The Tyranny of Distance

Vietnam

The night after we left Malaysia, the “Jew Crew” on the ship had a Passover Seder. I went with a few friends and had a really great time. Although they served many dishes that weren’t kosher for Passover (since we were basically served the same food as the rest of the ship) they did have matzah ball soup that was surprisingly incredible. Never have I missed home as much as I did during the Passover Seder. The next morning I woke up at 5:45 am to get seats for the Easter sunrise service that was led by Archbishop Tutu. The service was beautiful, and it was incredible seeing Tutu in his famous purple Archbishop outfit actually leading the service.


Vietnam: Day 1

I had heard that pulling into Vietnam was one of the best ports to wake up for so I woke up early on Monday morning. At about 6:45am the MV Explorer sailed into the Saigon River, which it cruised through for the next three hours. Seeing our massive cruise ship sailing down a river was incredible. You could see rise patties, fields, and mountains for miles since land was right next to us on both sides. After watching this for a few hours I went to eat breakfast and get ready for my day’s adventure in Ho Chi Minh City!
I had nothing planned for the first day, so three friends and I started wandering around as soon as we were cleared through customs. We have shuttle busses that take us from the ship to the center of the city, which is an extremely convenient luxury after having to deal with the tender boats of Malaysia! My friend Dorothy has a book that lists the 1,000 places one must go before they die, and in the book was a restaurant in Ho Chi Minh, so we started walking trying to find the place. After walking for about an hour, we finally arrived at Pho Huo, which is a small Vietnamese restaurant, which serves exclusively pho (a famous Vietnamese dish comprising of rice noodles in soup). I had never had Vietnamese food or pho (pronounced fu) before, so I was unsure what to expect. We ordered our food inside a minute of sitting down (we had the choice between beef pho, chicken pho, or veggie pho, so we didn’t need long) and literally inside 45 seconds of ordering our bowls of soup were on the table. Although it took a few minutes to get the hang of eating noodles with chopsticks, the pho was absolutely incredible!! The bowl was so huge I couldn’t even finish my lunch. The best part is that you are actually supposed to slurp the noodles, since it is a sign that you like the food! While I had heard that Vietnamese food was cheap, I was still surprised to find that the massively delicious bowl of noodles plus a drink only cost about $1.50! Not only that, but we were the only non-locals in the place, which is always great! After the incredible lunch we set off to find the War Remnants museum, with a few stops in some small shops on the way.
We entered what we thought to be the War Remnants museum but it actually turned out to be the Ho Chi Minh City museum (granted, it had a huge tank in front of the building…and we can’t speak Vietnamese, so it was a fair mistake!) Even though it was not where we planned to go, the museum turned out to be really great. They had a lot of beautiful pottery and old artifacts. Upstairs they had a whole section dedicated to the Vietnam War (or the American War, as they call it). It was extremely interesting seeing their side of the conflict, since this is something we are never taught in school. It was weird seeing the U.S. being described as “the enemy” all of the time, but the exhibit was really great. After some time in the Ho Chi Minh City museum we decided to go to the actual War Remnants museum, which was only two blocks away.
The War Remnants museum was really great, but very difficult to get through. The museum is dedicated to the war crimes committed by the U.S. against Vietnam. There were mostly images in the exhibits, many of which were the most disturbing pictures I have ever seen. There were images of Agent Orange victims, horribly injured people, and countless corpses. We spent some time here, but after seeing some of the pictures, we weren’t looking to spend a long time at the museum. I am really glad we went since I know it is an important to see the other side of our nation’s history – one that is more often than not a horribly ugly history.
After the second museum visit, we walked a few blocks until we reached the Ben Thanh market, a famous market in the city, which was absolutely huge. We walked around the market for about an hour. I didn’t buy anything, but we all ate some jackfruit, lychee, and mangostein, each of which was delicious and unlike any fruit I’ve ever had in the States. After the market closed, we took the shuttle back to the ship to have a small snack before going back out for the night.
We found a really nice Vietnamese restaurant called Blue Ginger a few blocks from the ship. Unfortunately, it was packed with SAS kids, but it was incredibly nice and delicious. I ordered a bowl of pho, since I discovered just how delicious it is at lunch and it was excellent. Right next to our tables were two women playing a traditional Vietnamese instrument I have never seen or heard before, but it was supposedly “traditional” music and was really great. I also tried some Vietnamese spring rolls, which were ridiculously good! After dinner, a few of us went to a coffee shop down the street for a few minutes before catching the last shuttle back to the ship. I didn’t know what to expect from Vietnam, but after the first day I fell in love. Ho Chi Minh city is incredible and I had an incredible time walking around the first day. One of the best parts of Vietnam is crossing the street. The roads are packed with motorcycles, bikes, cars, trucks and busses, and rarely are there crosswalks with stoplights. What one must do is simply walk slowly across the street while everyone drives around you. The trick is to walk at a slow, constant pace so everyone can judge your speed. Then they will just simply drive around you while you continue to walk. It is such an incredible system! Although my brain told me numerous times not to walk since it seemed like apparent suicide, it works extremely well and I haven’t been hurt (yet) at all!


