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Published: November 13th 2008
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Halong Bay
This bay is in the very northern part of Vietnam. The islands are formed of limestone and are very unique. We stayed on a boat overnight to cruise through the islands and see all of them. Hello again. We are now in Vietnam, which is to the east of Laos (the last country we wrote from). Vietnam shares a border with both Laos and Cambodia.
We started in the north of Vietnam, in the country's capital, Hanoi. We have travelled by bus (over 40 hours, but it was broken up into 5 segments) all the way down the coast to Saigon, also known as Ho Chi Minh City. Vietnam has a very long coastline, like both California and Florida. The sea that borders it is known as the South China Sea, which is a part of the Pacific Ocean.
Today we learned that Vietnam is the second largest exporter of rice in the world. Thailand is the first largest exporter. Ten years ago, Vietnam imported rice because they ate more than they could grow. At that time, the government owned all the rice paddies in the country. However, about ten years ago the Vietnamese government gave the rice paddies to individual people to own. This created an incentive for people to produce more rice more efficiently because they could now make money from growing rice. So the same rice paddies now produce more rice than
Women Fishing
Many people in Vietnam fish for their job as well as to get food to prepare for their meals. Many times they dry the fish so that it will last many days without spoiling. they used to. Because of things like this Vietnam has grown not only in terms of it's production of rice, but in other ways as well. The people are now wealthier than they used to be and are able to eat many different types of food, rather than just eating rice. So, because they grow more rice, and eat less, they can now export it to the rest of the world.
Another product that Vietnam exports is rubber. While we were driving through the countryside today, we saw large rubber plantations. In the plantations there are long rows of trees and each tree has a bowl strapped to it to catch fluid, known as latex, coming out of the tree's trunk. This fluid is then used to make rubber for items such as tires, rubber bands, pencil erasers, shoes and many many more things.
Something that we have found very interesting about Vietnam is the number of people who ride motorbikes instead of cars. Most families own one or two motorbikes, rather than one or two cars as they do in the United States. The reason they own motorbikes instead is because cars are too expensive since the
Safety First
Everyone wears a helmet on their motorbike-and often they even leave it on when they get off and are doing other things like shopping or fishing because they have no place to leave it. They also wear masks over their mouth and nose to filter out the pollution from all the motorbikes. government puts a 130% tax on them. This means that when someone buys a car, if it cost $10,000, they would have to pay an additional $13,000 in tax, making the car cost in total $23,000. This means, basically, that they have to buy one car for the price of two. (math problem: If you were in Vietnam and wanted a Toyota Prius that costs $25,000, what would the total price be after 130% tax?) This is not very affordable. There are about 85 million people in Vietnam and the government estimates that there are nearly 55 million motorbikes. In the cities, especially, there are millions of motorbikes. This means you have to be very careful when crossing the street because instead of looking out for just a few cars, you have to look out for many motorbikes that take up the same amount of space as the cars would. As in the United States, they have a law that everyone must wear a helmet when riding on a motorbike. Just like you may own a bicycle helmet, many kids here have motorbike helmets. They even sell ones that look like ladybugs or have bunny ears.
One of the
Cu Chi Tunnels
This is the entrance to one of the tunnels. Matt tried climbing into it and almost got stuck, but luckily he made it out! reasons that we decided to visit Vietnam is because there is a lot of history between the U.S. and Vietnam. In the mid to late 1960's the U.S. and Vietnam (and a couple of other countries) fought in a war about political ideas. We call this war the Vietnam war, however the Vietnamese call this war the American war. All of the war was fought in Vietnam (and the neighboring country's). Today we visited a place called the Cu Chi Tunnels, which is an underground system of tunnels and rooms that the Vietnamese soldiers dug for over 20 years and used to hide during the fighting. They dug more than 155 miles of tunnels. We got to crawl down into some of the tunnels. It was very tight and in some places we even had to crawl on our hands and knees to fit. Even though America and Vietnam were enemies during the war, the countries are now on good terms and the people have been friendly and welcoming.
We hope you've found Vietnam as interesting as we have. See you in Cambodia!
Matt and Megan
A few words in Vietnamese:
Xin Chao- hello
Ding hu- good sleep
Matt surfing
Surfing isn't as popular in Vietnam as it is in California and Vietnam, but Matt was still able to find a surfboard and go for a surf. Cam on- thank you
Co- yes
Khong- no
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