Vietnam

GOOOOOD MORNING VIETNAM!!

So I have officially experienced a culture shock. It was in Vietnam. After visiting Vietnam I realized that China and Japan seem more like America with everything in a different language rather than a whole different country.

Anyways, Vietnam was insane. I never have any expectations for any of the countries we go to because I have legitimately no idea what to expect.

Day one: February 26th 2010

We arrive in Ho Chi Minh City. Sarah, Greta, Chloe, Kristin, Chris, and I left the boat together to explore the city. As soon as we got to the main street we were hounded by the local people wanting to give us motor bike and taxi rides. That seemed to be a trend every time we got to this road.
Let me set the stage: 6 americans walk onto the main streets of Ho Chi Minh City. It is at least 95 degrees out with a humidity of at least 170% (give or take). We have backpacks on and money belts hiding under our clothes. Most of us are wearing flip flops because of how hot it was. After an hour or less we were dripping in sweat, our feet were filthy, and our backs were drenched from having our backpacks on. OH and the food we heard we HAD to eat was Pho which is pretty much vietnamese soup (hot).
The most eventful thing that happened that day was crossing the street. There are no traffic patterns at all- maybe 5 street lights that people don’t acknowledge, you can pass at anytime, no stop signs. Basically no rules. There are also at least 45 motor bikes to every car on the road. The rule of thumb when crossing as a pedestrian is to use caution but know that the motor bikes are going to avoid you - do not swerve to avoid them. We were told “it is going to seem like you are about to be hit but chances are the motor bike will go around you” i don’t know if that was suppose to be reassuring advice or not.
The day itself was not too eventful but still very fun. Sarah, Greta, and I split from the group to explore the city ourselves. We saw things such was the Ben Thanh Market. Other than that we just walked and absorbed the culture, the smells (yuck), and the people. It was very strange compared to America. I saw poor people but not many people that looked ‘rich’. There was a very limited amount of westernization compared to China and Japan. I saw one Nike store, one Adidas store, and two KFCs. But other than that it was all small shops and local restaurants owned by people just trying to get by. The weird thing was that the vietnamese spoke a lot more english than the Chinese and Japanese. I met one girl that wanted me to teach her american slang words. I started easy and taught her “yo, what’s up?” When the next customer walked into the store she greeted them saying “yo, what’s up?” and they got a kick out of it. She was really happy. At one point she whispered in my ear saying “i want an american accent and will pay you money to help me get one”. I wish i could have helped but that’s kind of a hard request to fulfill.
The conversion of money was 1 dollar = about 20,000 dong. American money was widely accepted. When it came to bartering there you could really tell that a dollar goes a lot further there than it does at home. I would be trying to barter for say a purse and they would start at $14 and i would say $10 and they would say $13.50. In China and Japan they were a lot more flexible.
That night a bunch of us decided to explore the night life of Ho Chi Minh City. We went to the Rex Hotel which was a really nice hotel in the middle of the city that had a bar and restaurant on the roof. When we got there it was amazing. There was a band playing, a cool breeze, and a sweet view of the city. The combination of the three made it super cool and very enjoyable to be up there. We combined tables with a bunch of other SAS kids and mingled with them. After eating and relaxing for a little while, Sarah and I decided to head out to this ‘awesome bar with pool tables and lots to do’ because ‘they were gonna be tons of people there’. We got there and it was a dud. We knew for a fact people were going to this club called apocalypse now so we decided to venture over there. What better way to venture than on a MOTOR BIKE?!
OKAY SO the motor bike ride was wild. Sarah and I hopped on this back of this bike (with helmets on!) and took a ride around town. It was wild because of the lack of traffic patterns. Sarah was gripping the guys shoulders with her life and he found that very funny (i know this because he was giggling).

Day two: February 27th 2010

Today I did not have any plans but Sarah, Greta, and Chloe were all going on the Semester at Sea trip to the Mekong Delta. I like doing stuff independently but a lot of the SAS students had gone to Cambodia for the rest of our time in port so I knew it would be hard to find someone to travel independently with. Consequently, i tried to get onto the SAS Mekong Delta trip and I succeeded. I’m very happy with my decision to join the trip.
The Mekong Delta is the main water river way through Vietnam from I think China and then goes to the ocean. That might not be true at all but its a famous water way that is the home of a lot of people on boats, the majority of fishing, a floating market, and more.
We took a bus there, checked out some markets that were sort of disturbing due to the mistreatment of fish (beating them to death with a log), and then hopped on a boat to travel down the delta. On the boat we were served coconut water from a coconut. It was pretty good i thought. We then got our coconuts broken open and ate the coconut inside.
Our first stop from the boat was the coconut candy ‘factory’. This is where a culture shock came for me at least. We walked into this factory and it consisted of 2 older pieces of machinery, about 10 workers, and it was under a pavilion. The machines grinded the coconut and then melted and stirred it. The machines were fueled by the outside shell of the coconut. They were very proud of the fact that no part of the coconut was being wasted. It honestly was something to be proud of. The workers were putting the soft candy on sheets of waxed paper and then manually folding the wrappers around it when it was hard. I bought tons of the candy is all different flavors so if anyone reading this is interested in some feel free to let me know because i bought it for my family, forgetting that my dad is allergic (hahahah) and my brother doesn’t like it. aka i have extra!
Second stop was lunch. Our tour guide described what our lunch was while we were on the bus but i couldn’t hear him completely clearly. All i heard was something like ‘fish wrapped in elephant and deer”. There was alot of noise on the bus and some of you know I can’t hear very well when there are too many noises in the room (aka in south side at mason). We got there and lunch was actually a type of fish that’s shape was similar to an elephant’s ear. THAT WAS A RELEIF. Kind of. It came out on a stick with face and scales still attached. It was very good though. There were many other dishes served with it that were all pretty good also. Because it was so hot out no one really had too much of an appetite.
Third stop was at the little boats. I don’t know their actual names but there were two people on these boats with paddles and four of us hopped in for a nice ride around. It was relaxing but like on the streets of vietnam - the ‘traffic patterns’ were a little wild. We were told to keep our fingers off the edge of the boat and thank god we did that because other boats were bumping into us left and right.
That was the extent of the Mekong Delta for me. We boated back to where the bus was parked and then headed back to Ho Chi Minh City.