Vietnam: Day 2

For my second day in Vietnam, I had an SAS trip planned to the Mekong Delta. The river is about two hours outside Ho Chi Minh, but on the way we stopped at a Cao Dai temple and a local market. I don’t fully understand Cao Daism, but it was explained as a religion/philosophy based on a man who said he saw the spirit of Victor Hugo and two Vietnamese freedom fighters, and the spirits told him to create a religion uniting all of Vietnam (even though the creator of Cao Daism admitted from the start that he made up the story of the spirits?) Either way, the temple was pretty and the market was crazy/exciting. After these two unannounced stops, we finally reached the river where we immediately got onto large boats. These boats took us to a small island, where they had plates of tropical fruit set out for us. There was jackfruit, pineapple, something I think was called pommela (that tasted and looked similar to a grapefruit), and mango. They were delicious of course. There were also traditional Vietnamese folk musicians playing while we ate which was great. There were some of the same instruments that I saw at the restaurant the night before. After the performance, the musicians let us play the instruments, which was great.
After all of this, we got onto small boats, which were like canoes, to go down the Mekong Delta. There were four students per boat and then two Vietnamese women paddling, one up front and one in the back. The trip down the Delta was truly one of the best experiences of the entire trip so far. It was incredibly beautiful and peaceful. It was such an odd experience though, since only a few decades ago this same area was one of the main fighting spots for the Vietcong against the Americans. The boat ride lasted about half an hour, after which the little boats took us to slightly larger boats. These new boats took us to yet another island off the Delta. Here they were making coconut candy, which they gave to us right after it came out of the oven so it was still warm and delicious. We then sat down for a cup of tea made with honey and cumquat juice, which was amazing. After few cups of tea and many pieces of coconut candy, we got back on the boat for yet another stop. This time, thankfully, it was to the restaurant for lunch!
The restaurant was a small outdoors seafood restaurant. They sat us down and brought out a huge fried tilapia (that they called the “elephant ear fish”) to each table, the entire fish complete with scales, eyes, and the works. A woman came to the table and prepared these amazing rolls with pieces of the fish, rice noodles, and veggies wrapped in rice paper. After the fish, they brought out spring rolls that had a bunch of unknown ingredients in them, but they too were delicious. Then came a plate of fried potatoes and beef. Then came a plate of fried noodles, followed by bowls of fried rice. Then came the main meal, which was a hot pot of fish soup with rice noodles. Then for dessert they brought out pieces of watermelon cut out in the shape of arrows. They literally were bringing food out to our table non-stop for the hour and a half we were there and everything was absolutely incredible. The meal was honestly one of the best I have ever had. Vietnamese food is so good! After lunch we took the boats back to the bus, where we got on for the two-hour drive back to the ship.
I had a small dinner on the ship since I was still stuffed from lunch a few hours before and then went out for a little in the night. I brought my laptop to a local coffee shop and used their free wireless Internet for a while I drank some tea. After hanging out for a little while, I returned back to the ship to get to bed early since I knew I had a huge day ahead of me the next morning…


