Vivacious Vietnam -

Saigon -

I wasn't really sure what to expect in Vietnam but I absolutely loved every minute of it! I woke up in time to see us entering the Saigon River delta which was beautiful. I loved seeing all these monstrous shipping container carriers to these little fishing boats that maybe could fit one person!It was also nice because our ship became smoother since we don't have the huge waves that we see typically at sea. But it was pretty exciting too because at some points, the river is only a few meters deep and we had to carefully navigate our way upstream. Ho Chi Minh City is the new name for what used to be called Saigon. But people of Vietnamese heritage on our ship preferred Saigon so that's what I'll call it in this post. At this port, we had about 35 parents visit the ship and I was asked to accompany them onto the ship…which meant I got to be the first person off the ship which was pretty cool!

Once on land, a group of us took the shuttle to go explore the town.We first started walking around down town and made our way to some lunch. We first walked by the People's Committee Building (formerly Hotel D'Ville) which is this beautiful French colonial building at the center of downtown and then walked by the Notre Dame cathedral. It was just excited to be here and taking it all in. There were wedding couples taking pictures, people eating lunch at little street markets, fun little stores selling a variety of goods and more.Then we had some decent local food (I did have some trouble communicating with the restaurant folks about what vegetarian food they had..but finally got through) then we wentin search of the War Remnants Museum. This is their perspective of the Vietnam War. Having learned little about the war back home, this was a pretty powerful museum. The pictures of some of the violence of our troops and impact of the chemicals we descended on this country just make me want to puke.

We then headed to Binh Thanh Market, the most famous of the crowded, find-anything-you-want markets here. I think it's possible to spend a week here and still not find every little shop and place to bargain the day away! Within 5 minutes of entering, I had one woman selling me a watch, another selling sunglasses and another selling a fake coach man-purse. And this is broken up by the little seafood market right in the market as well. I just loved it because it reminded me of being in the Market area of Bangalore back in India. After some overwhelming shopping of knock-off North Face bags, tshirts and more, we decided to go get some massages before heading to dinner. I just got the regular 60 min massage for 13 dollars. This was my first time getting a professional massage and wasn't that impressed but I was also just getting sick and really shouldn't have bothered trying to stay still for an hour. None the less, I can now say I've had a massage in Vietnam. J Then we went to the Barbeque Garden for dinner. We had walked by this place earlier in the day and thought it looked good…and it was! J I had the chilli fried tofu, corn fritters with peanut sauce and garlic fried rice; all delicious. The carnivores at the table got stuff that could be put on the grill in the middle of our table ranging from beef wrapped around sugarcane to squid on a skewer to some other stuff as well.

This is also when I decided to go with my friend Ben to a local gay bar to check out the scene in Saigon. Mind you I just had an address and no info on what I should expect. We had an easy time finding Vila the only gay bar in town and walked in. It was very glitzy with some good house music going and only about 4-5 other people there besides us. And we totally stuck out in our shorts and t-shirt (what I call the "I'm a tourist" look) and everyone there was dressed in some shade of black, with jackets, button-down shirts and even some ties. They were all super trendy and cute with fancy haircuts and did not even want to give us the light of day. I tried to talk to some of the guys but they weren't interested in talking. We ordered some expensive drinks (which just proved to me that being actively gay in the world is very much influenced by class) and hung out for a bit. There were some cute guys dancing on the little 3-7 dance floor right in front of the DJ. By the time we were done with our drinks the three people dancing had found some other distraction so we just started dancing…and everyone kept watching. They would just stand at the small tables scattered throughout the room and just look. After about an hour of waiting for our friend Todd and his local friends we decided to leave…which is when he arrived. But Ben and I had to be up at 6 for a trip in the morning so we just walked around in the beautiful night and enjoyed our walk back to the ship through dark allies and crossing the highway to the harbor.

