CHINA

I left for Beijing very early in the morning. At the airport I tried my best to spend the last of my Hong Kong dollars since mainland China uses Yuan’s not HKD’s. I bought two gossip magazines which were a great investment because I had no idea what was going on in the world of Hollywood! We learn about world issues and problems in Global Studies but I had been lacking the celebrity gossip! Rihanna got beat up by Chris Brown? What?!? That’s probably old news to all of you guys. After the 3 hour flight to Beijing it was at least 30 degrees colder! Surprisingly I was happy! Since we left the weather has been so fricken hot everywhere so it was refreshing to wear a jacket and scarf again. I left when it was freezing outside so it actually made me feel like I was a little closer to home. Once we got there we went to a traditional Chinese restaurant where we had Peaking duck! I’ve already had that a few times cause its Gabe’s like favorite Chinese dish so I felt pretty cool knowing how to eat it and telling everyone else about it! After dinner we went to our hotel which was located on a university campus. The first night we were there our heat was broken so it was FREEZING cold in our room. I actually caught a cold because of it which sucked. We went to bed pretty early the first night because we were climbing the great wall the next morning!
I got up for breakfast and was looking forward to eating a bit cause I knew we’d be busy all day. Well all they had for breakfast was lunch food. Rice, chicken, beef, dumplings, and much more I was a little disappointed so I just ate lots of dumplings and got ready to go. The great wall was about an hour outside of Beijing. I slept on the way and when I woke up I was there! We piled out of the bus and were hit with a gust of wind. We were given 2 hours to wander around and I was thinking that was way too much time to just see a wall but I was wrong. We began the hike up and soon realized that climbing the great wall was going to be quiet a workout. We were taken to a really old part of the great wall where there haven’t been very many renovations. There are some areas of the great wall that have a gondola that takes you to the top then a toboggan slide that takes you down, we had neither. Oh well I say we had a more authentic experience. Climbing all the way to the top was honestly one of the hardest things I have ever done, I wanted to give up so many times but I knew if I did I would regret it and I couldn’t buy an I climbed the great wall t shirt and feel good about it! So we made our way to the top after quite a few stops. I was amazed at how many local Chinese people were there. They bring lunches and picnic at the top. The most embarrassing thing was when a 60 year old Chinese woman would pass us on the way to the top or when a 70 year old man smoking a cigarette would pass us! Ha well we made it and it was worth it! The views were incredible. From where we were we weren’t really able to see very much of the massive wall because we were at an end where the wall looped around. So we saw like a mirror image of where we were on the other side. It was just incredible being atop of something that was so old and had so much history. I couldn’t imagine being stationed at the top area and having to climb up all those stairs to work every day. One thing I didn’t really like was the little tourist shops that were on the way up. There were two shops that we stopped at on the way up, one of them was playing American music which we thought was pretty funny. After we climbed all the way to the top we realized we would have to climb back down too!!! Ha climbing back down was easier physically but harder because the steps were sooo tall it was easy to stumble down them! I am proud to say that I didn’t trip once! That’s a true accomplishment for me!
After the Great Wall we made our way to the Summer Palace. This was the palace where the emperor would spend his summers. It’s on a lake so it stayed a little cooler during the hot summer months. It was huge with so many different court yards and rooms. I really like ancient Asian architecture. There were beautiful blossom trees and shrubs everywhere. I especially loved the palace because the rooms had furniture in them, the same furniture that was actually used the time the palace was in full swing. I like places like this because it makes them feel more real some of the empty forts we go to I can’t really appreciate because I don’t know what they looked like, I mean I can imagine which is fun but sometimes seeing the real thing is cooler. On the outside of the buildings they have cool statues of all different types dragons. We found out that these were actually used to burn incense to scent the entire palace area. There was this old man performing music with his wife, it was some of the strangest sounds I have ever heard. The man was practicing the art of throat singing so it was more sounds than words and singing. It was so cool and nice because they were just performing for the sake of it. They weren’t begging for money just enjoying the afternoon which made me enjoy my afternoon a little more too! The palace was really cool and very peaceful. It was huge one of the biggest places I’ve ever been too we didn’t even see the entire thing and I can only imagine how many people lived there when it was in use.
After the Summer Palace we headed to Tsinghua University to meet up with some local college students. Tsinghua University is the most prestigious university in China, it is like the Harvard of China so we all felt pretty lucky to be visiting. We had a student guide whose English name was Andy. We asked him how they pick their English names and he said they just randomly pick them in English class. He took us for a tour of the university which was amazing. It was so cool being on a traditional college campus again. Seeing people studying outside, walking to class, riding their bikes, drinking coffee! I didn’t realize how much I missed being on a real campus until I visited here. We saw some of the school buildings and learned a lot about the students. At the university they turn off their electricity between the hours of 10pm-6am every single night. Andy said it was because if they didn’t the students would be awake all night long. Can you believe that? Nowhere in America would ever do that, I don’t even think a University would ever even need to do that. Also everyone that goes to school there has to live in on campus housing. The foreign students live in separate dorms than the Chinese students. I found this really strange so I asked our guide why it was like that and he said he thought it was their choice that those dorms were nicer so they wanted to live there. That didn’t quite match up with me, I doubt that every single student from abroad wanted to live in nicer more expensive dorms than the Chinese students. I think it had something to do with the government trying to keep the spread of ideas from reaching the youth of China. So crazy.
