Ho Chi Mihn City

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On November 3rd at 8 a.m., we made our way up the Saigon River to the one and only Ho Chi Minh City. Yep, that’s in Vietnam. The whole voyage and the time up until the voyage I was looking forward to Vietnam; I thought it was going to be an awesome experience, as I didn’t really know too much about the place. It wasn’t until we left India and began studying Vietnam, that I realized this wasn’t entirely true. All of a sudden we were talking about a little thing called the Vietnam War (the American War in Vietnam) and I made some connections. So maybe I did know something about this country, I just hadn’t prepared myself properly or really ever sat down and thought about Vietnam. This is a war that while we talk about it occasionally or people reference it, or our uncles tell us about their experiences during it, the Vietnamese don’t. They do have some museums and sights to visit, but generally speaking about it is not common and most would recommend not bringing up at all. Vietnam has a young population (if you want exact number check out the CIA World Factbook) that doesn’t know a whole lot about the war because they were not alive during it.

Okay, so Vietnam is bright, it is energetic, it is fast paced and moving, in fact it is trying to move forward 50 steps at a time. To me Vietnam can only be described as a firecracker. I think at this point it is just waiting to explode and I think we will be seeing that explosion not too far off in the future. Some of these Asian countries threw me off because it seemed so strange to be walking through these intense, eclectic markets with all these crazy souvenirs and interesting people and then hit up Highlands Coffee or Gloria Jean’s, which almost perfectly resemble your neighborhood Starbucks.

The first day in Vietnam we took off in search of dress and suit makers. So many people had told us about getting clothing made here and Lonely Planet even recommended a few locations, so we figured it was a “must do” in Vietnam and we were determined to find just the place to do it. At first when we got off the bus we were a little lost and confused because we were planning on being bombarded by shops that custom made clothing, but we quickly realized that we were going to have to search. We also found that some people just couldn’t make some of the things we were looking for. So after about an hour of looking we started to see the shops everywhere and eventually I found a place that was willing to try to make the dresses I had in mind. After we discussed the dresses in broken English, drew them out, and I was fitted, I went with Bryan and Jeremy to find a place that would make some suits for them. We found a place that had been recommended by our inter-port students and got down to business. After a few hours of fittings, fabric choices, and design elements, they had each designed a suit that was sure to impress.

Now as you all know when I read about a country and start to see recommendations for bakeries, cafes, and ice cream shops, that these sorts of places need to be explored. So after the morning of playing designers we found refuge in a place called Fanny. Fanny is an ice cream shop that offers all natural ice creams in all different flavors, including avocado. Here we each enjoyed a delicious ice cream that was decorated so beautifully I almost didn’t want to eat it; however, I did eat it. Oh, and did I mention (again) that it was organic and all natural too!

After our lovely little midday treat, we headed down to the Ben Thanh market in search of some North Face. The market had DVDs, fake bags, food, Vietnamese trinkets, and cosmetics galore. Anything and everything you could possibly want or need was right here in this crazy market. I think we found good quality North Face backpacking backpacks for $10-$15 and that included a smaller bag thrown in the mix. These are bags that normally retail for about $200 or more and I know they are “knockoffs” but it got me all through China, Japan, and home without a scratch, tear, or even pull. We also did some comparisons and we realized that the only way you could tell the difference between the $200 backpack and the $10 backpack that that the plastic clips were not has strong and durable on the fake one as the real one. So anyways after a busy day of shopping and bartering we returned to the ship to change and get ready to go out.

The next day I slept in a little bit after the crazy evening at Apocalypse Now, a bar/club that was packed to the brim with all of the Semester at Sea kids. We planned on finding a spa for some massages today since that was the next thing that appeared to be a “must do” in Vietnam. We eventually found this cute spa not too far from the middle of town where I went all out and got a 3-hour package. This spa package included a scrub, a massage, a manicure and pedicure, and a facial for about $50 and I figured when in Vietnam. However, 6 hours later and short the mani-pedi, I had to leave to go meet up with friends for the evening. I had dinner at this great place Quan An Gnon, which was setup with cooks all around the outside rim of the restaurant so you could walk around and watch them prepare your meals while you waited for your food. After dinner I got coffee and checked my email at Highland’s Coffee. By the way for all you coffee buffs, Vietnam has some of the best coffee in the world.

