Vietnam

It's pretty crazy how fast things can change! Only a generation ago,
Vietnam was NOT a place you would want to go to. Now, it's quite the
tourist destination! I had a great time here, but it was also
interesting to observe lasting effects of the war.

DAY ONE

Today was my day for Ho Chi Minh City! SAS had a free shuttle from
the ship into downtown, and I was a bit surprised by how nice the area
was! We were dropped off at a very fancy hotel, which was surrounded
by designer shops such as Gucci and Prada. Today I was just going to
explore the city with my friends Brynn and Meg. Since we were quite
tired (we always get very early starts on the first day!) we made our
first stop a coffee shop. We went to Ciao Cafe, which was pretty
close to the Rex Hotel. It was a very cute coffee shop, with
delicious lattes and ice cream. I even got an ice cream in the shape
of a snowman! After coffee we just walked around the area we were
in. We all had bought fabric in Ghana which we wanted to get made
into dresses, but every tailor we went to was a little more expensive
than we wanted. We finally asked a hotel's reception desk where we
should go, and they directed us to Ho Chi Minh City's backpacker
district. It was within walking district, and we had a very pleasant
walk through a park on our way. The backpacker district was a
slightly more crowded area, and we instantly found cheaper shops!
After we found a tailor for our dress, we were ready for more food, so
we got Vietnamese food at a very cute little restaurant.

After lunch, we walked around the backpacker district and went into a
few shops. We went to a spa and treated ourselves to $3 manicures! I
wish manicures were that cheap in the states. We made our way to the
Ben Thanh Market, which was a huge indoors market that was full of
different vendors, from food to knock-offs to Vietnamese souvenirs.
This place was very crowded and bustling! We spent awhile exploring
the market. We got pho, a traditional Vietnamese meal for dinner. It
was very tasty! It's a noodle dish that is cooked in a broth, and you
also get additional veggies and spices which you can add yourself to
customize your pho dish. After dinner, we headed back to our coffee
shop from the morning to use its wifi. It's always nice to get some
Internet time in. We found out that Facebook is blocked in Vietnam,
but there are ways to get around the blocks to access the site, which
was an interesting discovery!

DAY TWO

I woke up very early to catch my flight to Hanoi, Vietnam's capital.
This was the first day on my trip to Hanoi and Ha Long Bay with the
company Global Citizens. Once we were in Hanoi and checked into our
hotel, we were ready for lunch. I went with my friends Kellie, Allie
and Lukas to walk around and find a good place to eat. Our hotel was
located in Hanoi's French Quarter. Hanoi was pretty different from Ho
Chi Minh City. Ho Chi Minh City felt more modern and cosmopolitan,
while Hanoi felt more crowded and busy. We found a very nice place
for lunch, and had some interesting times with the language barrier!
At one point Kellie tried asking for salt for her fries, and they
brought her an empty salt-rimmed glass. The language barrier
consistently keeps things entertaining! We spent the rest of the
afternoon shopping and stopping for some more food. We met up with
other people from our tour for dinner, and we went to the CIty View
Restaurant. The restaurant did have a good view of Hanoi, and the
food was good, but unfortunately the language barrier caused some
problems here. The wait staff did not seem too pleased with us for
some reason. After dinner everyone hung out at the hotel for the rest
of the evening.

DAY THREE

We woke up early to eat breakfast at our hotel before our four-hour
drive to Ha Long Bay. Once we got to Ha Long Bay, we boarded our
junkboat. The junkboat was very cute! Ha Long Bay was very
gorgeous. It is one of "The New Seven Natural Wonders of the World".
I'm not exactly sure who comes up with these lists, but the Amazon and
Table Mountain are also on that list, so now I've been to three
natural wonders! We spent the rest of the day cruising through the
bay. We stopped at a very big natural cave and walked through it. We
also went kayaking for about an hour, which was my favorite part of
the trip. Right before dinner, we hiked up the highest point of Ha
Long Bay, which provided gorgeous views of the bay. It's pretty
funny, Ha Long Bay has lots of "floating markets", where people have
little boats that they sail around and sell stuff on. They even came
up to our bedroom window on the junkboat! While we were there it was
pretty foggy, which gave the area a very mystical feeling. That
evening there was karaoke on the ship, which was pretty entertaining!

DAY FOUR

We spent the morning cruising through the bay again. Lunch was our
last meal on the junkboat, then it was time to head back to Hanoi. We
had enough free time in Hanoi before our flight to do some more
shopping and grab dinner. After that it was time to go back to Ho Chi
Minh City! I'm glad I did the Global Citizens trip, Ha Long Bay was
probably my favorite part of Vietnam. It was unlike anything I've
ever seen, and so beautiful.

DAY FIVE

Today I was on a SAS trip for the whole day. The first part of the
trip was to the Cao Dai Temple. The Cao Dai religion is a new one,
founded in the 1920s. The temple was built in the 1930s. The
religion blends many elements of different religions, especially
Buddhism and Confucianism. The temple was very beautiful and
elaborately decorated. We got to witness part of a service, which was
very interesting even though I couldn't understand a single word! It
was interesting to see such a unique religion, and I loved all the art
in the temple.

After lunch we went to the Cu Chi Tunnels. These tunnels were used by
the Vietnamese guerilla forces in the Vietnam War. On our way there
we saw a short propaganda video on the bus. This video had a very
anti-American slant, and it was very strange to hear about the war
from that perspective! The video highlighted child guerrilla soldiers
who had killed over a hundred American soldiers. I hadn't realized
that the guerillas were not just made up of soldiers, but also the
local women and children. We visited different points of the
tunnels. We saw an entrance point that was so tiny - I can't imagine
how people fit in there! We saw some of the traps that were used by
the guerillas and this was again strange as they had illustrations of
Americans falling into the traps. We got to walk through a section of
the tunnels, which was very small. It's lucky I don't get
claustrophobic! I'm glad I went to the tunnels, because I learned
more about the war and I think that it's important to see history from
a different side. It really showed that where you live determines how
you learn history. However, it did stir up a lot of mixed emotions in
me. For me, it really strengthened my feeling that war is truly one
of the most horrific things imaginable and I have a hard time seeing
how it is justified.