We ate dinner at one of the many cafeterias and it was one of my favorite meals of the whole trip! Ha I think it was because the Chinese food was like fast food Chinese for them so it was similar to the Chinese food we are used to at home. Anyways it was delicious! After dinner we met two other students who took us to the campus book store. On the way we talked to them about the things they liked to do. They told us they never had free time they just study all the time and on occasion go shopping or out to eat. I was shocked that they don’t drink ever or party or hang out with lots of friends. It just seemed so different than at home, granted it was the best school in China. All the students were so intelligent but still seemed so naive or innocent I don’t really know what the right word to describe them was. They seemed so misinformed and I know a lot of that has to do with the governments law on the press and education and things like that. The students were all very nice and hospitable I am actually friends with a few of them on Face book now. I told them to study abroad in America at University of Iowa! Andy said a few of his friends were actually abroad at University of Illinois! It was a really cool experience to see how people my age live on the other side of the world. It definitely made me appreciate my home a bit more.
The next day we went to the Forbidden City. Tiananmen Square is right across the street from Forbidden city so we began here. There were a ton of people here but our tour guide didn’t tell us much about it just that there is a celebration there every year. She told us nothing about the Massacre apparently in China it is referred to as just a misunderstanding. There were guards surrounding the Forbidden City and a giant picture of Mao Zedong on the outside. We walked in and there were little kiosks selling knick knacks all over, not what I was expecting. Chinese people are soooo pushy. They seriously push you around like you are a piece of dirt. I dono where they are going in such a hurry, honestly we are all going to get into the forbiddedn city what’s the big rush? Anyways I was kind of disappointed in the Forbidden City which is actually just the Winter Palace. It was pretty in design with lots of gates to get to the main palace. The garden however was absolutely beautiful. They have these strange sponge rocks everywhere. After the Forbidden City we went for lunch. On the Way to lunch we noticed a strange pattern of young children wearing butt less pants. It was so disgusting they were everywhere I noticed it when I saw one climbing a fence yuck! And it was cold outside! I asked someone about it and I guess they do that to help them potty train. I mean it kind of makes sense it’s less expensive than diapers, not sure how much more hygienic but I sort of understand it. Another thing here that I noticed that is just as gross is the spitting. People in China spit everywhere all the time they just hock big loogies and spit them no matter where or who you are with! And like I said before the pushing and the budging oh the budging is just so bad. Like 10 of us girls were in line to use a bathroom and a group of 8 Chinese women come barging in. They just stroll right in walk past us (in line) and budge us to use the bathroom. By that point in the trip we had had enough. I understand cultural norms and such but they don’t budge other Chinese people only us and I was sick and tired of being walked all over. So there we were boxing people out in the bathroom and they still tried breaking through! It was ridiculous! We would be in the bathroom stall and before we got out we’d make sure there was a semester at sea person who was waiting for our stall! I guess during the Olympics people complained so much about the budging that the government has line days where waiting in lines for the trains, busses, or bathrooms are enforced by the police. Ok that was a highly unnecessary story I just told you but oh well!
After Forbidden City we went to the Temple of Heaven. This place was really cool. After seeing lots of temples and palaces they all kind of blend together but this one was cool. It had a park area where people come and relax or play games. While we were there they had a senior citizens dance session in the park! It was really fun we joined in! At the temple they have this one section where the emperor would stand when addressing God. We stood on it and felt so cool! Ha anyways the temple was pretty cool there were lots of different parts to it and like usual it was HUGE! The coolest thing about this temple was probably the huge doors that were before every section.
Next we headed to the Chinese acrobat show. This was by far the coolest thing I have ever seen in my entire life. The way these young girls can move their bodies and bend them and support each other is just incredible. They fit like 20 girls on one single bicycle! They also did this crazy trick with these like hamster wheels it’s hard to describe I guess you just have to see it. But it was definitely one of the best shows I have ever been to.
After dinner we were able to go to the market and shop till we drop and boy did I! When I thought of shopping in China this was what I pictured. It was a shopping center 7 stories tall full of knockoffs and real designer items. After all my shopping experiences I have come to be a very good bargainer so my friend and I bargained away and bought away. I spent more money in China than I did in South Africa and Namibia combined! Haha oh well it was worth it the entire time I was spending I just kept telling myself when are you ever going to be in China again getting all these great deals? They had all types of purses, north faces, ugg boots, I was in heaven. In the mall they give you different colored bags to indicate if you are a hard bargainer (yellow bags) or a push over (white bags) let’s just say I always got the yellow bags!
The next morning we were off to go do the things I was most excited for during our trip to Beijing. We headed to the Panda zoo first! I LOVE zoos! I think they are so much fun and they make me sooo happy and I have never seen a real panda before so I couldn’t wait. We got to the Beijing zoo at like 10 am before the big crowds got there. The Beijing zoo was a free zoo except you had to pay for the panda exhibit. The panda exhibit was pretty nice it was similar to any of the exhibits at the Lincoln Park zoo. The pandas were soooo cool! They look like the friendliest little bears ever! Like you could pick one up and just hug it and hold it forever! They are much dirtier in person then you imagine them. One of them just sat there eating bamboo and staring at all of us like we were the animals it was really funny. After the Panda exhibit we had time to explore the zoo which was not so cool. It was such a letdown after seeing the panda exhibit. The rest of the zoo was so sad it was more of an animal prison than a zoo. The Cat house literally looked like a prison. The walls, ceiling, and floor were made out of the same cement. The cats were in prison cells, cement boxes with two sets of metal bars blocking them from the outside world. They had no toys in their cages except for car tires. I am not a huge animal rights activist person but I really don’t see how anyone could have thought that was a suitable environment for a large animal to live in. The elephant house was no better. The HUGE elephant was in a room probably as big as my kitchen. They could barely turn themselves around in the little box. The girl I was with couldn’t even stay inside those areas because they just upset her too much. None of the locals seemed to see any problem with it probably because it is what they are used to but to us it was very sad.