Vietnam: Day 3

On Wednesday I had an SAS trip to visit a Cao Dai temple and the Cu Chi tunnels that I was very excited for. Only twelve people including myself showed up for the trip, which was great since I was starting to get annoyed with the large SAS trips, which usually have 20-60 people, depending on the trip. The temple was a three-hour drive away from Ho Chi Minh, but we made two stops on the way. The first was to a factory where victims and family members of victims of the war worked to make crafts and bottle water. We saw them making some beautiful crafts, which was nice, but I’m convinced the only reason we stopped there was so that we could walk through the gift shop. The next stop on the way to the temple was this woman’s house where she made rice paper in her backyard. This was interesting to see, but we were only there for a few minutes. After a few naps on the bus we finally arrived at the Cao Dai temple, one of the biggest temples in South East Asia.
The temple was massive and beautiful. As I learned some the day before, Cao Daism was created in 1926 and was meant to unite all the different religions and is unique to Vietnam. Since it is a synthesis of many different religions, we saw images on the Buddha, Confucius, and even Jesus in the temple (not to mention Victor Hugo…still can’t figure that one out…) After walking around the temple for about half an hour we were led upstairs so we could watch down on the noon prayer session. All of the followers wore all white to pray, while the monks wore red, blue, or yellow. The color represented the religion they adhered to: red for Confucianism, blue for Taoism, and yellow for Buddhism -- I’m not too sure how they pick which religion they identify themselves with over the others. There was no head person leading the prayer; rather, everyone was kneeling and praying themselves with musicians and choir in the background.
After the visit to the temple we stopped at an incredibly nice restaurant for lunch. Similar to the lunch I had the day before on the Mekong Delta, the waiters kept bringing out plates full of food for almost an hour. We had pho, noodles, fried prawns, peppered beef, rice, and fresh pineapple. Some of the people at my table weren’t huge fans of the food, so I made sure we didn’t have any leftovers and ate it all. I love Vietnamese food. After lunch, we stopped by the American War Memorial for a few minutes on the way to the Cu Chi Tunnels where there are about 8,000 Vietnamese soldiers’ graves.
After another two hours on the bus we finally reached the Cu Chi tunnels. Cu Chi was a major battleground during the war since the Americans needed the city to help protect Saigon (which is now Ho Chi Minh city). The Vietnamese first built a small tunnel system during the war with the French and continued to expand upon it in preparation for the war against the U.S. When we first arrived we were led into a tiny steaming hot room where we were given a brief description of the tunnels and were shown a short documentary/piece of propaganda. The video was extremely one-sided in favor of Vietnam, which was to be expected, which was extremely interesting to watch. After the video, we walked through the woods on top of the tunnel system and were shown the many ways in which the Vietnamese hid from the American soldiers. While we were walking we heard incredibly loud gunshots, which freaked me out at first (I literally jumped at least a foot in the air) until I learned that there was an actual firing range at the tunnels. In the middle of the tour we were given the chance to buy bullets and fire them from real guns, including an AK-47. I was absolutely disgusted by this idea for so many reasons, but many in my group did not feel the same way. After waiting around for people to fulfill their urge to fire a weapon used by the Vietnamese to kill Americans we continued on the tour. At this time we were given a chance to actually go down into one of the tunnel’s corridors. It was extremely cramped, dark, and hot down there, and it was hard to walk through. It was such a crazy/intense experience walking through the tunnels and it was hard to imagine people having to do this actually to save their lives.
After the tunnels we got back on the bus for a 2-hour ride back to the ship. After a small dinner in the dining room, I went out with two friends to walk around the city. We ended up in a jazz club where one of the Lifelong Learners from SAS was playing guitar. We only stayed for a little bit since we were all tired, so we went back to the ship to watch a movie before falling asleep.

Vietnam: Day 4

Having accomplishing everything I had expected to do in Vietnam in the first three days I had no plans for Thursday. My roommate and I decided to just walk around Ho Chi Minh and see where the day took us. After walking around all morning we met up with some other friends and got some pho for lunch, which was delicious. After lunch we visited numerous bootleg DVD stores, since they are all over. I ended up buying the entire series of West Wing (7 seasons) for only $20! The best part is that the DVDs actually work! My friend had seen a large market the day before so we set off trying to find that, but after a few hours of wondering around we gave up. By mid-afternoon, the group had split into two. Some friends went to the War Remnants museum (which I could not go back to since it was too difficult the first time), so my roommate Kyle, Rick, and I decided to walk around some more. We ended up at the Saigon zoo, which was pretty fun. They had all the typical animals one would find in any zoo (elephants, lions, giraffes, tigers, etc), except all of the animals happened to be sleeping while we were there, or just lazy, so we didn’t see much. We did see two bears get into a fight, which was slightly thrilling (although I’m sure they were just playing around, a fight makes for a better story). After the zoo we went back to the ship for a late dinner. After dinner I just went to the Internet café down the street for a while and came back to the room to relax, since I was exhausted from the day filled with nothing but walking.


Vietnam: Day 5

I woke up for an early breakfast before I started walking around Ho Chi Minh with some. We didn’t have any plans for the day so we just started walking. Eventually we ended up at the Independence Palace, which used to be the center of the Vietnamese government before the French and U.S. wars. I had seen the building in pictures before, since there was a famous incident there when a tank ran through the front gate, so it was really interesting to walk through. The best part was the bunkers in the basement, which were actually used when the French bombed the building during their war against Vietnam.
After the Palace we started walking towards the Natural History museum to watch a water puppet show, which was right next to the zoo. On the way we stopped at a random restaurant that was packed with young businessmen and women. They randomly started bringing us food and drinks without us ordering, which was nothing short of confusing. The meal was only 18,000 dong (there are about 16,500 dong to the dollar…most confusing conversion rate ever!), which is dirt-cheap so it didn’t matter in the end. After lunch we walked to the History museum. The water puppet show didn’t start for a while so we walked around and looked at all of the artifacts, which were incredible. The water puppets, which are supposedly only found in Vietnam, started at around 2:00pm. It was entertaining and kind of silly, but was really great nonetheless. Following the performance we walked for a while until we reached the Ben Thanh market. After finishing some shopping and walking around I went back to the ship to shower and for a late dinner. More so than any other port, I am really sad to leave Vietnam. I expected it to be a good port, but Ho Chi Minh City was absolutely amazing and was probably my favorite place so far. I am beginning to realize how quickly this trip is coming to an end, which is extremely depressing. I will have a n extremely busy three days until we get to Hong Kong, but after that I will be done with school work for a while until after China.

posted by eric @ 9:01 PM