February 2nd, 2011 - Day 17 of our adventure. After waking up to dragon practice in Cambodia, the trip across the border into Vietnam was uneventful and much easier than the border crossing into Cambodia. We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City and set out to look for a hostel in the backpacker district. Due to the upcoming new years celebrations most places were full but we finally found a four bed room for $8 a night. It was the most expensive hostel of our trip but was very nice and had a daily maid service just like a regular hotel. We needed to get some Vietnamese currency - Dong- and headed for the ATM. The exchange rate is drastic and we got out over a million dong for our stay. It is 20,000 Dong for 1 dollar, whereas Cambodia is 4000 Riel for 1 dollar and Thailand is 30 Baht for 1 dollar. Next we needed to go book our tours for later that week and found a nice company that Andrew had researched that would take us to the Vietcong tunnels and the Mekong Delta. By that time it was late afternoon and we decided to take the day easy. The following day was the lunar new years and our hostel owner said that there are always fireworks the night b
efore. For dinner we set out for the waterfront so we could see the light show later in the evening. It was mass chaos. There were literally thousands of motorbikes and they moved in a swarm. Andrew had read that to cross the street in Vietnam you just started walking but went very slowly so that all the bike riders could see you and move around you. We quickly found out this was true. If you wanted to wait for an actual break in traffic you'd be there for the next four years so you just had to hold your breath and start walking. The bikes did in fact just swerve around you and we never had any accidents. After dinner we still had a few hours till the fireworks at midnight but we didn't know where else to go so we found a spot to sit among the crowd that was already forming. Cliff, Marie and I started playing cards to kill some time. There was a group of Vietnamese high school students sitting next to us and once the cards were pulled out they were very interested in o
ur presence. They asked if we could teach them a game (only one knew English). So we taught them how to play spoons and uno. It was a great time, definitely the highlight of my evening. The kids were a lot of fun and the same age as my students so we were all having a good time. When the fireworks started the whole crowd stood up and crowded in. We weren't in a very good spot so I grabbed Marie's hand and weaved in and out of the crowd till we got to where we could see better. It was a good show and a great atmosphere. We were some of the only foreigners there so it was amazing to just be a part of the crowd and feel the same excitement all of the citizens of Vietnam were feeling as well. The show ended and the entire sea of people quickly turned and all started trying to get away from the waterfront at the same time. There was a road of traffic between us and the path everyone needed to get on so the crowd just overwhelmed the motorbikes until they were at a stand still and then basically climbed over each one to get to the other side. It would have been fine except this annoying white woman with an accent was behind me and understood personal space even less than the Chinese. Finally we got to an area where we could breath and the four of us started the walk home.
February 3rd - HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEARS! Since we had a late night Andrew (who was in charge of Vietnam) gave us all a free morning to either sleep in, go exploring, read, or whatever it was you wanted to do. Andrew and I, again the early risers, got up and went to breakfast. We wandered around the city, but most of it was shut down since this was the actual holiday. We decided to get a watermelon (they've been out of season in China for awhile) and sat down in the park and ate the entire thing. Getting back with the group, the four of us went to lunch and then set out to the Revolutionary Museum. This was one of the smaller museums of the city but had a range of information from the war, to agriculture, to current science explorations. Fun fact - On April 18, 2008 Vietnam sent it's first satellite into space becoming the 93rd country to do so. We got through and went in search of ice cream and coffee. Vietnam is a huge producer of coffee around the world and has a special way of making it - drip coffee. You receive a cup and a little metal holder that you set on top with coffee grounds and hot water in it. So it is very strong and intense - at one point a waitress seemed very concerned that Cliff didn't fully understand what he was getting into by ordering one. To celebr
ate the holiday we went back and joined the crowd again in the center of town. We quickly heard some dragon and lion music (loud tin drums) and went to see the show. It started out with a lion dance which consists of a couple pairs each performing their own lion dance. The lion costume is a two man job where the person in the back gets the short end of the stick because they have to bend over most of the tim
e and if they aren't bending over they are usually holding the front guy in the air. Next was the dragon dance. This is a long thing dragon held up in the air by thick poles. About eight guys are needed to perform and each have their own stick. But it is heavy and the dance team was constantly switching in and out to keep the dragon m
oving quickly. The final part was crazy. The team brought in what looked like two rows of homemade thick poles with small round platforms at the top. The shortest was about three feet high and it went up to one that was at least seven or eight feet high. There was about two feet from one platform to the next. Once the contraption was deemed sturdy one lion pairing jumped up onto the poles and did a hole dance suspended in air. It included the back person lifting the front guy up in the air, running a couple platforms ahead and throwing him back down again. They had definitely practiced because it would not have been an easy performance. This part of the show was when it was traditional for children to come up and give lucky money to the lion. The lucky money is to bring the child luck for the year as well as the lion and to support the dance troop's performance. The show ended and we decided that the rest of the evening was probably going to be similar so we headed back to the backpacker district for a nice Indian food dinner.