After the Prison zoo we headed to the Birds Nest and Water Cube!!!! I was a pretty avid Olympics watcher especially the swimming and diving portion so I could not wait! We pulled up and I was sooo excited. We saw the birds nest first. It was so cool looking. It literally looks like a giant birds nest from the outside. We went through the security check where you weren’t allowed to bring in lighters which I found odd, dealt with more budging from the locals, then finally we were inside! Walking into that park was such an incredible feeling. I dono why but I felt proud for some reason! I know it sounds strange I think it’s just cause I got that Olympic pride feel all over. We were able to walk out onto the field, run around the track, sit in the stands, take pictures with the weird Chinese Olympic symbol people, it was so much fun. It definitely convinced me that I need to go to an Olympics at some point in my life. One thing that was odd about the birds nest were the lack of bathrooms, there were very few of them I was even more surprised when I finally found one and they were squatters. I thought that with the Olympics having so many foreign tourists they would put in western toilets but no!
Now we were off to the water cube. Before we got in we had to go and buy our tickets. The entrance was at one end of the cube and ticket sales on the complete opposite. I don’t know what genius thought up that layout but it took forever to walk all the way around the cube to buy a ticket to have to walk all the way back to the entrance! It was so worth it though. It was beautiful inside! The outside was obviously shaped like a cube and blue with water running around the perimeter. On the inside everything was white and modern looking. Some of the walls were clear plastic that had water running through them. We walked into the main stadium and I was speechless! It was just so cool to be in the same room that Michael Phelps won all his medals in! Everything looked exactly the same as it did on TV. I loved it, it was so much fun being there and seeing all that. It was just so amazing cause while I was watching the Olympics never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that in a few months I would be sitting in the same stands as those fans. It was AMAZING!
After the Olympics area we had some time to kill so we went to another shopping mall. I did a bit more damage but not too much then got some pizza for lunch! Then we headed to the massive Beijing airport for our flight to Shanghai. The flight to Shanghai was the scariest plane ride of my life. The plane was massive which I usually like cause there isn’t as much turbulence but this was an exception. It was a double decker plane which I didn’t even know existed! The whole flight was just up and down and up and down, you know that feeling you get when a plane first takes off like when your tummy sinks a little? That happened the whole time! And it didn’t help that the girl sitting next to me’s dad was a pilot so she is sitting there telling me how this would never happen in the states and it’s a violation of codes etc etc. I have never been so happy to be on land ever before!
Shanghai
Unfortunately we didn’t get into Shanghai until like midnight so I was too tired to explore. The next morning however Win and I took on Shanghai! It was a bit difficult getting a cab though. We walked into a travel agency and had them write down our destination in Chinese. We would show the cab drivers and they would just say no. They wouldn’t give us a reason why just shake their heads and drive away. Finally we found someone who would drive us to the market. Once we got to the clothes market a group of about 7 men opened our cab door for us and tried to get us to come into their store. We told them we had no money so they immediately led us to an ATM. Literally for the next hour they followed us around the shopping center. We told them NO and GET AWAY and NO FRIEND but they wouldn’t listen. It was so strange never had we had someone follow us for so long just to get us to come to their shops. Finally after very much NO FRIEND they left. We figured out a good method to keep people like that away from us, we just started speaking a fake language to each other. They would come up say hi and we would say bonjour! Then fake speak French and they would just leave ha it was a great plan. After shopping I got some coffee with tapioca balls at the bottom of it which I am totally going to look for when I get back in the states. After shopping we walked around the area. We saw adorable little Chinese babies which by the way I never did see a family with more than one kid. Then we saw these puppies for sale in the basket of a bicycle for only 200 yuans which was like 50 bucks and they were SOO cute! We had a few yuans left so we went and bought some groceries for our rooms and headed back to the ship. It was really difficult getting a cab again. We even got into a cab and kicked out. When we got back to the ship we heard that other people had had similar problems. The language barrier was also really difficult in China it was hard to communicate with most of the people there. This was one of the first if not only countries where locals would come up to us and just speak to us in Chinese like we would just understand them! Do I look like I speak Chinese? Someone made a good point though in all these countries I go up to locals and ask them something in English.
China was a really amazing country to visit. I think I liked it so much because it was so different from the United States. Vietnam was a communist country but only in rare instances did it feel like it. While being in Vietnam it felt normal and natural not like what I think of when I hear the word communist. China on the other hand was much different. I mean the news papers there have nothing of substance in them. Fluff articles fill the pages of the Chinese Times. Many websites are blocked, phone lines tapped, the government goes through everyone’s emails, you can’t speak about politics, have your own opinion on anything it was just crazy. The strangest thing is that the people don’t seem to have a problem with it at all. Actually I’m not sure if it’s that they don’t have a problem with it so much as they can’t talk about it. Can you imagine not being able to talk politics? Ever! I mean what would our family do on holidays? We wouldn’t have anything to talk about! It’s just crazy mind boggling even how different people live over there.