The next three days were packed with activities and different sights one can find in and around Ho Chi Mihn City. First we hit up the Cu Chi Tunnels. These tunnels were used by Vietnamese guerrillas as hiding spots, communication and supply routes, hospitals, and living quarters for the fighters and their families during the war. These tunnels were so small that I could barely crawl through them and they have been made wider and taller twice since the war (mainly to accommodate tourists). We started our morning by arguing with a group of about 20 taxi drivers trying to find someone to take the 6 of us for a reasonable price to the site about an hour outside of Ho Chi Mihn City. When we got there, there was a European/Australian tour group that had just arrived so we decided to go through with them. We bought our tickets and joined the group. We noticed that everyone in the group had on these stickers, but the little tour guide had just told them to make sure they were wearing their stickers because he wouldn’t be able to tell who was with the group and who wasn’t without the stickers because we all looked the same. So with this information we decided that we would just fit right in and he wouldn’t even notice because “we all the same to him.” This worked for a few minutes, but when we went down into one of the rooms to watch a movie, he caught us. He asked us if we were with him and we told he we were not, but that we didn’t have a tour guide, so he told us that we were to be in his group and come with him. Then he asked us where we were from and we told him the United States, a little hesitantly of course because we were in Vietnam, and he replied “oh, we love you, welcome welcome, you will be in my group” and then he gave us all matching stickers and we were in. It turned out that he worked for the American side during the war and that is why he was excited that we were there and had joined his group. Before we went into the see the movie he said to the group of 6 of us that we could watch the film, but we should not remember because it propaganda. We watched the film and then toured the grounds and the tunnels.

The guide was so adorable; he was this little, older Vietnamese man who spoke to us in broken English and felt the need to explain a lot of words that of course we understood. At one point we was telling us about life in the tunnels and around the camps and he was saying that the men and women would get together and sometimes they would start flirting, etc, but this is the way that he explained it to us. He said, “You know what flirting is? Is when man and women go off together and have sentimental talk, sometimes there is touching, and sometimes the girl no come back virgin anymore. Now you know what virgin is? Virgin is when she not know how big the banana is.” This is just one example of his discussions with us, but we spent most of the time laughing and just wondering exactly how we had ended up with this guide; it really couldn’t have worked out better. We crawled through some of the tunnels and shot some AK-47s, which I really did not like, but figured I had to try while I was there. Its scary even to shoot when it is mounted and you are shooting at giant stacks of hay. After our morning at the tunnels we headed back to Ho Chi Mihn, shopped at the Ben Thanh for a while, and got some more ice cream at Fanny. That night we went out to a jazz club for a while and then headed in fairly early.

We decided the next day to head down to the Mekong Delta, where the Mekong River empties into the sea in southern Vietnam. This is a river that begins somewhere up in the Tibet region of China and flows all the way down through Vietnam. I wanted to go down there by taking local buses and see if we could maneuver our way down there, but very quickly our group grew from four to eight and there was just no way to travel that way with that many people. So instead we found a little travel agency in town that arranged for a van to come pick us up with a guide and take us down there. This included our lunch, transportation, and the boats around the delta, which worked out quite nicely. On the way down our guide answered some of our burning questions about Vietnam and I found out that they have to pay for all of their schooling (there are no public schools), there is no insurance or healthcare, and cancer is the number 1 killer there, which is believed to be because of the agent orange chemical that we sprayed during the war. We also learned that they have a different new year, that they bury the dead in rice patties, and that the word “yum” means I want to have sex with you. We also discussed communism and whether they feel or notice it and she told us that yes, a lot of the time they have to be careful what they say or do because it might not be considered acceptable by their government.

