SAIGON, VIETNAM
korea has two types of holidays...those that fall on the same day every year, and those that follow the lunar calendar, meaning that they change a bit every year...most of the holidays follow a lunar calendar, which means some years have a lot of days off from work, and others have very few..this year, chusok (the korean equivalent to thanksgiving...one of the BIGGEST holidays of the year) fell on thursday, friday and saturday of a week when there was already a holiday on that tuesday...many businesses closed for the whole week, and some were open just on monday...regardless, nearly everyone got a nice vacation...like many other english teachers, i left the country...
the flight to saigon (officially known as ho chi minh city, but still called saigon by locals and southerners in general) was 5 hours...we flew asiana airlines, which seemed pretty nice...each seat had a tv in the back of it, and the person watching the tv got to control it...the passenger got to decide what to watch, and when to start/stop it...i ended up watching two movies, though i can't for the life of me remember what they were...we touched down late late evening, and customs didn't take all that long...we had put some thought into the process, and had made sure we had our visas ahead of time...i wonder what happens when someone shows up w/out a visa? we arrived so late that all we did was take a taxi to the hostel, check in a go to sleep...saigon is two hours behind seoul, so we knew that the time difference would work in our favor and we'd wake up early enough...and sure enough, we did...
coming down to breakfast the next morning was a pleasant surprise...it turned out our hostel provided breakfast free of charge...no major gourmet fare mind you, but decent, nonetheless...baguettes (they're still found all over the country, courtesy of the french colonial influence,) eggs and fruit...after eating, we all pulled out the guidebooks to get an idea of what we wanted to do...ended up deciding to do a walking tour of the city...stepping out on the street was like going back to the seoul summer...very very humid...VERY VERY humid...we started walking, and soon enough came upon our first destination...the war museum...(i don't think that's the exact name, but it escapes me as well)...throughout it's history, vietnam has been invaded countless times...the mongols, the chinese, the french, and others...much to their credit, the vietnamese have always driven back the invaders...the war that so many of us refer to as the vietnam war is referred to in vietnam as the american war...history has always been written by the winners, and in vietnam, america wasn't the winner...(america withdrew, and left the south vietnamese to fight for themselves, which resulted in the north winning the war; as well as the creation of the dream of ho chi minh, a single, united country of vietnam)...many of the captions of the pictures displayed in the museum refer to the american imperialists...during the war, america used chemicals extensively...one of the ways americans tried to make the vietcong easier to find was to defoliate large areas of jungle/forest...the countryside is still recovering from this...the chemicals used to do this were used in massive quantities, (and while no study has conclusively proved this,) and many vietnamese have deformities and other health problems as a result of the chemicals...the pictures in the museum are rather graphic in their displays...also "in" (actually, on the grounds outside the actual building) the museum are several tanks, a plane, and some of the bombs left behind...the tonnage of bombs dropped on vietnam during the war is several times the effect of the nuclear bombs dropped on hiroshima and nagasaki during WWII...a small museum, but pretty interesting to see...it started raining while we were there, so we all took shelter for a little while, and waited until it wasn't a total downpour...the next stop was a church called notre dame...it's a pretty church, (in the style of so many churches in europe) but it's very unusual in that it has no stained glass windows...(the glass that was originally there was all broken during the bombing of WWII) there are windows of course, but they are designs in stone...combined with the rainy weather, it made for a bleak sort of atmosphere...across the street from the church is the main post office...it's big, and has traditional french architecture..we stepped inside and saw that the inside is just as grand as the outside...on the far end was a large portrait of ho chi minh...the man is everywhere...though he had been dead for a few years by the time the war was over he is still very much revered by many vietnamese, (definitely by the government) and is looked upon as the father of the country...next up was the saigon zoo and botanical gardens...we stumbled upon them, and figured "why not?"...tigers, a lion, crocodiles, a FAT hippo, birds, monkeys, rabbits, etc...sadly though, it didn't look as though the animals were cared for in the best manner possible...other than the hippo, they looked too skinny...next to the entrance of the zoo/botanical garden was the history museum (our original destination when we found the zoo)...we walked through, but to be honest, it was all a bit confusing...none of us had made a real effort to study any vietnamese history before the trip, so seeing the entire history of the country in one viewing was a bit much...keeping track of the different dynasties, invading peoples, etc was a bit overwhelming...checking our watches, we decided to try to fit in one more site before heading back to the hostel...i know this sounds like we didn't see much, but keep in mind that we had been moving nonstop for more than 6 hours by this point...we walked toward where we thought a jade pagoda was located...notice that i said "where we thought"...we must've checked the map 20 times...circled an area numerous times...looking at the map it seemed perfectly obvious, but it most certainly was not...anywho, we nearly gave up before finding someone who pointed us in the right direction...for all our searching, it didn't end up being that impressive...quite small, and rather hidden...after finally seeing it, we headed back to the hostel...we tried to figure out how far we had actually walked, but gave up on that, and just figured we had been on the move for way too long...