By now we had become regulars at this restaurant down the street that had a menu the size of the bible. I think there were over 60 pages of options and it included some pretty good breakfast food. After filling our bellies we went to the War Remnants Museum - previously named the The Museum of American War Crimes. Again this was a pretty depressing day. You couldn't walk through this place and not feel a little bit ashamed at being American. The first section was a replica of a prison used for POWs. There were accounts from people who are currently living and survived the prison of the horrors that went on in those places. There were lists of different torture methods that the South Vietnamese and Americans used which
went from pulling off finger nails to jamming nails in the bottoms of people's feet to different ways of water torture. 3 million Vietnamese died during the war - 2 million of those were civilians. The casualties of the war are also still continuing due to Agent Orange, the most deadly chemical substance known to man that was used by Americans as chemical warfare. The substance actually changes your DNA so you pass it on to
your children. There was a room dedicated to pictures of little kids and adults that have suffered mental and physical disabilities. Not every child born from parents who were infected by Agent Orange are disabled so there are still members of the new generation who are going to possibly pass the disease on to the next. No one knows how many gene
rations it will take to wipe out the effect that this has had on the Vietnamese population. There was also a large section about the massive amounts of people who were against the war. Beyond protests in our country, almost every single other major country had citizens up in arms against the US fighting in this battle...and yet we kept on going for 17 years. To round out the day we went to the Independence Palace - the site noted for ending the war on April 30, 1975. This is the place where the iconic tank 843 rammed through t
he gates of the palace to finalize the fall of Saig
on. The building has been left how it was in 1975 and is now used for a tourist attraction, banquets and parties. The rest of the day was pretty relaxed. We went and saw the Saigon Notre-Dame Basilica, got dinner and some beers and went back to bed.
We had all learned about the Vietcong tunnels and seen pictures in the museums, and
on February 5th we actually got to go see them. Hopping on a tour bus we left HCMC and went on our way. During the trip we passed over a road that our guide informed us was the same road that the famous picture was taken of the girl running down the street with all of her clothes burned off from the bombings. He said that she was now living in Toronto. The actual tour consisted first of a viewing of a Cao Dai noon church service. Cao Dai is a relatively new religion started in Vietnam in 1
926. There are about 2 million followers, mostly Vietnamese. The religion uses t
he third eye motif and has service multiple times a day in buildings that look a bit like Elton John designed them. The most interesting part to me was that your status depended on how long you had believed in the religion. There were nine tiers and each five years that you stayed with the church you got to move up to the next tier and sit a little closer to th
e front of the room. The farthest you could go was the 8th tier because the 9th was purely for the gods and higher beings of the religion like saints. When we visited there was one man 5 tiers up - so he had been actively religious at least twenty years. The sad part was this church that we went to has been turned into a tourist attraction. The religion puts up with it because it gets the word out easily about the religion, but you could tell there were a number of worshipers there that were not appreciating our attendance, understandably so. The terrible thing was that we were all expressly told that we were not allowed to talk during the service but of course - you get that many people in a room and half of them were talking. Foreigners. Goodness. Well, then is was on to the tunnels. They have obviously molded this area for tourism but it was still interesting to see. One set of the tunnels they hollowed out to two times the size of the original so that you could walk through bent over. The true tunnels were purely used by slithering on your belly and using your elbows and knees to get yourself through. The Vietnamese I guess thought that tourists might not like that as much. Our guide for the day, Slim Jim as he liked to be called, took us through different sections of the site. There were two areas of traps that the Vietcong used to catch unsuspecting opposing troops. All of the
m were not happy things and would hu