HONG KONG

So we pulled into Hong Kong very early on March 29th. I didn’t really know what to expect so boy was I blown away by the amazing skyline. We were docked on the Kowloon side so we had the best view in the City of Hong Kong Island. We went through customs and got our departure cards and went to meet up with Alice Law the young woman that Greg works with and hooked me up with for the day! She told us she would be wearing a pink coat so we immediately found her and her friend Yolanda at the mall. They were ready to take us anywhere and we heard that the Stanley Market was a good place to go. They hadn’t been there in a while which we should have taken as a sign of it not being the best but we went anyways. We took the star ferry from the Kowloon side to the Hong Kong side. It was only about a 3 minute ride then we hopped on a bus to take us to the Market. The bus was huge a double decker, we sat on the top of course. The views were amazingly beautiful. I had no idea that Hong Kong had so much natural beauty. Away from all the tall buildings is a beautiful beachfront area which we were able to see from on top of the huge hills. We made it to the Stanley market and were a little disappointed. It wasn’t very big, all their knockoffs were terrible SOOO terrible, and it was kind of expensive with not a lot of bartering which we were all very used to. I swear we are all going to go home and be shopping at like Macys ask how much something is and say no I will give you 10 dollars for this shirt, what NO? ok I am walking away this is me walking away haha that’s probably funnier in my head or only to the people I am with oh well. We did a little shopping then sat down for lunch. We went to a restaurant that was a mix of western food and Chinese food. Alice ordered for my 3 friends and I, she got us Dim Sum and rice then she ordered spaghetti for herself and Yolanda! We found that funny. Then we ventured to Hong Kong Park. Here is where you ride the gondolas up to the top of Victoria’s Peak which is a really famous lookout but it was so overcast that we decided not to. So we just walked around there for a little. There were coy fish ponds everywhere, families picnicking, and crazy cool fountains.
Then we took the subway to the downtown area of Hong Kong. While going to get on the subway we were there at a time when half the people were getting on and half were getting off. One of our friends Trish hopped right on while the rest of us were waiting for the next train because we wouldn’t all have gotten on that one. Well the doors shut Trish saw us all out of the train and we saw her in it and we all immediately burst out laughing! Poor Trish she was probably freaking out. Alice kept screaming at her to get off at the next stop but she looked like she had no idea what we were saying. Luckily for us and her someone on the train saw what had happened and told her to get off at the next stop so she did and Alice got off the train and found her there! We couldn’t stop laughing about it! We thought it was hilarious.
When we got off at the Mokow stop we all had to take a step back because there were so many people! That was the first time that I had felt the rush of an enormous amount of people like I had been expecting in Hong Kong. There were flashing signs, electronics, and lights everywhere on the street. When you imagine Hong Kong in your mind this is what you think of. We were so excited! Trish had to buy a camera so we had a reason to look at all the cool electronic stores. Alice called her husband to come and help us which was so sweet. It was really nice having locals there because they were able to communicate with the shopkeepers for us and make sure that we didn’t get taken which tourists usually do!
In Hong Kong they have this strange religion called fall of the dome or faulk dome or something like that I’m sorry can’t really remember the name. It’s not so much a religion as it is a political view. As you all know China is a communist country and Hong Kong is a different like sect of China it’s really confusing. But in mainland China you cannot speak out against the government ever or else you are thrown in jail for a pretty long time however Hong Kong is more tolerant of outside views. So this religion speaks out against the government and often has demonstrations on the streets. In the middle of the street I saw a man lying on a table with white sheets draped all over him. Standing above him was a man dressed as a doctor holding a scalpel over the guy’s heart. This was all very strange to me so of course I asked Alice’s husband what was going on. He told me it was too complicated to explain but I had learned a bit about the religion in school so I asked him if that was what it was and he said yes. It was a demonstration to show how the Chinese government enforces capital punishment more than any other country and when they kill the prisoners they sell their organs. I was SHOCKED I couldn’t imagine this actually happening anywhere it just sounded so wrong to me. I’ll never forget that eerie feeling I had staring at this demonstration.
We went to the ladies market which was a little more of what I was expecting when I thought about shopping in Hong Kong. We shopped for a few hours but I contained myself, I didn’t want to go wasting all my money on the first day when I didn’t know what else China had to offer! After shopping we took the subway underground under the water back to our ship in Kowloon. Once we got there I gave Alice a cubs T shirt and my friend Trish who is from New York gave her husband and Yolanda I <3 New York T-shirts, they seemed pretty excited about them. It was so amazing having them take us around for the day. It was fun too because we got to learn more about Hong Kong having them as local tour guides. I also think they learned a bit from us too while we were there. They were both so nice and giving and so excited to show us their hometowns. It was really an amazing experience.
That night we ate dinner and watched the light show in the skyline. Like I said before we had the BEST view of the Hong Kong Skyline and every night at 8:30 they put on a show. The buildings each have very colorful lights and they create really cool patterns with them. Overall Hong Kong was really really cool. I only had one day there so it would have been nicer to spend more time there. I don’t think that my one day visit did Hong Kong much justice. There was so much that I wish I could have seen and experienced there. Oh well guess that just means I have to go back!