Mekong Delta

The next morning I lead a group of 12 folks down to an overnight visit to the Mekong Delta and the community there. On the bus ride, we saw beautiful rice paddies and signs of local Vietnamese farmer life. First we went to Cao Be where we got on a river boat to check out some of the local attractions. Here we went to a salt factory where they use rice husks to fuel salt purification (see pictures) then saw how they make several of the local specialties. First we saw how a mixture of rice flower, coconut milk and sesame seed is steamed on a thin sheet and dried to become rice paper wraps and rice cookies. These can be fried in oil of toasted on charcoal. It had a sweet, smoky, creamy taste that was delicious! Then several of the folks tried the Snake/Scorpion rice wine. Rice wine is very popular here and to make it more exotic, they soak spices, snakes and scorpions in the wine to give it a kick. Ancient Chinese medicine says this is supposed to help with sexual potency…I think it's gross! I couldn't even take a picture of this! Then we saw how coconut toffee is made. They melt, sugar, malt and coconut milk together for about 10 minutes or until It's got the caramel color and thickness. Then it's put onto these mats and cut into squares to be packaged. Then we saw how rice if puffed (like rice popcorn). You start with a huge work, get it heated up with a bit of sand (which is a good conductor of heat). Then just throw in the cleaned rice and keep swishing around until …voila, the rice starts popping! Then they add this to a a sugar malt syrup to make a puffed rice bar which was pretty good. My favorite of these was the sesame seed-malt bar. J After all this, we get to sit at these little tables and sample their different snacks and enjoy some free tea. This was clearly my favorite part of the day so far! After all this we headed to a local botanical garden to see local plants and fruits. We saw jack fruit (yum), durian (ew), mangoes, rose apple (never got to try it but it looked yummy), and some other stuff. And at the end, the owner invited us to sit and enjoy some of the this deliciousness where we had jack fruit, mangoes, pomelo, and longan fruit (like lychee).Here we also learned how they graft trees to grow which was cool to see how you can take one root, put it on another and let them bind naturally!

After all this we headed on the bus to drive an hour to Can Tho, a city just up the river. Here we checked into our 4 star, government run hotel and had some free time. Some people choose to get massages at the hotel's "massage service" and had some fascinating stories to tell. Lol. When I got to my room, I open the window to this beautiful 7th floor view of this bustling city. I saw this beautiful golden tower and I wanted to go see what it was. So I got my local map and started walking in that direction. I found this neighborhood of small streets and found this beautiful Buddhist temple. I saw several young monks walking around and said hello but it was clear there were language barriers. So I went to the temple and proceeded upstairs (the temple had three floors) and at this point I met one of the monks who spoke some English and he started showing me around. He is a medical student by day and monk in the temple as well. He told me some temple history and took me upstairs to see some of the temple that wasn't finished yet. It was less than a year old so there was still some painting and masonry work to be finished. I got to go all the way up to the tower (that I had seen from my window) and it had this beautiful view of the local neighborhood.

I wanted to stay and chat some more but had to head back because we had to meet up for dinner. We walked to the riverfront and went to this fancy restaurant for a set dinner where we had squash flower fritters, fried rice, tofu & veggie soup and some other stuff. Then we got a chance to walk around the harbor front at night and checked out the night market a few blocks down. Here I met this Vietnamese woman who now lives in Canada and her friends who were crowded around these two men sitting on the ground. These men had small handsaws and they were making little designs and names onto thin slabs of wood. They were beautiful! I thought maybe there were outlining or tracing..but all they did was drew two parallel lines and just started sawing without a doubt of what they were making. And all you did was give them your name and they would make this beautiful design…all for 30,000 dong (1.5 dollars!)

The next morning we got up early (6am) and headed off by bus to another section of the river to check out the rivermarket. For centuries, the local people have brought all their farm goods by boat to meet in the middle of the river to sell and buy. It was so much fun to be in a river boat and navigating our way through this maze of boats selling all the local fruit and veggies. And there were little vendor boats that sold coffee, soda, and snacks too! I got my morning tea and some fresh pineapple. I got some great pictures of this market. Then we headed to a local market to see live eel, fish, snakes, snails, crabs and some other local delicacies. In the fruit market, I decided to try Durian fruit since everyone keeps talking about this fruit and how strange it is. I really wasn't prepared for such a yucky thing. This is a local delicacy. The outer shell of the fruit looks like that of a jack fruit but the spines are a bit bigger. And the actual fruit has the color of melted vanilla ice cream (that off white-pastel yellow). It has the texture of a mushy mango without the skin/a mushy peach meets mushy banana. And the smell is this sweet/tartness. The taste is by far the strangest thing! It tasted to me like a bland mango infused with roasted garlic flavor….i still am not sure if I like it or hate it. It was one of those flavors that was so odd that I kinda want to try it again. At the moment, I could only manage 2 bites before I had to say no thank you!Then we headed back to the hotel, checked out and headed back to Saigon after lunch at the top of the hotel.We did stop at this nice rest stop with beautiful lotus gardens. They love they lotuses here!

