Saturday, November 7, 2009

Vietnam!!!

Good Morning Vietnam!

They played that movie on the ship and it has made my desire to have a dinner with Robin Williams all that much more. Anyway, Vietnam is kickass; I would easily consider it one of my favorites.

We arrived on the 3rd and I woke up early to watch us sail down/up? The Mekong delta, it was really neat to be cruising down this narrow river with local boats surrounding us and seeing all the roughage, as my mother would refer to it. It was a really cool thing to wake up and see, totally worth it. It took three hours to get to Ho Chi Minh City from when we entered the river. I was getting so antsy waiting for us to berth and then hear over the PA ' attention ship's company.. the ship has been cleared'. I was very excited to shop considering the dollar goes so far. One dollar = 17,500 dong.. now that is a hard conversion to do in your head but knowing that a five-minute taxi is barely a dollar is rad.

Before arriving I make a list of all the things I would like to accomplish in the country whether it be something small, big, touristy or the off the beaten path sort of thing. My list was rather small for Vietnam but I can say that I saw almost everything I wanted to and did everything I wanted to as well. The first day out I shopped till I dropped. It was so damn sticky out from the humidity and it felt like I was walking through spider webs, no doubt. My friends and I went to some markets and tried out our bargaining skills. We became friends with street vendors and crossed the street successfully. I thought Spain had a lot of vespas.. wrong, Vietnam does.

After shopping and spending millions of dong, we opted to grab some grub at a local food court. The nice thing about this food court is that it is in an air-conditioned mall and had free wi-fi so my itouch became my first priority to locate in my bag of goodies. I have to say, the itouch has proved to be so convenient while traveling, and I have used it as a calculator, mirror, and now a computer. I understand that an iphone would be the way to go but this works just fine for me.

My friends are not so adventurous so they visited colonel sanders while I went to a Vietnamese restaurant and talked with my hands asking a man to order me his favorite dish. After five minutes of charades and $2, I was served this mystery dish. At first I was bitching about the contents but then I thought.. well what the heck did you expect dummy.. You ordered something whose name looked like it was built with Lincoln logs.. I cannot decipher the characters at all.

Surprisingly it was tasty although I latter learned I was eating pork intestines and other various things that if written in English I would not have touched with a ten-foot pole. I did not at all regret my choice or method of ordering; it will just be something that I will always remember. The Vietnamese food is good, I think I prefer Thai, but it's still very flavorful. The use a lot of broths and bean sprouts.. my favorite part was all the cilantro!

One of my favorite memories was going to see the Cu Chi War Tunnels, which was very eye opening. My naive self kept envisioning Forrest and Bubba taking lieutenant dan's orders while trekking through the jungle. In the beginning of the tour we watched a video, which referred to Americans as ‘little devils’, and how the Vietcong awarded medals to those who killed the most Americans. This was humbling as I am the only blonde haired blue eyed American for miles. The tunnels are amazing and small. It was so damn hot but very interesting, I am very happy I went and I learned a lot. The networks of tunnels were so cool to crawl through, a little nerve racking because they were so small and you have to crouch down like a tiger. I just had the feeling some disgusting rodent would be in there... then I would have had a problem. I did see a large, very large rat while waiting for the shuttle one evening. I’m sorry to always bring these nasty things up but I just can’t seem to stomach the fact that they are all over.. where I am!

The night scene in Vietnam is legit to say the least. They had many clubs like 17 Saloon, which is homage to John Wayne, Apocalypse Now that could have been found in Mexico and Lush... I think the name speaks for itself.

Apocalypse was the main spot for all the SASers, they even put up a banner that said 'hope you happy time in dance'... that only got funnier as the night went on. Drinks are cheap to say the least, a bottle is a million dong and that can be kinda crazy at first, but once you hear some 'Livin on a prayer' on the dance floor, you are good to go.. so I hear. There was security all over the place.. over 50 officers. They made sure dancing only happened on the dance floor, no one was sitting on laps, drunkies weren't puking and that money was being spent. Even though we are told we are ambassadors for the US while in country, some people were so shitty, like eyes rolling back and stumbling all over. So many people got kicked out and some even sent home for good. Rumor has it a kid stole a pack of cigarettes, got arrested and then got sent home... the kicker is his parents came to visit him in Vietnam.

I had some late nights but I always made sure to make the most out of the following day. I was getting about 4 hours of sleep a night despite my exhaustion, I would walk all around during the day and sweat out all my toxins while trying to avoid the wallet sales ladies and just kept shopping. On the last day I got a pedicure that was so nice because after walking around for these past months, my feet really needed one. The cool thing is it was only $3 dollars compared to the $15 in the salon on the ship.

Vietnam is a wonderful place and it was difficult to say goodbye, even though I am very excited for China. The time at sea in-between Vietnam and Hong Kong and Shanghai and yokohama is short- 3 days each, meaning that the first day back on the ship is a 'reading day' aka lounging day and then we have an 'A' day followed by a 'B' day and then we are in the country. This is when the voyage is going to feel like it is going even faster. In China, I will be staying at a University in Beijing and I will travel all over seeing the sights including the Great Wall! It’s supposed to be cold so that will be a change, a difficult change. Although I resemble a bottle of glue, I have really enjoyed the sunshine... it makes my days so much better!

I have just over a month until I return home and although that is exciting, I am finding myself blocking that thought out of my head. Let me explain. It’s not that I don’t want to see my beautiful family and share all my memories and photos but rather it is going to be so hard to get back to reality. I mean I am one this ship with my biggest worry being if I did the homework assignment. It will also be difficult to say goodbye to the awesome friends I have made, including my professors. It will be something that I can get over and will, I’m just saying that the packing day at the end of the voyage will be a little rough. Needless to say I miss my family and my familiar things. I think about home a lot and about everyone even more. I hope this finds you all well and please know my love for you!

Until China.

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