Like all great travelers, I have seen more then I remember, and remember more than I have seen - Benjamin Disraeli

Good Morning Vietnam!

 

I only had two days in Vietnam before I had to leave for Cambodia, and I fell in love with it. It’s so different than anywhere I have been before and it’s so filled with life. I wish I had more time there, not only in Saigon but to travel around the country. 

 

Ho Chi Minh City:

 

          Day one was really about wandering Vietnam. And a key part of wandering is crossing the street. Now I’ve been afraid to cross streets before, namely in China where pedestrians don’t have the right of way. But here is a whole different story.  There are lights and traffic laws, but they come across more as guidelines, and aren’t enforced. So the first thing you get used to is how to cross the street. Before I continue with my lesson in crossing the street Vietnamese style, I should probably mention that motorcycle is a key form of transport here. It’s not uncommon to see four or five people riding on bike together. And when I say key I mean the whole street is filled with motorcycles. Now when crossing the street you look once to check and see if there are any cars in the area, you ignore the motorcycles because they will be there. Then you just start walking slowly without looking at traffic, because if you do you might have the urge to stop or walk faster and that’s bad. The motorcycles can easily move around you if you walk slowly and don’t stop.  After the first few times you start to get use to the motorcycles weaving around you.  

 

Anyway the first thing on the agenda was trying to find some tailors has getting dresses made in Vietnam is suppose to be the thing to do. We didn’t really find any great tailors but we walked around and found this small place for lunch. The city is really easy to travel around once you get used to crossing the street. The weather is also pretty hot and humid but nothing unmanageable. After we found our way to the War Remnants museum and on the way in we ran into one of our professors and his wife, who were clearly distressed by the museum.  I mean tears in their eyes and talking about how they knew things were going on but didn’t really at the same time. It was weird seeing their experience with the museum, as someone who lived through that era of our history.  (Here, by the way, the Vietnam War is called the American War) So with that in mind we went into the museum. The museum is mainly composed of pictures with description underneath. It’s pretty depressing, and also clearly biased.  There is nothing about the other side, only about the acts committed by American’s on innocent Vietnamese and such. But we did commit these acts and that needs to be acknowledged. This whole museum was just weird, but I’m glad I saw it.  But the bias definitely made me a bit uncomfortable, and was a clear reminder of what government is in charge here. After the war museum we headed down towards the main market. It’s under this dome thing and is packed with stuff, smells and is pretty hot. But it’s a lot of fun. Here you negotiate the price, like in China, but here they also accept American dollars. It’s just a lot of fun to get lost and barter the prices down.  There’s clothes, souvenirs and either really good fakes or stolen designer bags.  There are also many DVD’s which I did not find until the second day. After finally leaving the market we headed back towards the Rex hotel where there was a shuttle bus back to the ship, which was awesome after all of the walking. Then a few hours later a group of 11 of us went out with one of my friends moms. (There was a parent trip to Vietnam) After wandering the streets (not many places were prepared for 12 people) we ended up just eating on the street itself. (There are a bunch of places where people just cook food on the street and you can sit in these plastic little kids chairs and eat) The food was pretty good even though we weren’t sure what we were ordering.  This could be seen in the fact one of my friends got a whole chicken in a soupish thing. (For some reason Asia is pretty keen on keeping the chicken’s head on when they serve it. It happened in China a lot too.) But it was a great time. Walking back later was also the first experience with begging kids. One boy walked with us for a few blocks trying to get money. We kind of chalked it up to preparing for India but then Cambodia happened and it didn’t even compare.

 

 

The second day started out with the plan to head towards the Independence Palace (or Reunification Palace) and then go in search of a massage. These both ended up happening with a trip to the market first where I finally found the DVDs. I am now the proud owner of the full seasons of Friends and Scrubs, with the first 4 seasons of two other shows and all for around 45 dollars. I also may have brought a ‘complete’ set of Disney movies (149 movies) for 40 dollars. Mission accomplished. We made a stop for some Pho, this Vietnamese dish that I guess would be their version of chicken noodle soup. We then walked to the Palace and looked around but it was hard to know what the meaning of everything was without a guide. We did see the tanks that crashed through the gates that ended the war though. From here we wandered in the direction of the ship and found a massage place where a full body massage was 15 dollars. It was pretty awesome. Then we moved back to the ship where I switched groups and headed out towards dinner. I have to say I’m not the biggest fan of needing someone to tell me how exactly I’m supposed to eat my food. But it was good. The group then decided to get massages and I felt a little weird getting 2 massages in one day  ... so I just got a foot one instead. When we were finally ready to head back to the ship we decided to try taking the motorcycles back. It costs about 1 or 2 dollars and it was so much fun, and a little scary weaving around traffic. But it’s definitely something that needs to be done in Vietnam.

 

Cambodia:

 

The 3^rd day was when I left for Cambodia. It’s about a 40 minute plane ride to Phnom Penh where we started off. We saw the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda, which was beautiful and then we did this sunset tour on the Mekong River. It was so pretty, and we got to see some floating houses where fishermen live. Right next door to those houses was an expensive house and was definitely the start of a really big divide between people that’s probably going to continue throughout this voyage. We then got to stop at an orphanage which was so much different than the one in Xi’an. There were about 100 kids, and we had time to play and hangout with them. It was hard to leave them all behind.

 

The next day we started out at the killing fields and then headed straight for the concentration camp that was used during Pal Pot. I’m glad I saw it. It feels so weird standing in places where people have died or been tortured, more so when you hear so little about the conflict. I have heard more about the disappeared in Argentina and the caravan of death in Chile than I have about this. And even those mentions have been few and far between. It’s so weird how history remembers some things more clearly than others. After this was the first interaction with the kids before. There were kids holding kids asking for money. It was one of the saddest things I’ve seen. There were about four or five of them and they would just follow you. 

 

We jumped on a plane for 20 minutes and made it to Siem Reap where the Temples of Angkor Wat is located. The next morning the majority got up to watch the sun rise at the temples. It was amazing. All the temples were amazing actually; the rest of the day was spent wandering through the ruins. It was also really hot, and there wasn’t a lot of shade. I was pretty happy to be on the way back to the airport after the day in the sun.

 

Cambodia was an experience and probably a good stepping stone into India. I’m glad I saw what I saw, but I wish there was more time to see Vietnam. I guess it means I’ll just have to come back there for an extended time.

 

And so ends a month in Asia. Within February I have made it to Japan, China, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Cambodia. And now I’m back at classes for a week, taking Midterms and p