good morning vietnam!

October 25-27, 2011 - Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (Part 1)

gooooodddd morning vietnam! for those of you really on your game, you'll notice by the dates above that this blob is only going to cover the first half of my week in vietnam. this is partially because we were here for a week (longest port of the voyage) and partially because i had too much fun and have wayyy too much to say for a single blob. so here's the first half...

we arrived in ho chi minh early tuesday morning... and by early i mean we were here at 7am. we bunkered in singapore a few days before that to refuel... and while we were there a couple of vietnamese customs officers got on the ship. so they were processing our passports and stuff while we were sailing to vietnam. asian people are so efficient. as a result, the ship was already cleared when we landed. but we did all have to go up to glazier to pick up our landing passes... whatever those are. so brew and i woke up to the voice (as always), got ready, ate some breakfast, then took the 8:30 shuttle from the ship. while sas is kind of a huge pain in the ass sometimes, they rocked it in vietnam. they provided a free 10-minute shuttle ride every half hour from the ship to the rex hotel... which was like the center of the city. perfecttt! so we got to the rex, basically ran around the corner to a little coffee shop and i got my ass on skype as fast as i could. skyped melissa for a couple hours maybe (i don't really know the time frame... just that i was in love the entire time) and got to sit in on chapter meeting! best part was def skyping steph sibley... i mean, i'm pretty sure i could die happy now. i also skyped my aunt for a few minutes. this was the first time i've been on real internet since august. went on facebook... it totally sucks. not only do i not understand the new version, i just have no interest in how drunk you were last weekend. sorry i'm worldly and cultured now, and don't have time for your mundane lifestyle. hahaaa jokes. but yeah, don't need to go on fbook anytime soon. so after spending the better half of the morning starring at melissa's face, brew and i caught the 12:00 shuttle back to the ship. i'm usually so annoyed with all the people from the ship that immediately run to the nearest internet cafe when we get to port cus i feel like we should be exploring these crazy places! but it was definitely necessary to get to see and talk to someone from home for a second since i've been a little homesick... and it was super reassuring to know nothing's really changed at home. thank goodness! so i definitely started vietnam off on the right foot... and i think it set the tone for the rest of the week.

so we got back to the ship and ran up to the dining hall, stuffed our faces real quick, then i had to run back off the ship to catch a bus for a field trip for my global music class. the field trip was called "traditional music in modern context" and we visited the music conservatory in ho chi minh, and met with my professor's old friend who teaches at the school where we walked around for a little bit. then we drove across town to this random cooking school where the teacher gave a lecture and there were three musicians who performed a few songs for us. it was a pretty random day, but it was really cool seeing some of the instruments we had learned about in class. then we came back to the ship. brew was already here when i got back... so we met up with audrey & bri and decided we needed to eat something and find a bar. so we got ready and took the shuttle out. audrey led us the wrong way for kind of a long time, so bri went home when we turned around cus she has a broken ankle from malaysia. so maddy, audrey & i went and found a "wrap & roll" for dinner. it's a chain restaurant but was really good. i got these really good shrimp spring rolls. it was kind of awkward when the dean came in and they sat him at the table right next to us... but it was all good. once we were done, we walked into this bar around the corner... but it was really expensive and we were kind of tired so brew got a glass of wine then we headed back to the rex and caught the shuttle back to the ship where we just went right to bed.

we had to wake up really early the second day because we bought tickets for a sas trip from rob and kelly. so we got up, ate breakfast, and met at the bus at 7:45. it was about a 3.5 hour bus ride out to the cao dai temple from the ship. i did not know anything about the cao dai faith (in retrospect, i still don't), but when i was looking at the guide books before we got here, one of the things it said not to miss was going to the temple and watching a service. so that's exactly what we did. i'm pretty sure it's kind of like the bahai faith in that there is a mix of religions together. but i'm not really sure. the temple was really amazing though. the colors and decoration were beautiful. obviously unlike anything i'm used to as a catholic. we got to walk around the temple for a little bit, then we had to go up to the balcony before the service began at noon. it was really interesting watching the ceremony. men and women sat on opposite sides of the temple, and they sat in perfect, uniform rows. like, if someone was an inch out of line, an usher person would correct them, even in the middle of them praying. it was also neat because the different "priests" were wearing different color garments based on what religion they come from. so we watched a bit of the service, then we had to get back to the bus to drive another roughly 2.5 miles to the cu chi tunnels. but we stopped at a random restaurant on the way and had a seriously delicious lunch. noodles, fried rice, soup, chicken. yum.