That night we went back to the Rex Hotel for food and drinks. There was an all you can eat buffet for like 30 dollars and I was totally into that. It had like EVERYTHING from sushi to fruit and ribs. Holllla

Day Three: February 28th 2010

So there was a few big trips to Cambodia through SAS. About 80% of the ship was on them, or at least it felt like that. Chloe and I were two people that were not on it. We were loving Ho Chi Minh City but knew we had to go away to somewhere else at some point. Luckily, we found some of our guy friends that wanted to go away also so we headed to a travel agent and booked a van to Mui Ne, a really nice beach about four hours away, along with a hotel and a ride back. The van was coming at 7:30 p.m. to take us there.
The rest of our day was free so Chloe and I decided to continue to explore Ho Chi Minh City. We finally tried Pho. It was very delicious. We didn’t do too much the rest of the day because Chloe was not feeling great but I did get a massage. It was 13 dollars for one hour and it was wonderful. I was excited for it to be way different than a massage in America but it really wasn’t. No, I did not get a happy ending. But yes, i know of people that did!
One cool thing we did today was design our own dresses to be made. Originally, I wasn’t planning on getting a dress made but i saw a cute one in a magazine and figured i might as well! I chose the design - a flowy cotton dress that had pockets and one strap that went diagonal across my chest. Its hard to explain but I think I like it. Plus, i had a blast designing it and getting it fitted.
That night Chloe (boulder), Kristin (Georgia), Chris (Florida), Scott (Connecticut), Jeremy (Alaska), and I headed to Mui Ne via private van. It took about four hours. When we arrive we put our stuff in our hotel. Our hotel looked like a little bit like it was in a jungle. We had three rooms that were all along the same outside walkway. It was really nice for only forty dollars a night. We decided to make the most of our time and go out that night. We got changed and walked down the road to an outside bar. It was lit up by Christmas lights and was really super cool. It was right on the water and had music playing. We hung out there until about 2 a.m. and then decided to head back to our hotel and go in the pool. The pool felt great and there were some Korean girls swimming that we made friends with.

Day Four: February 29th 2010

We woke up today at 7:30 thanks to a wake up call from the guys. Apparently, we were sleeping in too much for their taste. The hotel provided a really nice breakfast by the beach. There was plenty of food and even an egg cooker. All the food was great.
After breakfast we grabbed our stuff and went to find a nice beach to hang out on all day. Our ride home was not coming until 8 p.m. There was a main street in Mui Ne that had shops, travel agents, and restaurants. We saw a travel agent that had a sign about wind kiting. A bunch of guys from Turkey were running the kite place on the beach and they let us use the trainer kites for free. It was pretty funny - nothing too eventful. We then ventured down the beach a little while and found a nice spot by a resort that we were not staying at.
The rest of the day consisted of laying out, tossing a football around, getting some lunch & drinks, etc. The one really cool thing we did was play soccer with some little Vietnamese boys that were on the beach. They were actually pretty good at soccer and had a blast playing with us. We gave them the soccer ball after the game and I think it made their day!
After the beach we got some dinner and headed back to the ship. When we got back to the ship we all just crashed.

It seemed like a super short beach trip but it was such a nice get-a-way. I am glad we did it since it was really cheap and really fun.

Day Five: March 1st 2010

Today I woke up at 6 am so I could skype with the ‘rent before I got back on the ship. I was exhausted to say the least but its always worth it when it comes to hearing from the fam for sure.
The rest of the day was just another day in Ho Chi Minh. Kristin and I walked around with the intentions of shopping at Ben Thanh market, finding a post office, getting good food, and picking up our dresses. We did all of that and it took way longer than we thought. Luckily, we ran out of Dong ($$) so we had to stop shopping!

Boat life: March 2nd to 10th

So far so good. We have like 7 days of classes until we get to India...rough life, i know. I do actually have a ton of work to do so I have to minimize my laying out in the sun time and maximize my school work time.
Get this: Today in Marine Biology we got twenty minutes in the beginning of class to observe the ocean. Then, when there was like 20 minutes left we got let out of class because of a dolphin siting! Then, in my next class my teacher told us to keep our eyes on the ocean for sea snakes and dolphins and if we see either of those we should interrupt class so we all get run out on the deck and look at them!