Vietnam 2

Back at the hotel, all the girls popped on their swimsuits and went to grab some food and a 6 dollar massage. The food was delicious, the massage, not so much. Too much pounding, not enough relaxing. Oh well, that’s what I get for 6 dollars.

After that Kit and I were tired and went back to the hotel and used the internet and slept before getting ready for dinner and going out that night.

Dinner that night was at another hotel, where we were again the only ones dining, and a traditional Vietnamese musical show was put on for us. The instruments were crazy and I had never seen them before, on one of them the woman basically plucked strings vertical to the actual instrument itself. Dinner was delicious again, especially the soup which we all loved.

The thing I like about these random trips I’ve signed up for is that I usually don’t know too many people, and I end up meeting new friends. It turned out like that once again, and I ended up hanging out with Kit, Carl, Barney and Kyle the whole time, with a few other people thrown in there too. Funny kids, let me tell you. After dinner we all went out on the town, stopping first at a bar on the beach. The guys were already pretty tipsy from dinner, and we ordered buckets, of course, and they decided to speak in Australian accents for a good twenty minutes. I don’t remember who said it, but someone called out in an Australian accent, “Hooooooly buckets!” And that was it. That phrase would not leave our mouths for the next three days. It cracked me up every single time. I’m still cracking up right now, actually. Barney, our resident narcoleptic, has a problem with falling asleep when he’s drunk, so he would be basically sleeping, we would wake him up, and he would yell, “Hooooooly BUCKETS!” Hilarious. We went to a few other bars, one called Red Apples or Candy Apples that we really liked, lots of foreigners. This was a pretty late night, but it was okay because I was able to sleep in until 8. HA.

The next morning we got up to go on a full day boating excursion. We had a private ferry-ish type boat to our group. We motored around for awhile then stopped at an aquarium built inside of a fake ship. It was super ghetto but also kind of sad, because it is the shabbiest aquarium I have ever seen. There were about five sea turtles and a ton of eels in a tank I personally think is way too small for them. They were in fish tanks that you might see at a fish store or Asian restaurant in the states, except somewhat bigger.

Next we stopped in this little cove to get out and take a dip. I was slow getting in, however, because I was just waking up from a nap. This turned out to be really good because almost everyone that got in was stung by jellyfish. So I stayed put right where I was while everyone got out and started rubbing lime and ice all over their bodies.

Oh by the way, I am going to take this opportunity to talk about dong jokes. The Vietnamese currency is Dong, 17,000 Dong to 1 USD. Well, you can imagine what kind of things our immature college minds came up with me. We made a lot of jokes like, “Man, everybody wants my dong in this country.” But we also slipped dong into many popular songs, like The Dong Song, instead of the Thong Song, and my personal favorite, “Killing Me Softly with his Dong.” Really funny. Admit it, yeah, even you chuckled a little.

So they took us over to another beach area that was more guest-oriented, with chairs, a bathroom, and an ice cream stand, and let us roam free for two hours. There was a really cool little raft thingy with a slide on it about thirty feet out, so we all swam out there and did slide stunts and then laid out on the raft and talked and joked. It was a relaxing couple of hours. I tanned to my content then read The Kite Runner, which I am just a little bit into. Oh and a sidenote, old men in speedos are the best.

We were all starving so they took us to lunch at a place where you couldn’t dock up directly to the restaurant, but had to be taken there by a raft being slowly moved back and forth by two guys on the raft tugging a rope. There were also these crazy basket boats that look exactly like huge baskets. We wanted to go in one really bad, but our guide said no, the rafts were already paid for. Damn. Another delicious meal with a great view and great company. And lots of dong jokes.

The day came to an end, and Kit and I again relaxed for awhile, showering, napping, internetting. Dinner was at a Japanese restaurant this time and was the best one we had. I’m not a huge seafood person and I definitely don’t like shrimp, but I ate everything offered to me like a good traveler should, just to try it at least once, and the clams I had were the best buttery garlicy clams I have ever had, and the shrimp was… tolerable.

After dinner we went back to the hotel to relax for a little by the pool before going out again. We drank our bottles of four dollar vodka then went for another night of barhopping. Kit and I caught a motorbike with a one-eyed guy named Huang who offered us all types of drugs. Pretty common occurrence everywhere we go. No thanks, though. We got back to the hotel and hopped right in the pool, where we stayed till late at night, till finally I crawled into bed.

I slept in until 8:30, then got up to spend a little more time roaming the city and swimming in the ocean until we had to leave at 11. I got a delicious mango smoothie. We all met up and took the bus back to the airport. Our flight was scheduled for 1:15. Unfortunately for us, our flight wouldn’t leave until 6:45 due to “technical difficulties.” So it was a very long day at the airport and it meant an afternoon lost in Ho Chi Minh City, but this stuff happens, and it’s actually the first major delay I have had so far. We made the most of it, or tried to. Lots of card games. We climbed up on top of a huge billboard. We tried to walk through a field to get to the ocean, but security guards came whistling up to us on a motorbike to tell us we couldn’t go over there. Apparently it is a military owned area. Communists. We even went to eat at the airport restaurant, where I had the best Cantonese Fried Rice ever after having a full out fight with the horrendously rude waitresses that paid no attention to us, didn’t care that we didn’t get we ordered, and were basically just big b****es.

