Back in Nam

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Back in Nam
I had a lot of really cool experiences in Vietnam, and it was a really fun country. The first day we got off the ship at about 1 o’clock in Ho Chi Minh City and I went downtown with a couple friends to try to find a tailor so we could get some of the cheap suits that Vietnam is famous for. We walked into a bunch of stores along the main strip, but they were all way overpriced so we started checking out side streets, and the first tailor that we came across was very nice, and had reasonable prices (less than $100 for a cashmere suit). Before we got fitted and picked out the suits we wanted from a catalog we went out to lunch at a Pho Restaurant. We got this soup that was exactly like the soup that dad always makes at home. It came with just noodles and pork in the broth, and then we added our own bean sprouts and other greens, and spices. I ended up making my soup really spicy, and I was sweating bullets the whole time I was eating it, but it was really good even with the spice. After that we went and picked out the suits we wanted made, and we ran into a few teachers from SAS, and they told us about this massage place that they had just come from that was absolutely amazing and only $12 for an hour! We decided that we shouldn’t pass up on this opportunity, so we walked over to the place and they sat us down and gave us tea, and then we all went upstairs and they sat us down right next to each other (which was kind of weird and different than in the states) and started giving us our massage. This ended up being a really funny experience because the whole time that we were being massaged the 3 ladies rubbing us were talking to each other and giggling, and even messing around with us. A couple of times they tried to make us hold hands or touch each other, at which point they would start laughing and then we would all start laughing too. They also did some crazy stuff like walk on our backs and legs, and they were moving us into these crazy stretching positions (which was quite difficult for them because we weren’t exactly a normal sized customer at this place which was mostly filled with little Vietnamese men). It was still a really relaxing massage despite the fact that I was laughing for a good portion of it, and it’s a pretty funny story when you get the full version. Anyway we went back to the ship to change clothes, and then we headed out to get some dinner (we ended up getting the same thing that we had for lunch), and then we went to this club called Apocalypse Now. This place was absolutely stuffed full of SAS students, and there were even big banners there that said “Welcome Fall 2008 Semester At Sea”. It was funny, but its usually not as fun going to places that all of us students take over, so I went out to find some other local bars with some friends, and then we headed back to the ship for the night. The next day I left for a three-day trip to the Mekong River Delta. We took a bus for about 2 hours, and then got on a little boat to start our excursion of the Delta. The River was jam packed with boats, most of which were either fishing or selling fruits or vegetables. Our first stop along the river was at a place that made and sold a bunch of different candies like popped rice (which is like popcorn only made with rice), coconut “toffee-like” candies, and rice paper. We got to see how all of these were made, and we got to try them as well. We also got to try snake liquor, which was in a big glass jar that had a dead cobra in it, and then they filled it with a form of rice wine! It was pretty scary trying it, but I figured that I’d probably only get the opportunity once in my lifetime, so why not now? After leaving that little place, we got back in our boat and drove through the floating market, which wasn’t real active since it was so late in the day, but we were told about how most of the vendors live on their boats, and we got to see them doing their laundry in the river, and taking naps in their hammocks. We made three more stops before we got to where we would be sleeping for the night, and at these stops we were given tea and a lot of the local fruits (like jack fruit, star fruit, green “oranges”, dragon fruit, and some other crazy ones that I can’t remember the names of). We also got to hold a giant python that was about 9 or 10 feet long, and really heavy. I was the first one to hold it, so I was really scared at first, but I soon realized that it was very tame, and it wasn’t going to try to bite me or choke me to death. We eventually made it to the place that we were staying for the night, and I was really surprised when we got there because it was basically just a local families home that was right on the river (it was actually on stilts because the river varied in height so often). They had a couple rooms that they had put a bunch of beds in, a common area with a bunch of hammocks on a deck over the river, and there were a few toilets and a sink. We all “settled in”, and hung out in the hammocks for a little bit, and then a few of us decided to go swimming! The river was completely brown, and there were many mangrove branches floating through the river (along with who knows what else), but we were told it was fine to go in, so we went for it. It ended up being really fun, and the river was deep enough that we were able to jump in. We swam around for a while and climbed a half-submerged tree on the other side of the river, and then we got out and got