Vietnam!

So Vietnam was… mmm… a culture shock. I loved it! And then it was hard too. and ah! Well, here’s what I did: The port was different then the others so far because it wasn’t on the ocean but we had to sail up a river for about… 3 hours until we got to the port just near Ho Chin Min City or Saigon.

I did Vietnam with my friend Jackie and Lauren, Lauren has a friend and former SASer living there (Ahntwan) with his best friend and former SASer (James – hot. haha, seriously hot though.) soooo without communication we were stressed on how we were going to find them, but just a few minutes off the ship we ran into Ahntwan – by the way I don’t think this spelling is correct, and everything was uphill from there! Every thing there is on motorbikes, and it’s crazy! There are a crazy amount of people and there are no traffic regulations or anything everyone just goes. The quote I have on it is that the driver is “only responsible for what is in front of them. If you make a right turn or something you don’t have to look.” So that wassss really cool.

Ahntwan brought us right away to the backpackers district. Our hotel was 6$ a night and incredibly helpful, there was this travel agent in the lobby, Wong (I think his name was), but he knew like 5 languages and we really sat down with him a lot, Jackie and I had like an hour and a half conversation with him about American tourists and how horrible we have acted and how much they just really don’t like us… so that was much later in the trip but… mood killer you know? Though they dislike Australians even more, so it’s interesting to know that we Americans are not the worst visitors.

So the first day Vietnam was working so well, we got hooked up with a great hotel and right away it was all about just chilling out and walking slowly (which I by the end of the week was also not really able to do) and sitting and talking so that was cool. also there is a mid day break where people take naps and stuff, because they stay up late and wake up early, I like the sound of that lifestyle also but it doesn’t really fit me… but yeah, so we went and got a Vietnamese iced coffee, which was SO good. I ended up drinking a ton of them… with the ice… from everywhere, we broke a lot of the ‘rules’ last week. We’re having some issues but not too bad. I think our defenses were down because we were with an American who ate/drank/did everything. Some people got really really sick though. But I was happy not being so paranoid as I have been – except when we were on the Mekong Delta, the water was splashing on me and I was thinking.. mmm I might be contracting… dengue fever. But yes, Vietnamese iced coffee (it has condensed milk in it) is very good.

After that we did some shopping in the markets, much cleaner then China, they give much less pressure and the markets are indoors and organized and a lot of the stuff is real. North face and a lot of outdoorsy companies and shoes are made in Vietnam not China, I sadly didn’t buy anything though, though I was thinking I should buy a 20$ backpacking bag for doing Europe (: though I saved my money… uhh kind of, because everything was so cheap! So cheap! Ah it was really really exciting, I haven’t mentioned that yet, most our meals were like 2-3$ even some fancy ones. It was ummm AWESOME.

We went to an underground sports bar restaurant for lunch, there were a lot of Europeans there, and it was SO GOOD. Honestly I sound ridiculous but all the food was really just so good, everything we got was just made well and tasted plain old good. I got a bacon lettuce tomato and avocado burger. It was worth blogging about. We sat around and chatted with Ahntwan and learned about Vietnam, his SAS semester. It was so great to have an inside perspective, he brought us to cool shops, I bought a really cool shirt for umm about 6$ and then we had some clothes made. I got a silk dress, that is umm. Well I designed it myself so it isn’t perfect, it’s pretty boxy but it’s pretty, it was cheap and it’s cool that I designed a dress, though it’s still in the bag and I should probably take that out… also I had some shorts made, they’re pretty cute though they didn’t make the cuff as big as I had designed…. So you live and learn but it was a cool experience and I would be a good designer if I worked with people who spoke the same language as me… haha.

That evening Ahntwan had work – but his aunt, who lives in Paris, was visiting Vietnam, so she, James, and us girls decided to go to a water puppet show – which is really sweet, just really miraculous, the puppeteers stand in the water behind a curtain and move these massive puppets all around and they like, never reveal their secrets I guess but yeah very cool. I took a little video of it. But the stressful thing was the serious language barrier! I tried to speak French with her but it is really amazing how little adam hilevsky taught me… though he was so wonderful. So the tickets for the show were sold out, until the next show 1.5 hours later, so… we had some waiting to do. We decided to get some coffee, but the aunt (who also spoke Vietnamese) brought us to this really trendy bar/restaurant where the music was so loud (at like 5pm) the language issue turned into an awkward issue. We moved upstairs (where it was much quieter) and made conversation, James had been on the SAS voyage where they were hit by the typhoon and hearing the story first hand was nuts.

