5 Days in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam & 3 Days at Sea

We traveled along the Saigon River as we came into port in Ho Chi Minh City – and what an experience. Surrounded by small boat houses/huts on the water, trees, lush green plants that extended into the river itself, navigating left and right along this little river that didn’t look like it would be deep enough for a ship to cruise through – the entire time, you find yourself thinking about how beautiful this journey is and yet at the same time thinking about how scary this must have been during the Vietnam War. All of Vietnam had this feel to it (for me anyways) – the sense that this place is so wonderful, welcoming, and beautiful – but it also had the remnants of pain, war, fear and a world that must have been terrifying for so many.

Ho Chi Minh was yet another very hot and humid stop in this journey around the world! I have grown so used to sweating all day long, that I cannot remember what it feels like to not sweat when you are outside. J Tom and I had some wonderful experiences in Vietnam and the Vietnamese people are so welcoming, forgiving, and wonderful that it was just a fantastic experience yet again. Ho Chi Minh City is very modern, easy to navigate, filled with more motorbikes that I could ever imagine – the traffic patterns are probably some of the scariest known to man, but they are also so fun! Basically, the cars, motorbikes, buses, etc. are allowed to do whatever they want – if you don’t want to stop at a red light, you simply honk your way through and people will go around you – if you feel like driving on the other side of the road, then by all means do so! Motorbikes outnumber cars by the thousands – at one point we got stuck in the middle of rush hour traffic and it just looks totally insane – thousands of motorbikes along the streets on the sidewalks – a pedestrian’s nightmare! To cross the street, you just have to go – there is no point of waiting for a signal, because it either will not come or it just doesn’t matter J So, if you just walk at a steady slow pace, the motorbikes and cars will just go around you – it got to be so fun by the end. We also took the motorbikes everywhere in the city for $1 you could get the driver to take you around all over the place. It was so much fun and luckily it wasn’t until the last day in Vietnam that we learned of all the students with muffler burns on their legs from the motorbikes – this may have prevented us from having so much fun on them! Happily – I have no muffler burns on my calves so I think I survived Vietnam quite well. My favorite experience with the motorbikes was when I got a “talking to” about why I was 26 years old and did not have any children! The driver could not understand why a woman at 26 would not have 3 children at least – and he kept asking me what was wrong with me! The entire ride he explained to me that it just was not good for me to be childless at this age and how is oldest daughter is 26 and she already has 3 children – after he dropped me off, he rode away saying 3 babies, you need 3 babies. It was quite the experience. Later, on a different tour we learned that most Vietnamese people actually feel sorry for American women. He explained that they feel proud to see all of the rights that American women have, but they also feel sorry for us because it seems that we have lost our primary life goal of the family. Vietnamese women take their roles within the family very seriously – and felt that American women had lost this valuable role within their rights.

The $1 does really well in Vietnam – 16,600 dong per $1 – and yes, we all talked about our dong at every chance that we got! The markets in Vietnam were great fun too and so great to get into the bargaining for different gifts for all of you at home – at first I really didn’t enjoy bargaining, but now I absolutely love it. Its so fun and you get such a sense of accomplishment at the end of the transaction – plus as you are bargaining, the sales person will typically tell you about themselves and their lives, so you end up learning so much about people in addition to getting a great gift. Tom and I spent one whole day in the markets (returning 2x to the ship to drop off all the stuff that we got). Then that night, we went to this amazing nonprofit shop called Vietnamese Quilts, where they helped women learn job training skills, get an education, and generate an income with their quilts. All of the money spent on the quilts was put right back into the store and the stuff was beautiful. We got a queen size quilt for $100 and it is just beautiful. The woman who ran the shop then told us about a great restaurant for dinner where the owner works with disadvantaged youth and trains them in the hospitality industry and teaches them English. They use the restaurant as a place to practice what they have learned and then move on to other industries once they have mastered their skills. The food was wonderful and the people were again so friendly.