ready for dinner. We ate dinner on the “common-area deck”, and we actually just sat on the ground around a tablecloth that the family had put out. They served us Elephant Fish, which was still whole (head, fins and all), and we made rice paper wraps using the fish, lettuce and cucumbers. Then they brought out some chicken, shrimp and rice as a second course, and we had some more of the local fruit for dessert. After dinner a bunch of us played cards for a while and then went to bed. The beds were just a wooden frame with a piece of cloth stretched across for the mattress, and we had bug nets around us as well because there was obviously no air conditioning, so the doors and windows had to be kept open all night. In the morning we ate breakfast on the deck again, but we had tables this time. After eating we packed up and headed down the river to meet our bus, before which we visited a brick factory. We got on the bus and had to take a ferry across the river to get to Can Tho, which was the city that our hotel was in for that night. We checked out a little market and ate lunch, and then headed to a Buddhist Monastery. The bus ride to the monastery was very long (almost two hours), but it was a very pretty place, and there were tons of locals there that were celebrating a religious festival. It was interesting seeing them parade by, but we weren’t able to stay very long because our tour guide felt that we would get in the way, so we left after only about a half an hour, and made the long trip back. The bus ride wasn’t bad though because we got to see a lot of the country side, and there were many interesting things to look at such as men fishing in little swamps, and a bunch of people working/doing business along side the road. That night we ate dinner at the market that we had visited earlier, and then explored the city of Can Tho for a while. We ended up wandering around a lot of the city, but there wasn’t really much of a nightlife, so we ended up just heading back to our hotel and hanging around there for a while before calling it a night. We got up at six the next morning and went to the floating market because the early morning is when all of the boats trade with each other. We navigated our way through many of the boats before stopping at one that sold pineapples. We all got up on the roof of our boat and the woman selling pineapples cut a bunch of them up and we all got to eat some pineapple while overlooking the market. It was pretty crazy how hectic things were on the river. A bunch of boats just pull up beside the tourist boats and try to sell you sodas, gum, fruits, etc. After that we wandered around the city a little more, and a few of us decided to try durian, which is a sort of fruit and is considered a delicacy to locals. It wasn’t good! The texture of it was all squishy and mushy, and the flavor was overbearing, and didn’t taste fruity at all. The smell was probably the worst part though, and I could taste it on my breath for a good portion of the day. At least I can say I tried it though. The whole group met up at the hotel and ate lunch there before taking the five-hour bus ride back to Ho Chi Minh City. That night I went to the Ben Thank Market, which is where they sell a lot of the knock-off American products. It was fun bartering with the many vendors who would act really mad at you when you were able to bargain them down to a cheap price, but I’m sure they still make a good profit because a lot of the stuff they sell is really cheap. The next day I got up real early to go visit the Cu Chi Tunnels, which are the tunnels that the Vietnamese used to hide in during the Vietnam War. These were very interesting to see, and we even got to go inside of them. They were much smaller than I expected, and I almost had to crawl through at some places! They had put lights in the tunnels, but it is crazy to think that the Vietnamese soldiers were able to run around in those small areas with almost no lights. After exploring the tunnels we actually got a chance to see all of the booby traps that their army had used, and we also got to see and shoot some of the guns that they used like the AK-47 and M-16. They were on stands and you couldn’t really move them a whole lot besides to aim at the target, but it still felt cool shooting such a powerful gun. After that we got back on the bus and stopped at a memorial graveyard for about 10,000 Vietnamese soldiers. It was a very eerie feeling being in that area, knowing that Americans had killed all of these people. Anyway, I got back to the ship at about one o’clock and I then went to check out the War Remnants Museum. There were many gruesome pictures of dead soldiers, many of which took my breath away. There were also a bunch of pictures of the aftermath of Agent Orange (the chemical we used for mass killing during the war), and the many deformities that it is still causing to this day. I had no idea that we had done so much damage during the Vietnam War, and the museum really opened my eyes to what actually happened in this country. I guess that they “forgot” to mention some things when we learned about the Vietnam War in high school. After that I wandered through the market on my way back to the ship so that I could make my way to Hong Kong. I really enjoyed Vietnam. It opened my eyes to a whole new culture and the crazy lifestyle that exists on the Mekong River, and I was also able to learn many things that I didn’t know before visiting here.

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