Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon, Vietnam

I was surprised at how modernized and touristy Ho Chi Minh City was. The city center was full of tall buildings, hotels, malls and nice restaurants. Semester at Sea offered a shuttle bus for us from the port to the Rex Hotel every 30 minutes, which was extremely convenient and nice because we did not have to deal with taxi drivers. The Rex Hotel is very famous because it was the site of the daily news briefings during the Vietnam War and the rooftop bar was a popular hangout for military officials. The first day I did an all day trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels, which is a very large network of underground tunnels over 200 km long used by the Viet Cong in the war. We actually got to go in the tunnels and even though they have been enlarged to accommodate tourists, they were very small and claustrophobic. It was amazing to think that many Vietnamese soldiers lived down in these tunnels making weapons, traps and fighting the Americans for long periods of time. There were 3 stories of tunnels underground and they had small holes at the top so that the soldiers could get some fresh air. We got to see a bunch of the different traps and weapons that they used, which were quite scary. The traps were camouflaged with the ground and a person would fall in and land on about 50 metal spikes. There was also an opportunity for us to shoot AK-47’s and other guns that were actually used in the war given to the Vietnamese by America. I did not participate in this but the noise was unbelievably loud and unpleasant, I could not imagine hearing that constantly for many years during a war. We also visited a Viet Cong War memorial, which had thousands of tombs and many were very young teenagers who were war heroes. We also went to a local market where there were lots of different fruits and meats for sale, including fish that were still flopping around in little pans.

The next day I spent at the Me Kong Delta, which “is a very rich and lush area, covered with rice fields. It produces about half of the total of Vietnam's agricultural output, and is the place for timeless sceneries of farmers planting or harvesting rice” (Wikitravel.org). We drove about 2 hours to get there and then got into a boat to cross a large river. We then got to try a bunch of tropical fruits, many that I had never even heard of before but were pretty good. Next, we got into tiny little canoes that were rowed by local Vietnamese people and went through small canals that were very beautiful with a green tree covering above us. We stopped at a place where they made coconut candies by hand and got to try it and buy some. Even though I don’t usually like coconut flavoring, these were delicious because you could taste the fresh coconut flavor. We also tried some lime and honey tea, which was also very good. Then we went on to have a very traditional Vietnamese lunch where they brought out a big fish that looked like it had just been taken out of the water and immediately fried. It was quite shocking when the waitress came over and just started cutting the fish open, pulling chunks of meat off and serving it to us in rice paper with some noodles and basil. I tried it and it wasn’t that bad but I don’t usually eat fish and I couldn’t stop thinking about the practically live fish on the table. Most of the other food we had I did enjoy although it was mostly weird looking seafood. The waitress came out with some shrimps that still had all of its body parts on it and I didn’t even know that that’s what shrimp looked like until then. She just ripped off all the parts and then served them to us and they were pretty good.

The third day I finally got to eat some Vietnamese pho (pronounced fuhh), which I enjoy at home a lot and really wanted to try the authentic version. Pho is basically just a Vietnamese style chicken noodle soup with lime juice, basil, onions and other sauces you can choose to put into it. It tasted basically the same as I have had in America and was very delicious.  I then proceeded to the War Remnants Museum, which everyone said was something you had to do. It was half outdoor and half indoor, so the first thing you see when you walk through the gates are a bunch of U.S. army tanks, bombs and airplanes. An Asian man asked my friend and I to take a picture with him in front of one of the tanks, so I’m not sure what he was trying to represent by that picture but hopefully it’s not a bad thing! There were 3 large rooms full of pictures from the war and each room had somewhat of a different theme.  The first one was more or a timeline of war with the French and then with the Americans and it had many photos and quotes to help tell the story. The next room was dedicated to the 134 war reporters/photographers who were killed during the war and it showcased hundreds of their photos, and many were very famous that most of you have probably seen. The third room was by far the hardest to look at because it contained hundreds of pictures of war crimes, the effects of Agent Orange and napalm, and many innocent people who were injured or killed. Most of them were extremely gruesome and showed the awful deformities caused by Agent Orange. There were also many not so nice quotes from U.S. generals or the president that were put there to make a point. At the very end of the hall of pictures was the quote from the Declaration of Independence stating, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Putting this quote there was obviously to make a point and it definitely did. It made it even harder to understand why all of these horrible things were done to the Vietnamese people. It is already hard to understand the war because I was not alive when it happened. The statistics are very astounding, that 3 million Vietnamese people were killed (2 million of which were civilians) and because of that 2/3 of the population today is under the age of 30. One other thing that I noticed was that many of the fighting pictures were taken in the Me Kong Delta, which I had just been to so it was weird to think that I was canoeing through a place where many Americans and Vietnamese died just 35 years ago. Going to the museum was definitely a very memorable experience for me and I’m very glad I went.
The last two days I spent just enjoying Ho Chi Minh City. I walked around the city a lot, shopped at the markets, and enjoyed good Vietnamese food. I also went to visit this place that taught uneducated teenage girls how to embroider so that they would have a skill to make money. There were about 75 girls there when we went and we were told that they work 8 hours a day and they sold their embroideries right there. They were very beautiful products and I would assume that they also sold them to vendors and the proceeds would go directly to the girls. There is so much more to see in Vietnam so the next time I go, I would want to go up North to Hanoi and Ha Long Bay, which are supposed to be really cool and beautiful places. We will be arriving in Hong Kong tomorrow morning and I will only spend one day there and then fly to Beijing for 4 days, which I am very excited about. The next time I send a blog, I will have seen the Great Wall!