VIETMAN

Sorry guys this is going to be a very long blog but I really wanted to do Vietnam justice because it was the port that had the biggest impact on me. We pulled into Ho Chi Minh City early morning on Sunday March 22nd. We had big plans for the day and had to get going as early as possible to squeeze it all in. We began with trying to get a taxi. Ughh these taxi drivers were by far the worst we have run into so far. They look at us and think we are stupid tourists who they can just manipulate easily. Little do they know that we have been traveling for over 2 months and have had plenty of experiences with jerk off cab drivers. Anyways all of these cabbies wanted 10 us dollars to go less than a mile. And NONE of them would back down NONE it was awful. We were probably arguing with them for at least 15 minutes. I was so frustrated I just wanted to get to the museum we wanted to go to before it closed so finally we agreed to pay 6 bucks to go about 6 blocks. We paid and he gave us money back in dong and instead of giving us 30,000 dong he ripped us off and only gave us 3,000 dong. I was furious it was not a good way to begin the day. I just hate people that are so mean and rude like that. In a metered taxi it should cost a maximum of 17,000 dong (1 U.S. dollar) to get anywhere in Ho Chi Minh. He made SO much money off of us and then ripped us off. I just can’t stand people like that. Anyways our first stop was the Reunification Palace.
This place was the former President of the South’s house. They had a huge North Vietnamese replica tank on the lawn. This was a replica of the tank that ran through the gate at the palace on the fall of Saigon (which interestingly is referred to by the people of Vietnam as the Liberation of Saigon not the fall as we call it.) We walked into the house and waited in line for a tour guide to show us around. We went through the house and visited the different rooms and things like that. The basement was by far the most interesting. The basement is virtually untouched from the day the North took over. It was filled with old telephones, American radios, generators, and maps planning different plans for attack. It was very eerie being in that basement knowing who had been there and what being there meant. It was so cool though I felt like I was a part of history being in that basement.
Next we made our way over to the War Remnants Museum but not before getting ripped off by another cab driver. I am serious all this arguing over prices and everything it really wears you out. We literally had to go 2 blocks and we would have walked but we didn’t want to get lost since we were on a time constraint. Well we should have walked let me tell you. We had to pay another 6 U.S. dollars and our cab driver did not take us to the right place! We got out of the cab about 2 blocks before the museum and we had no idea where we were. It was very hard to communicate with other people because not much English was spoken. So it wound up taking us 30 minutes to get there! Oh well we got there.
I wrote this entire blog and skipped describing this section of the museum because I didn’t really know what to tell you about it. I wasn’t sure if I should go into the grave details about what I saw or if I should just let it be. I will try and go somewhere in between and if you think it isn’t somewhere in the middle I am sorry but I tried my best. Whatever it is I describe or say will not do justice to what I saw here and how it made me feel.
I entered the museum and went straight to the middle building. Here was a large display of photographs of American soldiers committing horrible terrible war crimes. The museum used to be called the American War Crimes Museum. The very first image in the museum is an excerpt from the United States Declaration of Independence. I suspect this was an attempt to show how hypocritical the United States is/was. This was really the only thing in the museum that pissed me off. I felt it was a low blow or a hit below the belt to an already disturbing display of American acts. The photos I saw I will never be able to forget. Pictures of Americans holding the heads of Vietnamese civilians with smirks on their faces, a man holding a carcass, soldiers holding guns to children’s heads, children wandering around screaming and crying looking for their parents as the Americans burnt their villages, raped their mothers, then killed both their parents. Perhaps the most disturbing image for me was the one of the little children running away from their village. American soldiers walk behind them with their guns. Front and center is a young girl about 8 or so with no clothes on, mouth open, crying, arms wide as if she is screaming and begging for help. Her clothes were burnt off by a napalm bomb. They were literally burnt right off her tiny body.
There was a section on the effects of Agent Orange. For those of you who don’t know what that is it is a chemical we used during the war to kill the foliage in the jungle. North Vietnamese troops would hide in the jungle so the easiest and fastest way to get rid of this was by using chemicals. Well these chemicals also affected people. They killed people and caused deformation in children generations later. There were images of people born without arms, legs, no eyes, deformed beyond the point of human recognition. This is something that I even witnessed young men and women begging for money on the streets to this day because they can’t get jobs. They cannot get jobs because they are mentally retarded or lack limbs. All of this is because of what we did. I felt so terrible when I would see people on the streets like this. I couldn’t help but feel responsible and ashamed to be an American.
The next section of the museum was called the tiger cage. It displayed the torture that American soldiers would induce on North troops as well as civilians. Some of them included water boarding, unleashing venomous snakes in women’s pants, starvation, and many more terrible acts. They had displays of what the prisons would look like with sickly thin Vietnamese models inside. The whole feel and tone of this section is just indescribable. I literally felt sick to my stomach and still do just thinking about it.
Next was a section on the opposition to the war. With different propaganda from Vietnam as well as many countries in Europe who didn’t believe in American interference. There was a section on the United States citizens protesting the war. One thing I noticed here though was the extreme bias that was being displayed in the Museum. Instead of showing peaceful protests they only had photos of violent ones which erupted or extreme acts that Americans took. For example there were photos from the protest on the college campus that resulted in deaths of students. They also showed photos of the people who voluntarily burnt themselves to death in an attempt to make a point. This museum chose to display even the Americans who were on “their side” in a poor violent light.
