World Blog: Vietnam

Vietnam was definitely one of my favorite countries. Geographically and climatically it is about the same as Thailand, which was EXTREMELY hot and humid, but still awesome. I think I just liked Vietnam better because we did a lot of cultural stuff. We docked in Ho Chi Minh City, which was a few hours up the Saigon river, so it was cool watching our ship go up a river that wasn't very wide at all. There were all sorts of little row boats and stuff with fishermen in them, and then our big huge boat. The first day we just walked around Ho Chi Minh City, which is very modern, did a little shopping and visited the War Remnants Museum. I bought a new lens for my camera, too. Its really crazy how the shopping here works, they are all really tiny stores open to the outside run by families. There are blocks or districts for each item, there were like 4 blocks of camera stores, a few blocks specifically for video games, etc. So shopping for my lens I was able to compare prices really easily at whatnot. Anyway, after that we visited the War Remnants Museum, which is a halfway outdoors museum, mostly very intense black and white photographs taken of the war. After about an hour there, we headed back to the ship. That night, we met up with Bill's sister's friend, who just happens to be teaching English in Vietman. She and her friends took us to eat dinner at the night market and then we walked around and went to their favorite bar. It was really fun and interesting to see what some of the locals like to do in Vietnam

The second morning, we left for our trip to the Mekong Delta. It was a few hours away, but well worth it. The Mekong Delta is the center of life for everyone in the Greater Mekong Delta area. Every single aspect of their life, from getting to school to selling their crops, is completely dependent upon the delta and the many canals and water-roads. When we first got there, we went on a boat ride around the delta and saw everyone buying and selling in the water-marketplace, the houseboats, and the stilt houses. Our guide told us that it would be much more interesting and bustling when we go in the early morning, however. We made several stops along the river and saw how rice and coconut candies are made, as well as tea and popped rice. We also went to a brick factory, which was interesting but also random and out of place. After that we stopped at another place and got bikes and road around through this jungle path for a little over an hour. That was really cool, we rode by all these little houses and got to see first hand how the Mekong Delta people live. We rode over canals and bridges on the little pathways. After that, we rode on a traditional Vietnamese paddle boat, which was really cool. Everyone there wears the Vietnamese rice hats to protect them from the sun. After that, we headed to the stilt house where we were saying.

The stilt house/inn place was AWESOME. We pulled up (we had a group of about 15), where the family greeted us. There were two large, outdoor rooms right over the water full of cots under mosquito nets. We all claimed our beds and then went walking around. There were a bunch of hammocks on an open deck with tables and stuff, so we all layed around on the hammocks until dinner tie. The family also had there bedrooms in this stilt house as well. There were outdoor bathrooms and showers, and also a kitchen. Everything was outside, no air conditioning or anything. They showed us how to make spring rolls and let us make them as part of our dinner. We also at fish, pasta, and rice. It was very delicious. The fried fish was literally a whole fish, served in one piece standing up in the middle of the table. It looked sort of scary at first.

Sleeping that night was hard. At about 3 am, some people across the river from the house, only about 15 years, spent the entire morning trying to start their boat and was EXTREMELY loud. All of the boats around southeast Asia, if they have motors, have automobile motors connected to a long axle with a propeller on the end. So sleeping was pretty much out of the question. We left the stilt house pretty early and headed to another city on the delta, Can Tho. We checked into our hotel there around noon and had some lunch. After that, we headed out to a Cambodian style Buddhist Temple about an hour and a half away. There, we were able to see and talk to the monks, who wore bright orange robes, which is apparently the common attire for Buddhist monks. Inside the temple was an extremely elaborately painted story of the life of the Buddha. After that we just headed back to Can Tho and ate some dinner and went to bed because we had to wake up really early the next morning to go visited the Mekong Delta floating market.

The floating market was incredible, and extremely bustling. All of the boats put whatever they are selling on top of a big pole (for example, a bunch of bananas on top of the pole if they sold bananas), and people pull up next to each other to buy and sell. It was really evident how much the people depend on the river for their livelihoods. After that we just headed back to Ho Chi Minh City and the boat.

The last day we visited the Cu Chi Tunnels, about an hour away from Ho Chi Minh city. These are the tunnels that were dug underground and used during the Vietnam war. We watched a short, extremely biased, movie about the war and then went on a walking tour of the area. We walked around the grounds and saw craters from bombs and then got to crawl through the tunnels. It was incredible to learn that the Vietcong soldiers would stay underground in these tunnels for days. The tunnels started out tall enough so that you could crouch over and walk, but they gradually got so small that you would have to army crawl to get through them. We only went through it for about 150 yards (not everyone made it, there were exits every 30 yards), but it was extremely hard, pitch black, and unbearably hot. The tunnel system was extremely intricate, and designed specifally to take advantage of the weaknesses of American soldiers. On our walking tour, we were also shown the actual “booby trap,” such as swinging trap doors over huge, deathly spikes. It was even more intense than the War Remnants Museum. There was also a shooting range on the grounds of the Cu Chi Tunnels, so the whole time there were gunshots going off, as if it was during the war. It was crazy and really, really eerie. Interestingly though, everyone we kept talking to explained that the Vietnamese have no hard feelings toward the United States. They recognize that both sides did extremely terrible things, merely for the sake of war. Now, there is a very good relationship between the US and Vietnam. Side note- Vietnam was also our first communist country, but there was really no noticeable difference at all (unlike China, which was our next country).

After we got back to HCMC we just walked around and did some last minute shopping before heading back to the boat.