rt like hell if you fell into one. One of the ones that stuck out to me as being the worst was the "Souvenir" trap. They dug a hole and then put what looked like a metal four legged stool upside down in the hole. On each leg there was an extension of a metal spike that pointed in towards the underbelly of the stool. So someone walks along, their leg falls into the hole and their foot lands on the underside of the stool but then as they pull their leg out the metal spikes jam into their calf. Slim Jim said that if this happened there was no way to get the contraption off while out in the battle field so the soldier would have to be taken back to the hospital with the stool to get it cut off - aka the Souveni
r trap. They also showed us a sniper ground lookout and allowed us to climb in if we wanted. You could see a small tunnel leading away from the sniper hole to who knows where. Then we got to go in the tunnels ourselves. Our group made it so that we would be in front. Underground if you ended up freaking out there were a number of side shoots that would get you outside immediately. I wonder how many tourists had panic attacks before they figured out to make those. A tunnel guide headed in, followed by some lady in our group, then Andrew, myself, Marie and Cliff. The lady soon gave up and took a shoot back
to the surface. I really didn't think the tunnels were that bad. Granted I'm pretty small and didn't have too much trouble getting through and tight spaces have never bothered me much. Poor Cliff, he was just way too tall for the trek. He ended up having to go on hand
s and knees and got a cut on one of his knees from the rocks. The hardest part I thought was that there were different levels so sometimes you had to hop up to the next section and the stair situation wasn't the best. The key was to just not fall backwards on the person behind you. We stopped after a shooting range where you could pay 200,000 Dong (about $10) to get 10 bullets to fire out of a gun used in the war. The downside was the guns were strapped down so all you were actually doing was pulling a trigger. Due to a number of reasons we all decided to pass. To finish the tour we got served raw tapioca and tea. Then we were shown a movie that was what looked like propaganda films that the Vietnamese had created during the war about different heroes on the battlefield. Then it was back home to Ho Chi Minh City. We grabbed dinner and had a quiet evening in watching TV and trying to use the internet on the one free computer at the hos
tel.
Mekong Delta tour Day 1! The delta is where the Mekong River ends and enters into the sea. It is widely known for the enormous size of many of its sea creatures. After busing out to the area we stopped at a bee farm and had some honey tea. The stall was also selling snake wine. You can purchase a bottle in a range of sizes that has snakes and scorpions floating in the liquid. On top of that they randomly had a very large boa const
rictor that was being p
assed around the tourists for pictures. After the farm we went out into the canals of the delta. There were hoards of small Vietnamese canoes manned by the locals. A few tourists got in at a time and got sent down the canal to our next destination. We were under express instructions to not move our hands outside of the boat because with the boats alwa
ys bumping into each other that's how you can easily break a finger. Afterward we went to a coconut candy making factory. There were women going through all the different processes that went into making the candy and then you could buy all different flavors at the end. I bought a package of chocolate coconut and it was delicious. The texture is sort of like taffy and it doesn't really even taste like what we associate with co
conut. There was also a taste testing section of different liquors. We all tried banana wine that was pretty bad. In China, and now we know in South East Asia, when a bottle says wine it really means hard liquor. We stopped for lunch at a big restaurant in one of the towns along the way. Their famed dish was Elephant Fish where you got the entire fish and it was held upright when served. Unfortunately it was extremely expensive so...we did not get one. Lunch ended and we were given some time to hang around with the option to go on a bike ride. So of course we went to go find some bikes! I ended up pickin
g one that was stuck in 1st gear, veered to the left, started shaking if you went too fast and did not have working brakes - good job Carrie. That, plus my complete lack in physical strength, made bike riding a bit difficult. But we got around the little local town a bit and it was fun seeing the countryside. Our final stop for the day was an orchard where we heard traditional Vietnamese music. There were a couple instrument players and a few women who switched back and forth singing. At one point they asked if anyone in the crowd knew a song and one of our Vietnamese guys got up and sand a short tune. The evening ended in Can Tho, one of the bigger towns in the area where we got put up in a typical hostel by the tour agency. The city was on the water so we walked along the riverside and found some Pho Noodles for dinner. It was the first night in awhile that all four of us weren't crammed into one room so it was nice rooming with Marie again and we stayed up chatting for a bit and then got some rest.