The fourth room displayed the amount of time and money that America spent on the war. It tried to prove the point that we were there too long, spent too much money, and knew nothing about what we were getting ourselves into. Finally the last room displayed photographs of the photographers and their importance in the war. There was a book which had a list of photographers who died in the war. It was sad reading some of their testimonies. These men and women were a large part of the war but could do nothing. The terrible things they saw on both sides could not be stopped or prevented by them. Just imagine how helpless they must have felt. One photographer wrote about how difficult it was to take the photographs. He said, “I would tell the troops to wait just one minute, snap my picture then walk away. I would never turn back to see what had happened. But I knew the gun shots would sound, the screams and cries would rage on, and I knew.” I could never imagine being in a situation like that.
Walking through the museum I knew that what I was seeing was a very bias display of the war, but pictures don’t lie. We did terrible awful things to these people and I see that now. I wish I could explain better what I saw I wish all of you could see it and I pray that Americans never do anything like that again. It made me think and question a lot of things. Although it was very hard and difficult to walk through the museum I am so grateful that I was given the opportunity to.
After the museum we went to lunch at a restaurant called Lemongrass where we met up with some other friends. Lunch was great! It was an amazing start to the long week of Vietnamese food. After lunch we hopped into another cab and were relieved when it was a legit metered taxi! Guess how much it cost us? Only 10,000 dong!!! Finally we were not cheated and did not have to argue and boy did it feel good. Once in the market we all split up and did some shopping. After that was done we hopped in yet another cab that was metered! Woo thank god! No not thank god it was a rigged meter! Ugh it went from 10,000 dong to 30,000 don’t to 50,000 dong in like 1 minute. It was awful. Probably the worst way to get ripped off because you know the cab driver is deceiving you but he doesn’t speak any English and just keeps pointing to the meter and doesn’t let you out of his car until you pay him what the meter says. It was awful and just a really crappy experience. Once on the ship I watched some of my newly bootleg DVDs and got ready for dinner!
Well we got all dressed up and were planning on having a big group of about 20 out to dinner. Half of us made the 7:30 trolley and the other half didn’t. So plans fell through a bit and we all went our separate ways. We ate at a really nice Vietnamese restaurant on one of the busiest streets! After din din we met up with the rest of the group at the famous Rex Hotel. The Rex Hotel is one of the oldest hotels in Ho Chi Minh City and has a really cool roof top bar. Once up there they had a live band playing and tables set up everywhere. We sat down had one delicious passion fruit martini which cost us an arm and a leg! Oh well we definitely paid for the atmosphere and it was well worth it. I headed home at a reasonable hour considering I had to be awake by 4 am the next morning to catch my flight.
It was awfully dark when I woke up that morning but I was so excited to be going up to the Northern part of Vietnam in Hanoi. We boarded our flight at 6:30am on the biggest plane I had ever been on. There were 50 rows of 12 seats and they even served airplane food! I was shocked I forgot that there was once a time that airlines served food! It was a nice smooth flight and we arrived in Hanoi 2 hours later.
We boarded our bus and began the 3 hour drive to Ha Long Bay. Along the way we saw endless fields of rice paddies! The beautiful shades of green that line the highways make Vietnam such a beautiful country. Along with the thousands of rice paddies come tons of cool rice hats! As far as the eye can see there are rows and rows of soggy green rice plants and people in their woven rice hats hunched over working the fields. Vietnam is the second largest producer of rice in the world (Thailand is 1st and America is 3rd.) On the way we made a pit stop at a traditional Vietnamese market. Most of the people working in the market have never seen an American or even a white person in their entire lives. I felt like I was an alien walking through that place. Most of us were too tall to even fit under the ropes and tarps which serve as roofs for their little stands. The meat tables were by far the nastiest thing I have ever seen. They sell meat on a wooden table it just sits there flies landing all over it the sun beating down on it. I couldn’t believe my eyes! It was really a great thing to see how these small town rural people live considering they are the majority of the country.
Once we arrived in Ha Long Bay we had some lunch and checked into our hotel. After that we had some free time before dinner so we explored around the area. Unfortunately for us it was pretty rainy and overcast so I didn’t make it outside long. We had dinner at the hotel and it was great! Vietnamese food is my new favorite! It’s less spicy than Thai food and saltier than Chinese food. I ate white rice and soy sauce up the wazoo while in Vietnam. After dinner we headed to the night market which was located on the beach across the street from our hotel. We stopped at the convenient store in the market and bought a few 25 cent beers to drink while we walked around. As we stared at the repetitive goods we couldn’t escape the sound of people singing karaoke! They LOVE Karaoke in Vietnam and that night was no exception. There were people of all ages belting out tunes and attempting to hit notes that nobody should hit! After this I headed back to the hotel for some internet time and sleep.