That night we went out for dinner at this place that was on the roof of this fabulous restaurant that I guess brad and angelena go to, haha so we were on the roof of it and the middle of the table was a grill but it wasn’t.. fancy, there were mostly locals there and I don’t know, it was just really authentic, we tried to order some weird stuff but the best thing we ended up with was, shrimp, skewered, but still alive! Wiggling around! And we cooked them on the grill, and ate their heads! Their whole bodies! And. It. Was. So. GGGOOoooOODDD. There are pictures of me eating them.

We got around all night on the back of the boys motorbikes, which was really fun. Once a bunch of SASers ran into me and James when we were lost and trying to find the others, and it was soo cool. I definitely never want to be that elitist girl but it felt good to be so cool. haha we spent the rest of the night just hanging out at those guy’s place, it was really cool, 7 foreigners live in one big place, the whole layout is just different, it was tall and skinny, some of the bathrooms are showers (which was true of our hotels too, it’s like one big shower/toilet/sink room), motorbikes parked inside, big chain lock on the door, open air. The roof was the best, we went up there and could see the whole city. So cool.

The whole city by day is just so cool, it’s this street life culture, everyone is out sitting outside, every store/house/building is an open window, no walls/windows just open. Everything was interesting from downtown way out 5 hours out of it, I feel like it rarely opened up, every once in awhile there were rice paddies or jungle but really it was crazy open buildings and people and shops and homes and more people.

The second day we did a day trip to see the Cao Dai (sounds like cow die) temple and the Cu Chi tunnels. The temple was ridiculous! I don’t want to say that something like a temple is ridiculous, but it really was. I thought it was going to be cool because it’s the modern religion where disciples include Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, and uh someone else, and it sounded cool but when we got there it’s like a Disney land barfed up with all these colors and patterns and those eyeballs inside triangles. It was just like a candy land with some nice ornate stuff and tons of old Vietnamese in full length outfits. They meet there to worship 4 times a day, all services welcome visitors but especially the noon service, where you stand in a balcony and… and… TAKE PICTURES! Man it was just strange. There was singing and it was beautiful… but the mix of spirituality and I guess the only word I can think of is commercialism… is a relationship I haven’t quite understood or finished thinking about yet, I think I’m going to write my philosophy paper on this craziness.

Independently traveling we found it necessary to book tours, as everything is several hours outside the city and transportation is what always is hardest to organize/gain a handle on. So taking tours – not American (though in English) was definitely a very interesting experience, there is no hand holding there is no detailed communication, we left 2 of our 10 behind at the temple because they were 6 minutes late! 2 hours outside of Saigon! And this is not even bad compared to our guide the next night, but I’ll talk about him later!

So next we went to the Cu Chi tunnels, where the Vietcong tunnels were, and it was intense. The workers were all decked out in Vietcong uniform, which was strange, and makes you think, everyone over the age of like… 35 ought to hate us here… and ummm how many of these men, I don’t know, fought with the Vietcong? And now show tourists around?? A lot? Maybe. It was definitely pretty scary. For one it was pouring rain. And so there was mud and we were in the middle of the jungle, and there’s a shooting range where tourists can fire a gun, so there are shots going off and it makes you think. for sure it makes you think, wow war sucks. But also just like… unstable, like we lost the war in Vietnam, and these guys know it, and they saw it and lived it and yeah, it was just a little scary, when they demonstrated the traps they had to kill and capture American soldiers. Our guide seemed to think I was from Germany for some reason (I’m thinking it’s cause I look like Augustas Gloop these days) but I have to get this out that I’m feeling like a total jerk because I shot two bullets at the shooting range there and now thinking about that, I’m like Emily! What were you thinking?? I definitely did not think through the consequences of that action, and I feel bad about it now. What was the purpose of that gun? Uh to kill people. To kill who? I don’t know which I fired but it could have been to kill Vietnamese or to kill Americans, so either way definitely Not good. And what’s more is I know there was an option of choosing which you’d like to fire, so I had to think about what does that mean? I know that the bullets cost almost more than admission to the tunnels (like 4$) why? Where does that money go? Ah I feel like that is just wrong, what a crazy touristy trap I got into. And you can buy Vietcong shirts and pins and scarves and… I know you can buy U.S. army stuff like that and the Japanese must find that weird at like… Pearl Harbor or some place but seriously seeing that stuff, I spent a few minutes thinking about the consequences of myself buying a scarf like that, or a hat or t-shirt or a little pin. Ah, it just makes me feel kind of sick.