Mekong Delta tour Day 2. We set off at 7:15 and got on a boat to see the floating market. This market was an actual 'in use by locals' market for fresh fruit. There were tons of boats each selling a different kind of crop. The boats would inform you of what they were selling by having a tall bamboo pole at the front of their ship with a piece of their fruit or vegetable tied to the top. It was a supplier market so if you wanted to buy any fruit you needed to get at least 10 kilos. Luckily, there were a few boats that had gotten into the tourist trade and had a single piece for sale instead. Marie w
as tempted by the pineapple - always a good choice. We got off the boats and then went to a local, on land, market that sold meat and fish. One of the most common fish was this long thin black one that was round so it sat o
n it's belly and could use it's fins to move on hard surfaces. Most stalls had a whole tray of them that were still alive and moving around. It wasn't uncommon for one to scoot itself right off the tray and onto the ground. We also saw some meat stalls that were trying their best to use every part of whatever animal they had that day. There was an entire cow's skull that was picked to the bone. There was another table that had a whole chunk of meat on it and the eye of the animal still attached to the shapeless form. We also saw a cow heart - it was huge! The market was the last stop of the day so we were taken by boat back to Can Tho. We were on our own for lunch in the city so we wandered around until we found a bakery. Getting some bread and baozi we headed for a tourist market to pick up some trinkets before heading home. The baozi was a bit interesting. A common thing to eat in China, we didn't think much about it when we bought them. But these had not only a full hard boiled quail egg in them but also a large chunk of moon cake like hardened egg yolk that was nasty. Eventually we got back on the bus to Saigon and said goodbye to the Delta. On the return trip our bus got a flat tire! So we got to watch how a bus tire gets put back on and got to sit around for a little bit before starting again. We stopped once at this very nice, but very touristy, resort for a bathroom and snack break. In the on-site convenient store they were selling a couple different types of wine and had a couple of bottles that you could test try before buying. So Marie and I each did a small shot of black sticky rice wine. That was the worst thing I have ever drank in my life! I thought I was going to puke. It was extremely strong and even worse than baijiu. Luckily we had some ice cream to get the taste out of our mouths and then got back on the bus. One random story: We met this lady from Minnesota on the tour. She was traveling by herself and obviously wanted to make some friends so we chatted with her for a bit. She has been living in China teaching for at least 10 years, we asked her how long and she wouldn't say an exact number. We later found out just how Chinese she has become. When we stopped for the bathroom break Marie got in line behind her and had the same stall. Well in China, Chinese women do not like Western toilets. So if there is one, they lift up the seat and then actually climb up onto the bowl and squat just like a regular Chinese bathroom. Why they feel the need to climb up on it/how they don't fall quite often, no one knows. Anyway, so Marie went in after the Minnesota lady and the seat was up and there were footprints on the bowl! She has officially become a Chinese person, no questions asked. It just seems like a dangerous practice. We got on the bus for the last time and got back to Ho Chi Minh City before dinner. Our flight in the morning was at 8am so we had decided it didn't make sense to get a hostel for the night since we would have to leave so early anyway. So instead we decided to spend the night in the airport. Due to that we had all our bags at the tour company and had to carry them around if we wanted to go anywhere. So we just went back to our usual eating place in the backpack district, because it was across the street, and had dinner. At dinner Marie and I chose to order a cup of snake wine because we didn't want to leave Vietnam without at least trying it. It really was not bad! Much better than the sticky rice wine. And at least at this point it has not killed us. After dinner the tour company helped us get a taxi and we arrived at the airport. The place cleared out by about 11pm and during the night there was only one other non-worker in the place. That was actually really nice because it meant that we could spread out on the chairs and not worry about getting yelled at. Unfortunately, Cliff had gone to sleep before the place quieted down so he made a little bed behind the chairs and spent the night on the floor. None of us got a lot of sleep by any means, but it could have been
a lot worse. In the morning we cleaned ourselves up a bit and got on the plane. We arrived in Guangzhou a few hours later and were back in China!! Overall the trip was a great success. Three weeks is a lot of time to be on the road, but we made it work. Except for a few minor set backs, nothing really went wrong and we got to see pretty much everything that we wanted to. My favorite part I think was learning all the history and going to the Khao Yai National Park in Thailand. And luckily by the end of the three weeks we all needed some alone time but were not at the point of killing each other (at least I hope not). I thought Marie and Andrew did a great job planning Cambodia and Vietnam and I was happy that I could experience all of it with them and Cliff.