now i don't know why, but i don't know much about the vietnam war. i think it's really confusing, so maybe i just tuned out whenever it was brought up in history classes because i don't understand it. so i had no idea the cu chi tunnels even existed before i opened a travel guide book on vietnam. but man am i glad i got the opportunity to go out there. if you don't know what they are, google it cus it's kind of a lot to explain. but basically the viet cong constructed this elaborate tunnel system to hide from american soldiers during the war. the tunnels are now super touristy, but what can you do. the first thing we did when we got there was watch this documentary on the tunnels. in global studies the day before we arrived, they warned us about how much propaganda we would encounter surrounding the war and the history of it. and they weren't kidding. i mean, granted i'm biased and the facts the american government provides could be just as false, but it was crazy to see what the vietnamese government can get away with as "fact." i mean, it's already awkward and uncomfortable to be in vietnam as an american, especially being out in the tunnels... then we're forced to watch a movie basically about how much america sucks and all the war crimes we committed. i wish i knew more about the vietnam war to be able to better distinguish between fact and fiction. after the documentary, we walked through the forest/jungle where our guide showed us some of the booby-traps the viet cong used to use. they were seriously insane. my first reaction was how disgusting and atrocious they were... but then i had to remember that this was war... and everything in war is awful. we also saw how the viet cong would take unexploded weapons (mainly rockets) and turn them into their own weapons. then we got to the tunnels. we were just walking down the path looking at all the gigantic crators that are still there from the american bombs, then our guide stops and points to what seems like nothing. then he brushes back some leaves to reveal a rectangle about the size of a shoe box. he then picks up the rectangle to reveal a whole. turns out, it was a camouflaged entrance into the tunnels. it was insane. we had been walking over the tunnels the entire time and had no idea. so our guide got in because he was this tiny vietnamese guy, and then closed the lid on top of him and we seriously would not have known there was a tunnel there or a man under the ground if we hadn't just seen it ourselves. so stressful. he got out of the tunnel, then let whoever wanted to try it out go ahead. pretty much everyone in the group was apprehensive. i heard some people on other trips got stuck in the hole cus it was seriously SO small. but this voyage i feel like i have to try everything, so me, this guy brian, and a lifelong learner were the only ones who tried it. the three of us could only stand up in the hole... there was no way our shoulders were going to fit through. it was SO crazy! after that, we walked a little further to another entrance to a tunnel. this one was made bigger for tourists, so our guide led whoever wanted to go down in the tunnels for about 40 meters to the other side. game on. i can't accurately explain to you how crazy those 40 meters were. i was underground in a tunnel that the viet cong had used to hide from and attack american soldiers. i was basically squatting the entire time, cursing my father for being so damn tall and giving me his genes. i could barely fit. and it was SO hot down there. vietnam was hot the entire week... but never as hot as in that tunnel. it was dark, creepy. i can't even imagine the viet cong living in those tunnels for months, even years at a time. really intense and powerful stuff. and to add to the ambiance, the entire time we were walking around all we could hear was gunfire in the distance because there was a shooting range where you could pay to shoot some of the actual weapons from the war. so it was kind of like we were back in time a little bit... especially being with our guy friends who would have been there fighting given the draft and everything. and no, i did not shoot the guns. when we got there we were running out of time so our guide wouldn't let us stop. but my dad still owes me a trip to a shooting range that he promised me for my 18th birthday!

