Vietnam!!

I just spent my first day in Vietnam!! It’s pretty late right now and I have yet to start packing for my 5 am departure to Hanoi tomorrow morning. So I’ll try to make this quick.

I really didn’t spend that much time in Ho Chi Minh City today. See we have to travel up this busy, narrow river in order to get to our docking location, and because the river is so crowded with ships and other boats we had to travel it during daylight hours. So it was 2:00 pm before we got off the ship, which meant I got to sleep in today, a definite plus. Last night I watched the first four episodes of the third season of the O.C. One of my girlfriends on the ship had her mom mail her the tape of it. Over fifty kids crowded into a classroom for four hours and sat glued to the television…we didn’t even fast forward through the commercials, we were too excited to see them, to see things we recognized. So yeah, I was pretty tired when I finally left the classroom at 1 am last night.

Since we were traveling up a scenic river this morning they held a barbeque on deck 7 for us. All they have to do to get us excited is serve us fries and burgers, something we rarely get. So for an hour or so I hung out on the back of the ship, watching ships pull loads of mud out of the river as our huge vessel squeezed through the traffic. Kathryn, Janelle, and I were anxious to get off the ship and sat around by the soon-to-be gangway for over an hour, waiting for “the voice” to announce that the ship was clear. As the ship got closer and closer to the dock, parents were visible. They stood around in pairs, wearing those straw triangle Vietnamese hats with their luggage at their sides. It was all pretty exciting. A bunch of parents are doing trips with their kids in this country through SAS. Anna folks are going to Cambodia with her and Kathryn’s are too, although Kathryn isn’t doing it through SAS. It was excited to see parents, even if they weren’t mine.

When it was announced that the ship was clear at least a hundred kids instantly rushed the exit, we did well and were off the ship within five minutes. We took a shuttle to the center of town where rickshaw and cab drivers sat around waiting for us. Some SASers were asked if they wanted a rickshaw ride and were hesitant about what they wanted. I watched in amusement and horror as rickshaw drivers started grabbing the kids by their arms, pulling them to their carts. The girls were fighting back, trying to return to their group, the drivers eventually loosened their grip.

Janelle, Kathryn, and I decided to walk. We passed tailor shops, a shopping mall, clothing stores, and handicraft stores, but were determined to make it to the Ben Thanh Market. Eventually we did. Inside this huge warehouse-type building, was stall after stall of Asian souvenirs, clothing, jewelry, handicrafts…everything. And so we roamed. Kathryn only had thirty minutes in the market before she had to take a cab to the airport for her flight to Hanoi, where she’ll meet up with her parents. Janelle and I spent another hour or so in the market, bartering down the prices of Tiger Beer T-shirts and squeezing through the tightly packed aisles. Fake Lacoste polos, Northface bags, name-brand perfume, it was all there. As most markets are, it was all very overwhelming.

One Vietnamese woman stopped me, made me sit down on a stool, and asked me how I did my eyeshadow. Apparently she really liked my eye make-up. I rarely wear much, but today I had decided to and for a couple minutes I explained how you start darker and fade up on the eyelid, or something like that. She loved my red cheeks too and kept asking if I wore blush. It was odd. I stood up and was getting ready to leave and another woman was talking to me soon enough. I was wearing a tank-top, which isn’t acceptable attire in Vietnam, but had a buttoned shrug on over it. The button must have come undone, but I was still covered. This woman took my shrug and opened it up while she was talking…I’m not sure why, but she did. Maybe she was going to rebutton it. Well anyway, she opened the shrug up, saw my bare lower neck and exclaimed, “Ooooh!” before quickly covering me up again. It was actually pretty funny, but because of her reaction I felt really uncomfortable at the time.

Janelle and I left the market by 4:30 and took a cab to the War Remnants Museum. It turned out it was only open for twenty more minutes, but they let us in for free because they knew we wouldn’t see much. Although I only had minimal time in the museum, I’m really glad we went. There were pictures of agent orange victims, pictures of American soldiers with Vietnamese heads placed in front of them. The most upsetting picture for me was this one of a group of Vietnamese people, presumably a family, standing underneath a tree holding one another with terrified looks on their faces. Two children were in adults’ arms. Underneath the picture the caption read something about how they were about to be shot and the photographer said “Wait! Let me take a picture,” and he did. As he was walking away he said he heard guns go off and in the corner of this eye, bodies falling, but he never looked back. The museum had huge tanks outside of it, and also some military helicopters and planes. I really wish we had had more time to see everything, but a loud alarm when through the museum at five, signally that it was time to leave.

We took a cab back to the ship and stood around outside of the MV Explorer for quite some time, looking at the cheap Northface bags lined up for us SASers to look at and buy. At 6:30 a group of us left the ship once again and headed out to dinner. We ate at this Vietnamese restaurant called Blue Ginger, and yes, a lot of the food did have a ginger taste to it. It was a decently good meal and we got a kick out of the fact that our bill was over a million…dong that is. Oh and many many jokes went off about the title of their currency here in Vietnam, the dong. After dinner we walked back to the ship and once again hung around outside, this time I went through the piles of bootleg DVDs. Any movie I could ever want is right outside of the ship. I bought a few movies for five dollars, including Sin City, which I’m excited to watch again. But, apparently my computer isn’t compatible to play DVDs…dad, what’s up with that? I think these DVDs we bought are legit too because other SASers have already checked them out and been pleased, and because it’s hard to rip us off since we can easily go back to them and complain. So yeah, I think it’s my computers fault and not the DVDs. Bummer.

Anyway, I need to go start packing. I’m headed to Hanoi and this Mai Chau village for three days. There are only 16 other SASers on my trip so it should be fun…I’m pretty excited. I don’t feel like I’ve really seen much of Vietnam yet, but all the same, I’m enjoying it so far.

I’ll let you know how rest of my days here are. Much love.