was Shoe World, where I bought a pair of really fun black & pink sneakers for dirt cheap. Of course, at this point we had to go back to the hotel to drop everything off. From there we hired a driver for the day and had him take us to whatever other sights we wanted to see, because there was a lot to do. We started off by heading to Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum. His body was in Russia, so it was not open and we could not go in the tomb, but we were able to see the Changing of the Guards which was pretty neat, and also see his House, as well as the Museum. The Presidential Palace was also right there, we didn’t go in but the grounds were absolutely beautiful. From there we headed back to the Prison which was again quite the eye opening sight. It was a French fun prison where hundreds of Vietnamese were held captive, and later where many American pilots were kept for quite awhile, including Senator John McCain. The prison was considered Hanoi Hilton by the Vietnamese because they claimed that the American soldiers had it so easy that it was barely a prison. There were pictures of the pilots playing volleyball, watching movies, cooking Thanksgiving dinner, and playing instruments. It was interesting to see it from their perspective, once again. Who knows what it was really like? McCain I suppose.
After the prison we went to the Museum of Ethnology which was interesting to see all of the indigenous tribes of Vietnam and learn about all of the different ethnic groups that make up the country. By this point we were pretty much burned out of museums and the such, but it was still a fun museum with lots of visuals which was good because I was over reading. We headed back to the hotel to take a quick nap before showering and getting ready for dinner (we went back to the same place Stacey and I went the day before) and got a FEAST since it was our last night in Hanoi. Then we headed to the Water Puppet Show, which is quite the interesting form of entertainment in Vietnam. They are hugely popular, and sell out every night, usually a day or two in advance. Basically, it is a pool of water with a curtain that puppeteers stand behind waste high in water and maneuver the puppets out of our view all around the pool of water. There is also a live band a singers that play on the side of the stage. There is no way to describe it without showing pictures and videos to you all – it is just a very bizarre theater arts that I am so glad we went to see because it is such a cultural staple in Vietnam. Stacey and Sam went to do more shopping after that while Claire, Eric, Peter & myself went to get foot massages which were amazing. I had never had one before, and it was glorious, and they served us hot tea! A 30 min foot massage for $4USD…who would pass that up?? After that we were exhausted and ready for bed! We woke up around 530 to catch a cab for our 8am flight back to Ho Chi Minh City. I had bought a Lonely Planet Japan guide book so I stayed up the whole flight reading about what I was going to do in Japan and transportation, etc. I think it was the first flight ever that I did not fall asleep during, which was pretty notable…and also which made my pretty tired for the last day in Vietnam!! So right when we landed in Ho Chi Minh we decided last minute that we would have time to go to the Cu Chi Tunnels if we did it quickly. So we found a driver, and drove about an hour and a half to the tunnels. THIS was an eye opening experience. I will be honest when I say that I didn’t know much about the tunnels at all, I even think part of me thought that the Americans lived in the tunnels. Well, how wrong I was. We saw a video at the very beginning of the tour which was in our eyes, ridiculous. It just seemed like such propaganda against the Americans, talking about the people of the Cu Chi region who were reigned as heroes when they shot down the “American devils”. But it was truly impressive the 250km of tunnels that they constructed. All of the ones that we went through (except for one) were enlarged by 40% so that tourists could walk through them, and that is NOT comfortably. We were all hunched over, our backs were touching the top of the openings. There was one that we did go through that was 70 meters long, that honestly was quite frightening. Stacey legitimately had a panic attack because it was so dark and so claustrophobic. We were literally crouched down on the ground and all sides of our bodies were touching the walls and ceiling and it was extremely difficult to walk through. I could not imagine how this is the way the people of the Cu Chi region lived during the whole war with the Americans, and how they won from living in those conditions. We felt bad because we kind of had to rush through the rest of the tour because we needed to get back to Ho Chi Minh, but we were SO glad that we went there to see the dense jungle that so many soldiers lost their lives in and where we fought in a war for so long- it was really the first time I had been to a place where I knew so many thousands of American soldiers died from war. Never would I have imagined…
The two hour ride back to Ho Chi Minh got us to the ship around 4pm, and on ship time was 9pm. We all had certain things that we had to do, including going back to Ben Thanh market for several different things, and then going to the tailor to pick up our dresses/suits. I got to the tailor around 630pm, which turned out to be an hour long mess. The dress was beautiful and fit really well, except for this little bubble that was right in the middle of the dress. Basically, they sent me across the street to the third floor of this apartment building, where about 15 tiny Vietnamese women and girls were sewing there little hearts out, and it was craziness up there for 45 minutes. First they tried to iron it out, but that was not going to work, so they had me in the dress, out of the dress, drawing with chalk, stitching while it was on me, ironing more, stitching more, taking stitches out…basically mayhem. And none of them spoke English- and I just wanted to leave for 2 minutes to get my bag since Stacey was still at the tailor with it, so that they could go do what they needed, but they never let me. So after 45 minutes I told them I needed to leave and just kind of took the dress and left- and I didn’t actually try it on the final time, but that is OK I can get it fixed at home if it still needs more. By then it was about 745pm and we had to get back to the ship because there is typically a lot of students getting on the last hour, so a long line is possible. So we rode on motorbikes back to the port. Somehow Steph and I both got on to one, but she got the helmet and I didn’t…and I had bags of stuff- it was quite interesting – then I burned myself on the exhaust pipe when I got off but it was OK. I saw a pay phone across the street which I had a calling card that I had bought in Hanoi….but of course like all other public phones in Vietnam it was broken. Luckily there was a nice man who saw how much distress I was in and let me pay him $2USD to use his phone, so I was able to talk to my parents for a few minutes, then Darren for a few minutes which was SO nice. I was on the phone with Nate when I saw an SAS shuttle bus come in, which usually means that there are a LOT of people on it, which a LOT of stuff, and there was no way I was getting stuck behind them on the gangway, so I hung up and then RAN to the gangway, and luckily beat them by only a few minutes, and had 40 minutes to write 10 postcards. So I apologize to those who are getting postcards from Vietnam and they are so messy and frazzled, but I was on quite the time constraint! So that was my Vietnam experience, and it didn’t settle in until the next night when we had a panel of faculty members on the ship who told personal accounts of their lives during the time of the War and how little I knew…how my family had been affected and the entire country. It was an emotional night to say the least of stories being told and the highest of feelings coming out to the whole shipboard community. I am too tired to write about the election right now, but perhaps if I have time in the morning, I will write more about that. Let’s just say, almost everyone on the ship has Obama Fever, and no one went to class this morning because we were all crammed into the Union watching the live coverage that we were able to get. Many tears were shed and it is surreal not being anywhere near the United States for this day that will forever be remembered in American history.
No comments:
Post a Comment