I woke up the next morning more excited than ever for my day of relaxing on a boat cruise through Ha Long Bay. What I woke up to was a little different. It was chilly and overcast and I was so bummed. We boarded our boat which was built to look like an old fishing boat but really it was brand new. I forgot to mention there were quite a few parents on our trip because Vietnam was the parent sponsored port. So we had about half students and half parents. It was really nice to see and meet everyone’s parents but it definitely made me miss my own a bit more! Anyways the boat itself was really cool so that lifted my spirits a bit. We headed to the top deck to check out the beautiful rock formations which are all over the bay. These rock formations look like huge mountains coming out of the water. They were so amazingly beautiful they are even being considered for one of the natural wonders of the world (rightfully so I might add!) On the way this tiny little boat came up next to ours filled with a family of 4 selling bananas. There was a tarp like roof on the boat which sort of covered up their living area. It was so sad they kept begging us to buy bananas from them. Most of the parents bought them so we all got to try some. Along our tour we stopped for some swimming and lunch! The lunch was amazing! I don’t normally like seafood but for some reason I loved what I ate on Ha Long Bay!
After the cruise we hopped back in the bus and headed towards Hanoi. Once we got there we settled into our hotel and got ready for the water puppet performance. We stopped for dinner than made our way to the show which was nothing like what I was expecting. I usually really like cultural performances and shows like this but I hate to say it this one was pretty boring. I mean there were people who were actually falling asleep in the theatre. How they actually maneuver the puppets though is pretty impressive. It is a huge pool of water with curtains running through the middle. Behind the curtains there is still water and a group of people who man the puppets. The puppets are all placed on huge long poles that the puppeteers hold behind the curtain. There was also a really great band that played on the side of the stage. I think another reason I found it so boring was because I didn’t understand what was going on since none of it was in English.
After the show a group of us decided to check out the Sofitel hotel which is the nicest hotel in Hanoi. They have an all you can eat chocolate buffet which we were dying to try! We walked there from the show through this gorgeous park. I forgot what it was called but it should have been called couples central! There were couples all over the park literally everywhere you looked there were people kissing or hugging or holding hands or making out or more… Anywhoo it was really interesting to see and we all felt a bit out of place walking through the park as if we were disturbing them! Once we got to the hotel we were all blown away. We sat at a table outside next to the pool. It was a bit pricier than we expected so we only stayed for two drinks. I’ll tell ya I felt like royalty though! I have never been treated so well in my life. I dono if it was because I was white, or of legal drinking age there, or a tourist, or that’s just how they treat everyone but it was great. After our drinks we took a cab back to our hotel which only cost 25,000 dong! I know it sounds like a lot but that’s only like a $1.50!
The next morning we woke up early and had a full day of tours planned. We began with the Mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh. I was creepishly excited for this because I have never seen anyone embalmed before so I didn’t know what to expect. The entire time I was in Vietnam I never once noticed anything that made me feel like I was in a communist country until we reached this area. We were not allowed to bring in our purses, cameras, we had to line up in single file lines, and NO talking. I felt like I was at boot camp or something. I was shocked at how many little kids were here to see Ho Chi Minh, there were hundreds of young children no older than 7 lined up to see him. In Vietnam apparently paying your respects to Ho Chi Minh is something that all citizens must do. Aswe approached the giant memorial tomb my stomach began doing knots. I wasn’t sure why but I sort of felt sick to my stomach. I’m still not really sure why it happened maybe it was the fact that I was about to view a dead body, maybe I couldn’t get over the idea that he was a big part of why we sent American troops to die over there, maybe it was the site of the young children jumping up and down in excitement to see this man but something just didn’t feel right. It was eerily cold in the building and I’m assuming that is to keep the body well preserved.
As we approached the room the lights went dim and all I could see was the backs of 2 guards around a black box. Once farther into the room I saw his body from the side. He is placed in a glass box and wrapped in a black velvet robe. When I finally made my way around the circle to the front I got a good look at him. He looked so creepy, exactly like a wax figure. There were two more guards on the other side of him. As I was looking at him I just kept thinking he was going to pop out at me! I’m glad I got to see it but it’s not something I am dying to do again.
Around the memorial is the area where HO Chi Minh lived for many years before he died. We visited the house on stilts where he spent his last years. It was a very peaceful area with a giant pond in the middle surrounded by beautiful Asian gardens. After this we visited the temple of literature. This was a really beautiful building in which old scholars used to learn and teach others. Then we made our way to the prison where the Vietnamese held captured American Pilots during the Vietnam War.
Our tour guide warned us that the museum was very skewed and full with propaganda. He basically told us that what we were about to see wasn’t exactly what went down in the 1960’s/70’s. The museum was in the actual prison that was used to hold these men. It was originally built by the French and used to hold Vietnamese Nationalist rebels during the French rule over Vietnam. It began with an explanation of how terrible the conditions were for the Vietnamese prisoners. During the French rule they treated the Vietnamese people with no respect, kindness, or humanity. They were fed very little if ever, forced to live in tiny cells with hundreds of other people, forced to live in an area surrounded with disease and illness, and they were tortured and killed. It really painted a picture of the terrors that occurred during the French rule of Vietnam.
The second half of the prison then switched gears towards the treatment of American Pilots during the war. This was the actual prison that John McCain was held captive in during the war. There were many pictures of him in the museum. We saw photos of him in the lake where he was taken by North Soldiers when his plane was gunned down (we actually visited the lake as well it was a tiny little thing about the size of 3rd bay at Waubee!) During this portion, the museum was designed to show the audience how well the North Soldiers treated the Americans even though they were doing these terrible things in the South. There were pictures of American pilots cooking dinner, attending Christmas Eve mass, writing to their families, playing cards, playing basketball, showing just how wonderful and nice staying in this prison was. The soldiers actually sarcastically nicknamed the prison the Hanoi Hilton. It was just insane how much this museum straight up lied to us. It was so ridiculous I had to just laugh it didn’t even make me mad I just had to laugh. After the museum we went to downtown Hanoi for lunch and shopping. I went a little crazy with the bootleg DVDs but I had to! We ate lunch at this great Western place where we got SOO much food. We got pizza, burgers, nachos, quesadillas, and ice cream! After all that Vietnamese food we really wanted something we were a little more used to.