I wanted to go out that night but it started down pouring (it's the beginning of rainy season!) and didn't let up for a few hours so we just hung out on the ship and had some good conversations about Vietnam, it's communist gov't and some of our observations about this place.

Service Trip

The next day, I did some shopping in the morning and then decided to jump on a service trip to a local school for children with disabilities. It was a nice drive through the city to this little school. As soon as we arrived, we were all given water bottles and told a little about this school; it seems most of the kids here have hearing impairments. We then went upstairs to one of the classrooms where they were all excitedly waiting for us. They seemed to be between 6-12 yrs of age and were just adorable! Some of the students performed a dance and recited poetry for us before we broke up into small groups and got some paper and crayons to interact with the students. I spoke with Hung, a 10 -yr old kid who loved soccer and eating. Then we all boarded our bus with our students (it was a bit crowded)and headed off to the zoo!!! This was really fun to see the students interacting with us and eachother and the animals. Hung was more interested in eating the snacks we had brought for them than seeing the animals but I think it's because he's probably been here before. I had a great time there! One of the elephants touched my hand, the peacocks spread their feathers, and the lions roared like three feet away. It was pretty cool. But the students didn't like the roaring so we went over to the goats. Here we fed them saltines and fed carrots to the monkeys. Then we headed back to the school, said bye to the kids and headed back to the ship.

Since this was our last night out in Saigon (and I had to be on back on the ship by 10pm to be on duty), a few of us just went walking around and ate at this delicious restaurant suggested by our friend Annie. It looked super fancy but was reasonably priced and suuuuuper delicious. I had fresh spring rolls and veggie/tofu soup. The best part was dessert: I ordered this dish that was just corn kernels in syrup with coconut milk…..so yummy!

Last day in Saigon!

I had several drunk students to deal with during the night but was determined to make the most of my last 8 hours in Vietnam! So Alissa, Anne & I took the shuttle to downtown and walked over to the Central Post Office to see the beautiful architecture inside…we also did some shopping ("I heart Vietnam" shirts for 3 dollars!). Then to check out the Notre Dame cathedral (which was more impressive on the outside than the inside..) then we headed off in search of the Jade Emperor's Pagoda, a 102-year old Chinese temple on the northeastern part of town. It was so worth the long walk. It was clear this place was old and there was an air of spirituality about it. I was told to first go upstairs since there was a service going on. It was a packed room but I was able to check it out. There were these beautiful statues and people dressed in black doing prayers. The main priests were in orange and were singing these incredibly beautiful and soothing chants with drums and bells. The incense sticks everywhere and unkempt-ness of everything gave it this mystical feeling. I visited some of the other shrines and then we headed back to downtown because we had some lunch plans.

Our interport lecturer for Vietnam was this guy named Ben Wilkinson who lives here and runs the Harvard institute on Vietnamese studies. During one of our conversations on the ship, we figured out he's from Durham, CT (about 10 minutes from Middletown, CT where I grew up!) and his dad used to teach at the high school I attended. He knew exactly where my parents lived too! What a small world! I didn't have a lot of time to chat with him on the ship so had made plans to have lunch on our last day here. He suggested Au Parc, a beautiful little Mediterranean place. The food was delicious and the conversation was even better! I had this spicy falafel wrap that was so yummy! This was definitely a highlight of my time in Saigon.

After lunch, we scrambled everywhere to get more shopping done before taking some rikshaws, running back to the ship for gangway duty. JThe shared sentiment on the ship was when can we come back to this beautiful country. I totally loved it here!