The wonderful an inspiring blog title comes from the name of Vietnam's currency. There were so many jokes being thrown around (but what do you expect with dirty minded college students), even the teachers were in on it! Anyways....
Day 1 in Vietnam, day 40 of my voyage
First day in Vietnam, and let me tell you, it is HOT. 90+ degrees with an absolute ton of humidity. You walk outside and immediately feel like turning around and walking straight back to your room for another shower. Graham was headed to Cambodia, and the girls and I were on a mission. We wanted to visit the market (which I would do many times in the days following), get dresses made, go to the War Remnants museum, and get manicures and pedicures. We started with finding an ATM, which everyone needed. We then headed to the market just to get a feel for where it was and to see what we would find there. When we got there, we discovered that it was a massive indoor market. They had everything you could imagine, just like most of the markets in Asia. Most things were pretty cheap, but it was more difficult to bargain for them here than it was in China. I didn’t buy anything this time around, as I wanted to look at other places, and I also knew I would be back at least 2 or 3 more times, since I had no plans in Vietnam other than one FDP.
After leaving the market, we set out to find a tailor so we could get some dresses made. But first, some refueling was desperately needed. Breakfast had work off hours before, which meant it was lunchtime! We headed for a place called Pho (pronounced “fu”, like the beginning of a particular 4 letter word) 2000, which was supposed to be pretty good. We sat down, ordered refreshing Cokes and pho, and waited for our food to arrive. Pho is one of the main dishes in Vietnam, and it was really good. It is a soup with noodles, a meat, green onions, bean sprouts, and then they give you other things to add such as lime, cilantro, mint leaves, and ridiculously hot peppers. I got beef pho, and let me tell you, it was excellent. It can be a bit difficult to eat with chopsticks, but it is so worth it. It was really yummy, and a “regular” size bowl could have fed me for lunch and dinner.
Anyways, back to the adventure of finding a decent tailor.,, The first few places we went to wanted to charge us ridiculously high prices, and we knew we could get them for cheaper in the US. Finally, we walked in to one place, inquired about prices, and we were off. We were looking through magazines, at fabrics, getting measured, and generally having a good time. Once everything was measured and down-payments made, we were told to come back on our last day in Vietnam to pick them up. Our next venture was to the War Remnants Museum before it closed for the day. We hopped in a cab and were there relatively quickly.
It costs 15,000 dong to go into the war museum, which is equivalent to about 75 cents. The first thing one notices after walking into the courtyard are the old U.S. Air Force planes and the infamous tank. It is a Northern Vietnamese tank that crashed through the gates of the Unification Palace at the Fall of Saigon, signaling the end of the war and the Northern Vietnamese victory. Anyways, we walked into the museum and began looking around. We were told to go upstairs, where there was a bit more to see about the history of the Vietnam War. The photos were very generic, showing political leaders and other people who were influential in the beginning of the war. As we moved through the rooms, attention was quickly drawn to the actual war itself and the atrocities committed against the Vietnamese by the Americans. Many of the photos were incredibly gruesome, and one of the things that struck me the most was the simple fact that the men in the pictures looked like they enjoyed what they were doing. There are photos of men holding guns to crying children’s heads who are no more than 4 years old, soldiers standing next to a dead body crushed by a tank with a smile on their faces…but what struck me the most were two photos: one photo of two dead Vietnamese men and the heads of two others on the ground. Kneeling behind them are 5 or so American soldiers, and one has a slight grin on his face and he looks like he is holding the hair of one of the disembodied heads on the ground. The other is of another American soldier holding what is left of a Vietnamese man…all that is left are a few innards, some shirt, part of what looks like an arm, and a head. These were both incredibly disturbing and difficult photos to look at, especially because of what America is “supposed” to stand for. The museum had bits of the US constitution posted next to some of the photos, which was interesting to me because in looking at the quotes and the photos it was easy to see how we created a nation of hypocrisy when we committed these various crimes against the Vietnamese.