We finally board the plane and get back to ship sweet ship. I put all my stuff down, shower, and get ready for yet another night out. Go hard or go home. I met up with Kit, Carl, Natalie, Doug, and Philip and we stopped by the night markets where I bought some really cute earrings. We wanted to go to Buddha Bar, a new bar where we had heard everyone was going. One guy said he knew the way, but I knew by the way he was talking that he didn’t. I warned everyone else about this getting in, but no, no one listens to me. We end up driving around for a half hour before finally telling him to just go back to Apocalypse Now. When we get there, we give him three dollars, angry that he wasted our time like that. He started yelling at us, mainly the boys. We all tried to walk away but he grabbed Philip’s arm demanding more money. Philip finally gave it to him. Taxis can be a tricky business, and they are ALL out to get you.

Back in Apocalypse, another great night, we closed the place down this time, about 2:30. I reunited with my lover Hannah, who I miss everytime I am in a country, and we danced it up. This night was even more crowded than the first night and my toenails were literally bleeding at the end of the night. But it had great music and great dancing. I danced with this Spanish guy named Jose for awhile and we started talking. He didn’t know much English, so we went to the bar and spoke Spanish for about an hour. It was great! Most Spanish people I meet know more English than I know Spanish, but it was the other way around this time and I got a good amount of practice in. Then we said encantado and mucho gusto and I caught a cab home with Kit again. Hit the bed hard to get ready for my 7:45 AM wakeup.

Wake up, stumble to the bus to get ready for my full day excursion to the Cao Dai temple and Cu Chi tunnels. Win and Lexi were on this trip, and I love them, so I was happy.

We drove about two hours and stopped to eat, another delicious meal, the breaded shrimp was the best shrimp yet. There was a little Vietnamese baby rocking in a hammock that I really loved.

The Cao Dai temple was the Disneyland of temples. It is a religion that combines aspects of Catholicism, Buddhism and Hinduism. The colors are something out of Pokemon or Alice in Wonderland. The ceilings were bright blue with silver stars all over them. The columns had brightly decorated dragons. Pictures of Jesus, Buddha, and Hindu gods hanging out were all over the place. We were there for a full service. There were about two hundred people worshipping, all sitting in organized rows. Up top there were musicians and singers playing the music that led the service. All followers were dressed in white. Followers of specific religions were dressed in red, blue, or yellow, one for each religion, I don’t know for sure which off the top of my head. The hundreds of people below bowed at times when dongs were sounded. Again, pictures would really help here.

Next, another hour bus ride to the Cu Chi tunnels. These were the tunnels used by the Vietcong in the Vietnam War to ambush us from all over the place and effectively use guerrilla war tactics. We started our visit by watching a Vietcong propaganda video. It was very interesting to watch, knowing that our country would do the exact same thing in times of war. They called the Americans monsters and spoke many times of the many heroes who were rewarded for killing many Americans. Cu Chi was revered as a peaceful, beautiful treasure of Vietnam that the Americans sought to destroy. We got to explore the area, saw a lot of bomb craters, original tunnel entrances you could never see with the naked eye until our guide pointed them out, air vents dug into termite hills, bunkers that still remain after all these years. One display showed all of the booby traps the Vietcong set up for Americans, pretty barbaric stuff, lots of things where the body would be impaled. One was basically a revolving door, where you would step on it and instantly fall below where sharpened sticks of bamboo waited for you. Nothing I would want to fall into in the forest. I never really knew before that those types of tactics were used and it made me queasy to think about the young men that died in this way.

We had the opportunity to enter a tunnel ourselves, which we all did. The funny thing was, these tunnels had been enlarged 40% from their original size. Unbelievable. These people were so small. Even the larger tunnels were ridiculously small, you were hunched over almost on your knees the entire time. And these people lived there for years! Thousands of them! I cannot even imagine that type of existence.

On the bus ride home our guide told us about his life. He was a really funny and friendly guy and spoke great English. When he was 12 he was forced to quit school along with his sister and was sent to a refugee camp in China by his parents during the war. The camp had terrible conditions and no education. He finally returned to Vietnam where he stayed with his family for two weeks before immediately enrolling back into school, ad he has never satisfied his hunger for education since. He is 33. He says that his greatest wish would be to study in the U.S., but the kind of money we take for granted, even at the cheapest university, he said is like a dream to a Vietnamese person. He also voiced his opinion that the US invaded Vietnam, rather than Russia or China, because Vietnam had so many lucrative exports, namely oil. Interesting. I bet a lot of people think that.

Vietnam has suffered as a country so much, but today the country is growing rapidly. In fact, it is estimated to be one of the only countries that will continue to grow this year, even with the severe economic slump. In 30 years their country’s literacy rate as well as poverty rate has dramatically dropped. It is a beautiful country with very friendly people, and I really enjoyed being there. And, having now just written all this, I really learned a lot.

I’ve been on the ship two days now, getting a lot of rest and sleeping as much as possible. I’m a little sick, sore throat, very sore lymph nodes, kind of achy, but I figure mind over matter, this is NO time to be sick… because I get to China tomorrow! We dock in Hong Kong, but unfortunately my trip leaves immediately for Beijing. I’ll just have to come back to Hong Kong. I CAN’T BELIEVE I WILL BE IN CHINA TOMORROW!!! MY NINTH COUNTRY!!! WHAT IS GOING ON!!! I know China will be an intense learning experience. Also, it is going to SNOW in Beijing! Isn’t that exciting? I hope I will be on the Great Wall while it’s snowing. I definitely didn’t bring any snow clothes, but oh well, I’ll deal with that later.

I am already so looking forward to Japan where I will celebrate my birthday and travel independently all over the place with Han Han Han, Kendra, Adrienne, and hopefully Caroline, Alicia, and Lexi.

See you in six days!