I ate some of the best tofu dishes in Vietnam – everything that I ate had tofu included somehow and I am pretty sure that in the end, I was on tofu overload. We ate a lot of Pho, which is basically soup with noodles, spices, veggies and either meat or tofu. The Vietnamese eat soup all day long – there are vendors on the streets selling meals for under $.50 all day long. Their coffee is so amazingly strong and good that it puts any coffee in America to shame. They serve it really strongly, with condensed milk if you want it – but really, its so good that there is no need. They incorporate fresh veggies into everything and are so hospitable – they are not satisfied until you are full and happy with your entire meal. There were quite a few times when we just didn’t know if the meal would ever end because so much food kept coming out!

We took a day trip to the Mekong Delta and rode little banana boats and motor boats through the Mekong. Again, it was that feeling of being in awe over the beauty, while simultaneously seeing how scary this trip down the river would have been during the war. The river trees lean right over into the water and you are surrounded by them as you travel down the river. There are little villages and homes along the river as well, where the people live off of the river and land. So very different from Ho Chi Minh – a place so modern – but again, the people were so friendly. We also took at trip to see the Cao Dai Temples, which is a religion started with the mindset of ending war through religion. Basically the temples are a space where everyone can worship regardless of your religion and so they have statues of Jesus, Confucius, Buddha, Allah, etc. – dragon statues line the walls, every color under the sun is used in the temple – it looks like you just stepped into a colorful painting – so happy and bright and open. We also went to the Cu Chi Tunnels and watched a Communist film about the Vietnam – American War – that was quite an experience. The whole film was about how many American’s the village people were able to kill and how powerful the Vietnamese were, which of course makes sense. It was odd and good to hear the other side of this story. We got to actually crawl through a tunnel, which had been expanded to fit tourists, but I wouldn’t exactly call it large by any means. We sweat our butts off in these things and it was really quite scary to be in the dark, wondering through this tunnel, you can’t see 5 inches in front of you, the walls are circled around you, the air is really hard to take in – by the time we reached the top and got out of the tunnel, everyone was panting and sweating profusely. But, it really gave you a sense of the dedication and skill of the Vietnamese – they lived inside these tunnels for sometimes 2 years at a time – and the originals are tiny, and again it also really put reality to the fear and difficulties that American soldiers must have faced in that war. On another day, we went to the War Remnants Museum, which used to be called the American Atrocities Museum – so this gives you a hint as to what was contained inside the museum – horrific photos of brutal deaths, killings, bombings, agent orange children, fetuses in jars – it was an important and difficult reality to see how horrific human beings can act during a time of war. We saw the city completely destroyed – and yet 30 years later, the city is completely built back up. Its amazing how resilient people truly are and also forgiving – at no point during my stay in Vietnam did I feel any anti-American sentiment. As one of our tour guides explained, the people of Vietnam are just so tired of war and death – that they are just thrilled to be alive – and you could really feel this in the city and throughout the country. People are just happy – fully alive and happy – and its something that is so contagious that I hope that I can bring a little bit of this happiness back to America. Vietnam is a wonderful place and I hope that I will be able to return again soon.

And so we are now on our way to Hong Kong and are scheduled to arrive there on Tuesday morning for just 2 short days. Our time at sea is really going by so quickly now and yesterday marked the official one month mark to when we will dock in San Diego. I cannot believe it – one more month – it has gone by so quickly. I feel as though I will be so ready to be back at home in one month too – because although I am loving this journey, I am also so excited to bring my experiences and thoughts home with me. I hope that I will be able to convey some of the amazing feelings of happiness, the love of life, and the love of people that these short trips have provided for me. Its funny when you can actually feel yourself changing and growing – learning so many new things about yourself, the good and the bad – and just embracing each experience without preconceived notions of how things should/need to be, but rather letting the experience take you where you need to go. This journey has been nothing short of life-changing and I cannot wait to share these things with you all. I miss you all terribly and I look forward to seeing everyone again in just 1 short month!