The most difficult thing about the museum was believing that we could do that to these people. Majority of the people killed in Vietnam by the United States were innocent civilians who had nothing to do with the military at all. There are many people who I’m sure would have said “this is war” or “all is fair in love and war” and would still say it today, but that doesn’t make what we did to innocent people right by any means. The use of agent orange was completely appalling to me. The photos of the children affected by the chemical are heartbreaking; limbs grow crooked, Siamese twins occur, we even saw deformed fetuses in a jar of formaldehyde. It was sick. Outside they showed us the “tiger cages” in which prisoners were kept. They were barbed wire cages about the size of a coffin, and 2 or 3 people would fit in 1 of them. They couldn’t stand or sit properly, they had to cower unless they wanted to be stuck by the sharp wire. The methods of torture were very hard to read about, such as punching out the teeth or prisoners with a chisel.
Besides all of the war pictures and gruesomeness displayed in the museum, there was also an entire section devoted to children’s drawings about peace. I thought it showed an interesting side to the Vietnam War, one that they definitely do not show us in our history classes in high school or even college. Granted, the museum did have an incredible bias and did not show any of the things the Vietnamese did to US soldiers, but one can imagine and get a general idea from what was seen in the museum. After hearing the vets speak about the war and seeing the museum, I find it difficult to see why the US got so involved in Vietnam in the first place. But hey, that’s politics and the government for you. Being able to learn about these events in the history of the United States from two sides is so much more satisfying than only learning about it from one, as I learned after seeing Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima within a week of one another. It creates a slight internal battle to adapt the old information to the new information one has learned, especially if the information is something too gruesome for us to fathom or if it is something that does not show the US living up to its constitutional ideals.
After the museum, we set off in search of cheap manicure and pedicures. We found a place rather quickly, and they were 5 bucks a piece. I only got a pedicure, and it only cost me 5 bucks. It was nice to just sit and relax for a little while after walking around all day in the humid heat. After pedicures, we headed back to the ship, where we ate dinner, showered, and got ready for the night. Everyone from Semester at Sea was headed to a little bar called Apocalypse Now that does get togethers for SAS every voyage. Brittany and Victoria and I went and hung out for a while, then headed back to the ship around 12:30. We had to be ready to go at 7:30 for our Cu Chi tunnels and Cao Dai temple trip the next day, so it was straight to bed when I got home.
Day 2 in Vietnam, day 41 of my voyage
Woke up bright and early for my FDP, but I didn’t mind because I was so excited. We had an hour and a half drive to the temple, which was where we were headed first in our day. Cao Dai is a religion which basically combines all the other religions from the world to make one awesome ball of religiosity. They follow a Catholic hierarchy, believe in reincarnation like the Buddhists, and take other stuff from Confucianism, Taoism, and on and on. Overall, the religion makes sense (at least to me), and they have the most awesomely colorful temple I have ever seen in my life. All of the followers of the religion wear white, and higher priests of the three main religions wear red, blue, or yellow. The inside is really difficult to describe unless you actually see it for yourself, but I can try a little bit. The ceiling is painted like the daytime sky, and they have tiny little lights that twinkle like little stars. There are pillars with beautiful carved and painted dragons, and the floor is all tile. There is an altar up at the very front, and one can smell incense the second you walk in. In order to observe what is going on down below, there was a second story where the singers sat and there were balconies all along the side of the church. The windows on the first floor are intricate, and they all have a triangle in the middle with the Great Eye, which is their main symbol. These details are completely inadequate and cannot possibly begin to give you a picture of what the actual place looks like, but they can get you started. Anyways, we got to go while an actual service was taking place, and it was amazing. There are 4 times of the day to worship: 6 a.m., noon, 6 p.m., and midnight. The members try to attend as many services throughout the day as they can.
After the temple, we had another hour and a half drive to the Cu Chi tunnels. We stopped for lunch, then continued on. When we got there, we got a brief history of the tunnels before crawling through them. They tunnels were underground shelters that were used during the Vietnam War. The Vietnamese dug a series of tunnels at three different levels, and there were anywhere from 20 to 30 of them living in an area at one time. They had wells for water and an area that was designated as the bathroom. They had hidden air vents under termite colonies and secret escape routes into the river. They set simple (yet effective) booby traps both outside and inside the tunnels for the Americans to fall into. Once the little introduction about the tunnels was complete, we got to see the entrances and se got to crawl through a tunnel. Then entrances were often hidden; a piece of wood would be laid over the hole in the ground and covered with leaves, and there would be specific markers around it to show where they were. Once in a while, and American would find the entrance and alert the rest of the troops, then they would send the smallest soldier into the tunnels.