And I was already feeling kind of sick because let me tell you that bus ride was wicked bumpy! It was worth it though the tunnels were definitely an experience. They have some that they have doubled the size so westerners can fit down there. We tried to make it, you go down in there and there are a few exits along about a 100m tunnel, we made it to the emergency exit! There was no light it was wet hot, not enough room to crouch I had to crawl and it was scary. I wish I could have gone to at least the 1st exit but I am told there were bats a bit further down so not too concerned I didn’t!

That night we went to see an Australian band at an Irish Pub in Vietnam. Yeah it was weird. The band was like a funny band, but not flight of the concords funny, but like… uhhh older man… weird Al’ish… did covers had quiz bowls gave away prizes funny. Honestly it was just a really bizarre experience. I was by far the youngest person in the place, I saw one guy I though might be roughly 20, Ahntwan knew him and confirmed that he was 32. so. After that we went back to our area, where the power was out! Ahntwan says they have rolling blackouts, usually they’re scheduled but they regularly shut down grids because they have no other way of letting… the electricity cool down? Or something. It was nuts. Randomly during this black out I was recognized by some SASers sitting around a table on the corner. So we hung out with them for a bit until it was bed time.

We got up early the next morning for our 2 day Mekong delta overnight. We stopped at a handicap craft factory. Which was really cool, watching the craft making process, and so much work involved! Manual labor of these things is so amazing! Like carving and sketching and placing things just the right way. It’s really cool. I definitely bought something, these people are artists and they probably make … very little.

When we got to the river we pretty much spent two days boating around on it going to various places. We went to a coconut candy factory – again insane the amount of manual labor, and so good! There were like 4 girls whose job it was to wrap each little piece, at warp speed. We’re wondering if maybe this is just for show and these candies are mass produced some where, because all the places we went had the same brand of coconut candy and plastic packaging. Also everywhere sold the same sort of coconut handicrafts and all that. But yeah, it was cool to see how hard it is to make something – we also went to a rice noodles place where like 20 people were making tons and tons of rice paper. Very hands on and interesting.

One cool thing we did was get in a little boat (the 3 of us) and be taken down a little section of water by Vietnamese women. It was really cool because they had us wear the hats. It was kind of a really special thing (hard to explain why, but it felt cool) until every ship that passes us going the opposite way or was floating would say, tip them money! Tip them! And variations of give them money and tip them and stuff, and it really ruined it. Like every single person said that, and so our girls acted shy and stuff but you know they said the exact same thing on their way back. It just kind of ruined the moment but I understand why they did it but it was just sad. I tipped them because how could I not have? It’s not like they have much, I just wish I could have just done it on my own. It was the same all over town, tons of kids ask for money and try and sell little stuff and mom’s rent out babies to carry around to ask for money! Ah It’s crazy and going to be worse in India.