While walking around we stumbled upon a fish market. It was a little smelly but boy was it cool. We were the only tourists in there as we walked around the back ally. There was fish of every kind swimming around little bowls just waiting to be bought. After the shopping we headed to the airport for our flight back to Ho Chi Minh City. Once home I went straight to bed because I had an early morning the next day.
On the last day I did a semester at sea trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels and the Cao Dai Temple. Our first stop was the temple. Cao Dai is a religion which started in Vietnam. It is a combination of a majority of the major religions. It combines ideas and thoughts from Catholicism, Arabic, Buddhism, Confucianism, and other smaller religions. The temple was surprisingly large and very colorful. The exterior was yellow with a red roof and little statues everywhere coming out of the building. The windows had wooden vines wrapping around them with evil eyes everywhere. It was a beautiful building check out my pictures! It also had turquoises, blues, pinks, oranges, whites, golds, every color imaginable! We went inside and got to view a portion of a service from the upper balcony. It was so interesting half of the temple is lined with men and the other half women. From the middle of the temple back they wear all white robes. The middle section is filled with the priests in training. These men wear robes of red, yellow, or blue. The color of these robes signifies which religion they are placing an emphasis on in their study. The altar was beautiful and intricately decorated with different wood carvings, candles, incense, and gongs. The pillars had dragons running down them from top to bottom. Finally the ceiling was beautiful. On the ceiling on top of the altar they had carvings coming out of the ceiling of the founding fathers of all the religions. The ceiling lining the whole temple was painted like a sky in baby blue with clouds. It was fascinating to be here and to witness a ceremony. This is definitely a religion worth learning more about.
Next we drove to the Cu Chi Tunnels. I was very excited to see this and see what they were all about. After viewing so much about how terrible the Americans were to the Vietnamese it was about time I saw some of the things the people of Vietnam were doing to American soldiers. Once we got there we watched a short video which surprise surprise set the scene of Americans being terrible awful people. “Look at these evil devilish Americans ruining our lives. Lucky for Vietnam we had the people of Cu Chi.” Then they would list off soldiers who won medals in the war for killing mass amounts of Americans. For those of you who don’t know what the Cu Chi tunnels are they are a tunnel system set up by the people of Cu Chi (small town in Vietnam) during the 1960’s. American soldiers had taken over much of the area but the people of Cu Chi had so much pride in their nation they refused to leave. So they just built their living areas underground in an intricate set of tunnels systems that went down to about 200 feet. Underground they built terrible traps that were used to capture Americans and terribly hurt them. These traps weren’t meant to kill them but instead torture them slowly until they are captured and killed or bleed to death. These tunnels are ridiculously small. I do not know how these people fit in them and lived down there for months at a time.
We began at an entrance to one of the tunnels. There was a covering about the size of a computer screen. These were covered with leaves and dirt so that the Americans couldn’t see them. This camouflage worked surprisingly well, I couldn’t even tell it was there when I was staring right at it. I got into this little hole (barely but I did!) had a quick look around and hopped on out. One of the girls in our group actually got stuck in the hole. I felt so bad for her but she handled it very well. If that would have been me my face would have turned bright red with embarrassment. Then we moved on to the area which housed the different taps they would use to capture Americans. These traps were so brutally violent and terrible that it was hard for me to watch our guide show us a demonstration of how they worked. However it definitely helped me see why certain American soldiers acted the way they did in the war. It did not justify what they did or how they handled the war but it did allow me to see a bit more well rounded picture of the actions that took place.
After this we went to one of the tunnels we could climb in. I was terrified. I did not want to do it but I knew I would regret it if I didn’t so I climbed on in. We crawled through a tunnel that had been 4 times enlarged since the original. It was so tiny and dark. I was doing alright until people stopped to take photos in the tunnel. Then we were just sitting there in this tiny little tunnel it was sooo hot and I was sweaty and dirty, so I began to freak out. I just wanted to get out of that tunnel already. What if it had collapsed on me? Or I fainted in there? My mind just raced and I had to get out. Lucky for me I was pretty close to an exit so I crawled right on out. Afterwards I was really happy that I had done it. It allowed me to truly see what it had been like during that time for that group of people. The eeriest thing of all though was probably the faint sound of gunshots in the background. There was a shooting range on the grounds where people could shoot guns that were used by the Americans during the war.
Overall Vietnam was by far one of my favorite stops. It was the port that had the most impact on my life. It allowed me to take a step back and view America how the world did or does. It made me rethink some of the things that I do or things that I support. The experience I had in Vietnam was, well I don’t really think I know the right word for it. I want to say amazing because I loved it and it changed me as a person but I think that word would be inappropriate because of the terrible things I saw. I don’t want to say it was sad either because the people have bounced back or have truly forgiven Americans for what we had done to them. I think the only way I can describe it was life changing. I know its cheesy and stupid sounding and even a little impossible but that is what it was. Writing this blog really made me rethink about my experiences here and it still makes me emotional recalling the things I saw.