It was finally time to crawl through the tunnels. Our guide told us that the tunnels we were going through were the “American-sized” tunnels, which meant that they had been widened. His explanation as to why the tunnels had to be widened? McDonalds was the answer, according to our laughing guide. He then motioned for us to go down the steps and crawl into a small hole. Some people in our group were slightly claustrophobic, which was a bit of a problem for them. About halfway through the tunnels, some people in our group decided to stop in the middle of the tunnels and take pictures, which caused quite a bit of irritation among those stuck squatting in the tunnels behind them. Once we got out of the tunnels, we got to see some of the weapons and tanks they used in the war. At the tunnels, they also have a shooting range where you can shoot everything from an AK-47 to an M-16 Carbine to a Colt 45. I went for the AK-47, and I got to shoot ten bullets at a target about 100 yards away. The guy that was helping us showed me how to hold the gun, even though I had a pretty solid idea anyways, and he told me to close one eye and get ready to shoot. I told him I didn’t need to close my eye and he just shrugged and let me at it. I hit the target 8 out of the 10 times, which I didn’t think was too bad for that only being the first time I ever shot anything other than a paintball gun. The guy turned to me with a slight look of awe and said “How did you do that with both eyes open?” I just laughed a bit at his statement and shrugged my shoulders like I didn’t know, and he just shook his head in disbelief. It was priceless. After the shooting range, we hopped back on the bus and headed back to the ship. Semester at Sea trips tend to involve a lot of travel time and less time exploring the actual places, which sucks a little bit.
Victoria and Brittany and I got back to the ship, showered, and headed out to the night market, which is right next to the regular market we had visited the day before. They had all the t-shirts and fun stuff as the normal market, but it was much cooler and it was a little bit easier to bargain. The food smelled phenomenal, and we spent about an hour at the market getting a few things. I am most excited about my t-shirt that says “Good Morning Vietnam” on the front. They have quirky t-shirts everywhere, and you can usually get them for only one or two bucks.
Days 3, 4, and 5 in Vietnam, days 42, 43, and 44 of my voyage
So I decided to combine the last three days into one section, as going through each day would be rather pointless, since I did pretty much the same thing each day for the most part. But before I go into specifics, let me elaborate on walking in Vietnam…
When walking in Vietnam, one must always be on constant alert. The motorbikes often drive on the sidewalk, and will simply honk when they want you to move out of their way. The real fun in Vietnam occurs when you cross the street. If any of you wonderful readers have ever played Frogger, you get the idea, except you don’t really have the option to jump backwards. There is a constant flow of traffic and many of the intersections do not have traffic signals, so one must wait for somewhat of a gap, take a deep breath, and plunge in. The trick is to walk confidently and not hesitate or sprint. They are such skilled driver on their motorcycles that they will all scoot around you. It was absolute chaos, and every once in a while you would get honked at and have to stop to avoid being hit. I have never seen so many motorcycles in one place in my entire life, and I really hope that I won’t ever have to cross a street like that again. Anyways, back to the narrative…
On the third day, everyone was gone on trips except for Becca and I, so we spent the day wandering around HCMC (Ho Chi Minh City). We went back to the market, and just walked the streets basically all day. We found an entire street that sells DVD’s and we spent ages there getting pirated DVD’s. We came back to the ship and cooled off since it was so hot outside and tested all of our DVD’s on our computers to see if they all worked, and most of them did. I bought every Disney movie ever made for 40 bucks, which (in my opinion) is a pretty good deal. That night, Graham got back from Cambodia, so he and I watched a movie then went to bed early.
Day four was another exploring day for a few of us, so we did pretty much the same thing as the day before, and we came back and met the other girls when they got back from their trip. It was a relaxing and warm day, and I also got to go use some internet time and make some phone calls in the internet café that was right next to our ship.
Day five was the last day to get last minute stuff done. Some of the girls had to get stamps, and we also had to go pick up our dresses that we had gotten made. We went to the tailor, and all of our dresses fit and looked great!!! I am so excited to wear mine when I get back, and I may wear it for the Ambassadors Ball at the end of the voyage as well. We got back on the ship and said our one final goodbye to Vietnam. Vietnam is the one place so far I really want to go back to, as I still want to go visit the north and see more of the country, since I was basically stuck in the same city for 5 straight days. Now we have 8 days at sea before we hit India, but we at least have the Sea Olympics to look forward to!
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