The night of our overnight we definitely ran into some problems. Our travel guy set us up in a bungalow – the whole trip (delta, transportation, food, stay overnight) was all included for the price of $32. but so it turned out that we were the only 3 of our group staying in the bungalow, everyone else in a hotel, and we were going to have to get on motorbikes, drive 30min, meet back up with the group in the morning at the boat market, it was pitch dark out, we didn’t know what city we were in, and when we went to get our bags where we had stored them in the bus, they weren’t there! Our guide got really difficult – didn’t give us any information on the next day, told us we could have our bags in the morning and tried to just shoe us off for the night. We said we would just pay the money for a night in the hotel and stay with the group (all of $4) and he was like ok, then 3 min later came over and was like your motorbikes are waiting for you. And then he like acted like it was really hard for him to speak and understand English, though he had been doing it all day (and all the time after that), it was so weird. I kind of wanted to go to the bungalow because I thought it would be an experience, but jumping on the back of some random guys motor bike at night when I don’t know where I am without my.. .contact solution even! Was… not a grand idea. So we put our foot down and was like no we’re staying with the group and I think my dad would have been proud but it was just so unsettling to be treated that way. At right away when we stayed he went at length to facilitate this Australian family staying at a nicer hotel in the area – we will pick you up at 7:10 tomorrow.. all that. Really weird. :( the next day sometimes he would also just take off, like I was left behind at this crowded gate (with some other group members – but not my friends) and got on a completely different ferry, he wouldn’t even turn around or be like this way guys he would just walk ahead and expect to follow. Weirdddd.

The cool thing about doing this was you got to meet some other travelers, there was this young guy just out of the Israeli army, traveling for 6 months! They give you money once you finish your service, so he was definitely using it, going everywhere – he smoked a ton, that was one negative thing about Vietnam (and all of these countries kind of) everywhere is a big ashtray one can smoke anywhere they want. This guy told us (with this really weird look on his face honestly I’ll never forget it, it was like he was saying something kind of scandalous that he wasn’t supposed to and like scared for our reaction but like also triumphant… hard to explain but… yeah forever imprinted) but we were talking about visas, and he told us that China really doesn’t like Americans, there is a list of prices for how much a visa is from each country and they charge us the most. Maybe because they can? I wonder, but also yeah. It was interesting to learn that though.

We also met a European girl, who was traveling all through southeast asia by herself, which sounded pretty scary to me but she was outgoing and said she kind of hooked up with others along the way and traveled with them for a bit, it was cool she said because if they didn’t get along she could just move on. She was currently going along with this young attractive Australian guy, they seemed to be hitting it off which would be my dream… haha. There were also 3 girls from Spain…one reminded me a lot of Tara, haha even though she couldn’t speak English really, just her friends, but yeah the recommended us some places in southern Spain and we all generally talked about our traveling.

The second day we spent on the water a lot. We went to 2 floating markets where we tried a lot of fruit and stuff. Very very good. We tried some weird fruits, it was awesome. So many people with their boats filled with what they grow and they get their at 5am and sell or trade it and they do so on the water so it won’t be taxed and people are on bigger boats and little tiny boats, and there are some more for the tourists, I couldn’t find a diet coke in like any of the places we went in Vietnam but a little boat pulled up to us and I bought one from a little girl out of a boat in the middle of the Mekong Delta. I thought that was kind of funny.

I made sure to ‘let myself get a little ripped off sometimes’ it was something a professor said a few days ago and I thought it was a good idea. Old lady living in a tiny boat selling… we are still not really sure what she was selling but it tasted kind of like a donut (can’t believe I ate that though! Ah I’m lucky to be alive), can keep the change and get 20 cents instead of 8 for it.

One cool thing we did is go on a boat somehow and come out in the middle of the jungle where we had tea and fruits and listened to some little girls sing and men play instruments, and they probably do it 100 times a day, but it felt special and cool.

Oh I should mention some more about the bus/driving experience – uh crazy. There are no lanes really though roughly stay to the right, and there is tons of passing and often we would be headed strait for oncoming traffic then swerve out of the way at the last second and we were in a big bus but there were bikes and motorbikes and other busses and trucks and it was just very hectic.

That night was our last in Vietnam, this is the night Jackie and I had our long talk with Wong about sexual exploitation of Vietnamese women by western tourists. So that was cheerful! Not, but yeah then we sat outside with a bunch of SASers we saw with Ahntwan, us 3 girls left for dinner for a bit trying Pho which is really big there it’s noodles and meat in a soup and you add your own stuff to it- it’s good but

Ah I forgot to tell you about the amazing food that I had! They eat their omelets there on baguettes! So it was an egg omelet, with cheese, carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, and soy sauce on a toasted baguettes. And it was so good. I’m going to make it for my family when I get home!

