Viet Nam

My time in Viet Nam was an experience I will never forget. Before my visit I didn’t have much background on the American war in Viet Nam and was unclear as to why there even was a war here. The first day we pulled into port I stayed on the ship because I was required to attend an FDP (field directed practicum) for my finance class. For the most part, listening to a lawyer talk about business and economics in Viet Nam was pretty much a waste of my time – not gunna lie. He did, however, have a few statistics that were interesting to hear about. After our 2 hour lecture, we finally were able to leave the ship to head downtown. My first impressions of Viet Nam were not what I expected. For what I was expecting, Viet Nam is well built up with nice hotels, a beautiful opera house, and your everyday (legitimate) LV and Gucci stores. I, on the other hand, decided to buy my LV and Gucci supplies at the market for a fraction of the “real” price. We did some shopping (perhaps too much) and then went to find a tailor that could make us some dresses (pretty much everyone gets dresses and suits made in VN to wear to the Ambassadors Ball here on the ship). We went into one of the many tailor shops, busted out our pictures of the dress (es) we wanted and we were off – Taking measurements here, fabric there, we spent a total of about 2 hours there until we were forced to leave to meet some friends for dinner in town. We took a cab from the shop to a restaurant called the “Mandarene.” It was traditional Vietnamese food with people waiting on us hand and foot. Come to find out Condellezza Rice had been there sometime before and we sat at the same table! It was quite the claim to fame for a few of us… After our nice dinner we headed back into town to go shopping (again) at the night market. My friend, Anna and I ended up getting separated from the rest of our group and had to take a cab back to the ship because we missed the last free shuttle back to the ship. Anyhoo, I was proud of ourselves because we got the cab (which took close to 30 minutes) for like 4 USD. The joys of bargaining, hey? We made it back to the ship and I hit the sack by 1AM. The next morning I had to get up pretty darn early in order to make my trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels. The tunnels are only about 60km away but it took us 2 hours to get there because of the traffic. The Cu Chi Tunnels was where the war aspect actually hit me – In downtown Saigon it just looks like a big city – it doesn’t even look like a war would have ever taken place there. As lame of a comparison as it is, the area where the Cu Chi Tunnels are looks exactly like what you see on MASH. Anyways, during our tour we were shown how the Vietnamese used different techniques to kill Americans and obviously how and why the tunnels were built. We were actually able to go down into the tunnels for about 15 minutes – it was probably one of the most uncomfortable 15 minutes I have been through on this whole trip. These tunnels were not “American size” and were extremely hot and humid, not to mention I was doing the duck walk the whole way through because if I got down on all fours it hurt my knees too much. It was a good experience nonetheless. On our tour they had the option to shoot a gun on a shooting range. It was an eerie feeling hearing the gunshots from afar, being in the jungle, and knowing that is a tiny snippet of what it was like during the war. Also, it was weird to hear such a different story of the war. Americans were sometimes described as terrorist which is definitely not something I am used to hearing. After the Cu Chi Tunnels trip we came back to the ship and headed back out to Saigon to do some more shopping… good deals can be found in Viet Nam, believe me! The next day I woke up not feeling too well but I still went into town to explore and get a cheap manicure and pedicure! It was pretty much amazing! My friend and I also made our way over to the War Remnants Museum. This was a really different experience for me – everything in that museum was showing the American soldiers in such a horrible light. I know there was huge controversy over the Viet Nam war amongst the Americans as a whole but I feel like any American for or against the war would be shocked at the images portrayed there. The next day was my trip to the Mekong Delta. Again, I wasn’t feeling very well so my trip was a bit on the dull side but it was still nice to be able to see this historic river. We took many different types of boats up the river, stopped at various villages and I even got to hold a python – holy crap was that scary! The next day I went into town to grab some last minute things and to pick up our dresses from the tailor. On my trip around town I came across an internet café were I spent about 2 hours trying to sort some things out. I also joined skype and was able to talk with my brader for a while! I ended my last day in Viet Nam by picking up my dresses from the tailor. They turned out very well and I am very happy with them – that outcome was not had by all on the ship so I feel lucky to have a nice outcome. Overall my trip to Viet Nam was great. I learned a lot but I also feel like I need to learn so much more to see the whole picture. It has recently hit me that all the experiences I am having on this trip, many people will never be able to have. I have to pinch myself every morning to make sure that I’m not dreaming. I hope this finds you all well! Miss you! love love love Cherie