We stopped on our way down to the delta to have lunch and then we traveled on down further where we got on a boat to tour around the Mekong area. We took one big boat over to an area of smaller canals where we switched to smaller boats to take us to see coconut candy being made, to have tea with homemade honey, and to have a light snack of exotic fruits. After that we got into even smaller boats where they paddled us back out to our big boat. When we were on the small paddle boats, randomly this lady saw us come by and ran to the shore shouting and waving and we got excited and waved back an then she started shouting “money, money” and moving her hands to signal that she wanted our money. I was sad because I was here to see the world and get to know Vietnam and the whole time I was excited to interact and meet new people, they were all so wonderful and nice, and this made it obvious that when some people travel they bring and send off the wrong message. I think this shows that there is a difference between a traveler and a tourist. Anyways other than that the whole area was so serene and beautiful. After our boat ride back to the docks, we headed back to the ship. Again we really lucked out because we had an amazing guide that was extremely informative.

My last day in Ho Chi Mihn, I had signed up for an FDP cooking class for my interpersonal communication course. We started off the morning at the Ben Thanh market again, but we saw a little different section of the market than I had seen on my previous visits, the part of the market I had been avoiding. Since it was a cooking class, they had decided to take us through the food section of the market to purchase some things and just show us around. We were supposed to make observations about how the people interacted and who was selling the products, etc. I just spent most my time walking through there trying not to make observations about what was going on around me. We walked through the meat section and I just tried not to look too hard at anything that was around me, mostly because I wasn’t exactly sure what I was looking at and I think it was just better that way. Then we made it to the fish section and this is where I started to feel like we better walk a little faster. As we are walking I am watching women with giant knives just chopping these poor fish to pieces; first the head then the tail, and then the rest of the fish. A few minutes later I felt some cold and slimy hit me in the back of the foot and I couldn’t contain myself, so I let out a little scream. My professor was right in front of me and she was just laughing at all of us as we walked through the market. Then a few minutes later a lady sliced the head off of the fish and the rest of the fish made a hopping, flopping beeline right for my feet and legs, again I just jumped and screamed. I am hoping this was slightly contained, but I am just not all that good at having cold nearly dead fish hopping on me, and I wasn’t the only one. After the fish, we came upon a lady who was sitting and taking this thing out the bag throwing it forcefully at the ground (sort of when you are making bread or using dough and you continually throw it on the counter to prepare it) and then putting it in another bag. As I got closer I realized that the thing she was throwing at the ground (complete with a splat sound) was nothing more than…frogs. Yes, I watch a little old Vietnamese lady violently kill innocent frogs. It was an experience, not one of my favorites, but interesting nonetheless. After the market, we were then bused over to a cooking school where we proceeded to learn how to make Vietnamese spring rolls (mine were pretty good if I may say so, however, I don’t remember how to make them and I can guarantee it would be near impossible to find some of those ingredients).

After a morning full of excitement and fun, I met up with some other friends and we went to the Vietnam War Remnants museum. If the frogs made you sad, I would suggest you stop reading here. This was probably one of the more difficult experiences I had on the trip. The museum was a collection of photographs and stories from the war and more than anything it portrayed all of the awful things that the Americans did to the Vietnamese. We saw pictures of American soldiers torturing Vietnamese men and women and the worse part was the sickening grin on the Americans faces in the pictures. We saw pictures of families trying to escape, and pictures of children disabled from the Agent Orange I told you about before. For me that wasn’t even the worst part. The hardest part for me was looking at those pictures and just knowing that there are Americans out there doing the same, if not worse, things in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan right now. After our visit to the museum we walked for a while just trying to collect ourselves. We ended up getting some coffee to recharge before we went to pick up our dresses and suits. We finished up our time in Vietnam with a motorbike ride and a bar-ba-que on the ship.

Vietnam was a place that was very different, but really just a wonderful mix of culture with history and the modern world. It was probably one of the few places that we found plentiful free wifi. All I can say is I know I will be heading back to this area as I hope to soon explore neighboring Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand and in the meantime I will wait for Vietnam’s exploding entrance onto the world stage.

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