Haha, but yeah that night we went bowling! Which was funny because I was bowling in Vietnam and it was honestly the nicest bowling ally I’ve ever been in. it was really clean and black lights and there was an arcade and zebra couches and really nice comfy chairs, and tons of lanes, and really nice bar area, and candy shop, and you got a pair of socks when you rented shoes, and really nice but I WAS HORRIBLE. I am a really bad bowler! I have to come to terms with this (and never bowl again because it’s so embarrassing) at the end of the night we got some broken rice. Which is rice that doesn’t make it out because it’s ‘broken’ but has more flavor and costs like… no money at all. We bought it from a street vendor and ate it on the side of the road before returning to the hotel.

Our last day I was kind of impatient because Lauren really wanted to spend a lot of time with her friend but we had kind of a lot to do and coordinating schedules was difficult and everyone was probably kind of low energy after 4 nights in Vietnam but we bought a book on Thailand (a 700 page photocopy of a lonely plant – haha), aahhh I forgot to mention the movies I bought! I bought 22 movies, the complete 1-10 seasons of friends, seasons 1-3 of entourage, and part of Jack’s Christmas present! Very very cool. Each movie is under a dollar and so far all of mine work! I have spent the past two days in my bed or in my friends room watching entourage, movies, and almost all of season 10 of friends. Haha. It’s been awesome. But yeah we spend a lot of time trying to plan out Thailand so it would be as low stress as possible, but nothing panned out and we’re ported in Thailand right now with plan tickets at 2:45 from an airport over 2 hours away and… well… we’ll see I guess. But we had lunch with Ahntwan and headed to our very much anticipated visit to the war remnants museum.

The War Remnants Museum used to be titled the American War Crimes Museum – but they changed the name… though having visited myself I’d have to say not really the focus. The museum was cool because it wasn’t really typical, it had a lot a lot of photographs, probably because so many people who go there speak different languages there wasn’t a lot of explanation (there was definitely some though) but tons and tons of pictures. And yeah. Well. I feel bad because I could write paragraphs and paragraphs on this. But I have to go pack for Thailand and I don’t really want to think about this right now. The main feeling I took away from it was that war and violence sucks for everyone, they had a lot of pictures of destruction in the American soldiers so it’s not like it was biased at all. There was this one section with a quote from the constitution – all men created equal, and then pictures of Vietnamese being tortured. There was this whole building that was like a war prison and they had mannequins in there and sketches of torture and stuff, interestingly it was sketches of Americans torturing but of south Vietnamese torturing the south Vietnamese gorillas (Vietcong). Yeah it was horrible but good to have gone. I guess a good way to describe it is that I really felt kind of sick the whole time.

That night we picked up our dresses and then made our way though very heavy traffic to meet Ahntwan and this other girl from SAS – Cara, at a restaurant with a lot of Vietnamese favorites, Ahntwan ordered for the table and we tried everything and I had my last iced coffee. It was nice and sad to say good bye. We took a cab to the ship (had to be on by 9) and when we got out Ahntwan had followed on his bike! He was like ‘we didn’t get a picture!” so that was really nice because I was thinking maybe we had been a burden and did he really enjoy our company? And it was the perfect way to show that he did!

A lot of SASers took a trip to Cambodia while we were in Vietnam, everyone of them said it was the best thing they ever did – go to Anchor What.. Sp? But yeah I’ll have to do that some day because it sounds fantastic.

Ok well I have to get going but I wanted to say that, oh I got really homesick and friendsick in Vietnam, did I already mention that? Well I did. I can’t remember because I’ve done a lot of lounging and tv watching in the past few days, oh but also a ton of homework! My life got hard 2 nights ago! Here you thought I was lounging around living the life of a boat person, I had to stay up til 3 am for my stupid 300 level physics course! Ah I am kicking myself for not transferring out of that ridiculous class. I almost had a panic attack because I was just lost for how I was going t do 3 problems due the next day. Ridiculous. Okay well I hope Thailand is a blast and I’ll let you all know! :) MISS YOU.