so after the tunnels, we headed back to the ship. me, brewer, and alli decided we wanted to go out, so as soon as we got back to the ship we got ready and met at the gangway where we ran into elaina and sophie who decided to join us. we took the shuttle out to the rex and walked to the beer garden where we met up with alyssa, audrey, and some other girls. but the five of us went upstairs and ordered some much needed dinner. i had some delicious shrimp fried rice. but the best part of dinner was when these two australian guys decided to join us at our table. at first it was just ben and some other guy. then the other guy left and a different guy came. but ben sat with us the entire time. i'm becoming skeptical as to if there are even people left in australia, because i have met SO many australians in every country so far. i guess they're really into travelling or something? but ben was really nice and it was funny that he just sat at our table and drank with us until we left. after dinner the five of us decided to go to apocalypse now, which is a club. everybody from the ship had gone the night before, but i was not into going clubbing with everybody from the ship that i'm stuck with 24/7. but i guess everybody was too drunk to function and everybody was hooking up with everybody. fun times. not when we went! here is the demographic of apocalypse now when i went: vietnamese prostitutes, middle aged white business men, and us 5 girls. oh my God it was so disgusting. alli & i were trying to figure out how the men choose which one they want to take home. but it was seriously so gross. like these guys were my dad's age, picking up hot little vietnamese girls my age. so warning to all women out there... when your man says he has a "business trip" to vietnam, it is a dirty dirty lie. don't let him go. cus he'll be at apocalypse now, or any of the other whore house bars in vietnam. just a heads up. so after like one drink, we were like "let's get outta hereee!" so we just came back to the ship.

maddy & i made a big decision to close our blinds and sleep until we woke up. we NEVER close our blind because it seriously turns our room into a cave and we would never get out of bed if that was the case. but we were pretty exhausted and could use a sleep in day. so that's exactly what we did. slept til about 10:30ish, then leisurely laid in bed for a while. got up to eat lunch on the ship (which was amazing! why they decide to make good food while we're in port and nobody's on the ship baffles me). then we got ready and took the 1:30 shuttle out to town. we had one plan for the third day. shopping, shopping, and more shopping. we were told to go to saigon square, so that was our first stop. not sure why people told us to go there, cus it was just a bunch of shit. so we walked to the ben thant market which was like 2 blocks away. we had a lot of fun walking around, bartering, buying fun stuff. and whoever told me that vietnam was the cheapest country and that everything here is a dollar is a big fat liar. i mean, clearly in comparison to america it's cheaper. but it definitely was not the home of the one dollar bill as i had been promised. after we shopped for a few hours, we decided to head back to the ship. but not after stopping for a banana split at one of the bajillion ice cream parlors in ho chi minh. it was delicious and just what we needed to break the heat. then we got back to the ship. our original plan was to get like a bite to eat on the ship, get ready, go out to dinner, then go out. but while we were pretending to eat the ship food, our friend skyler came up to our table and asked us what our plans were for the night. we told him we didn't really have any... so then he goes "wanna go to the bus station and go to the mekong delta right now?"

so i'm gonna stop there. cliff-hangerrrr! but really, this is a huge long story and it's a good place to end this blob. you'll notice that i'm posting on october 30th, even though we don't leave until the 31st. vietnam is a different port. if you look on a map, you'll notice that ho chi minh city is not on the coast... instead we had to travel up a river to get here. so because of the tides, we physically cannot leave tonight. usually, on ship time for ports is 6pm and we set sail around 8pm the same night. but for vietnam, on ship time was 9pm tonight and we set sail at 6am tomorrow morning. so confusing... but it was really nice having the entire last day to explore and do all our last minute things. now, i'm gonna go watch friends because i just bought seasons 1-10 for $20. winnerrrr.

i'll post vietnam part 2 tomorrow. we have the day off school and just have global studies discussions in the morning. and tomorrow's halloween. how did that happen?? strange. well goodnight! but really good morning. you people probably aren't even awake yet, let's be real. i still love you anyways. xoxo.