as one of my traveling companions is vegetarian, (in vietnam this isn't so much of a concern...not like in seoul where it means she basically has to feed herself, since koreans use meat all the time) we found a vegetarian restaurant...i felt like i ordered a lot, and ate a ton, but when the bill came, i owed a whopping $3...i love that!!
after dinner we went to one of the zillion travel/tour agents located around the backpacker area where we were staying...they offer tours to/of all sorts of places...we wanted to go see the tunnels at cu chi, so we signed up...the tour we signed up for was a full day tour, that also included a cao dai temple...
the next day we had to show up at the travel place at 8am for the tour...as is typical just about anywhere in southeast asia, they were running late...we got on the bus, and rode for way too long...we got to the cao dai temple around 1130, just one bus among many...from what we were told, there are several services at this temple during the day, but the noontime service is the most popular for tourists to see...we walked up the stairs, and observed the service...i think our little group was pretty quiet, and didn't take any pictures inside the church, but it seemed like most tourists weren't that polite...i saw many a camera being pulled out and people clicking away...the cao dai temple itself is very very colorful...the service wasn't in a language we understood, so watching the service was more of a way to watch people...
after the service, we hopped back on the bus, and drove to cu chi...cu chi was a small hamlet (wee little village) during the war...the area in which cu chi is located has a LOT of tunnels...these tunnels were built by the north vietnamese during the war, and the north vietnamese soldiers who used them often seemed like ghosts to the american troops...there are many entrances to the tunnels, each one 30 meters from the next...there are tons of entrances, but they were all hidden well, and american troops had a very difficult time finding them...some troops had the job known as being a 'tunnel rat'...that is, they went into the tunnels to find out where they went, and to find the north vietnamese soldiers...death rates for the tunnel rats were really high...some of the entrances were absolutely tiny, i don't know how they got in and out of them so easily...at one point, we were given the opportunity to go through 50 meters of one of the tunnels...our guide warned us that if we went in, we could not turn back and go back out again...the tunnel was too small for turning around...i though that 50 meters wouldn't be so bad...i'm not particularly claustrophobic, but geesh...50 meters is only half a football field...there were no bugs or anything, but moving wasnt so comfortable...we couldn't stand up, but crawling was rough on the knees...some of the soldiers who fought in the war for both sides spent a LOT of time in those tunnels...after my short experience (which probably wasn't nearly as long as it felt) i had a whole new respect, those soldiers were tough...also in this area we saw some of the traps built by the soldiers, they were vicious...camoflaged (sp?) pits with sharpened bamboo poles sticking up from the bottom, doors booby trapped so that when they were opened, bamboo poles swung down and stabbed the entrant...just plain mean...on one end of the area where you get to see the tunnels, there is a shooting range...at this shooting range, they allow you to purchase bullets to use in your choice of their weapons, which include an AK-47 (a weapon produced by the russians, admired by nearly every military person worldwide...they work well and easily, and rarely jam or otherwise break) and an M16...they hand you the bullets and you take them to the area with the guns...standing next to you as you shoot is a vietnamese soldier...though the weapons are held down to some degree, they don't want you making any effort to turn them around and shoot people...after the tunnels and the traps and shooting range, we watched a video, which naturally referred to the american imperialists...interesting to see so much which made americans out to be the bad guys after growing up in the states...after the video it was back on the bus, back to town...dinner in another restaurant, this time a nice thai place...considerably upscale from where we ate the day before, but still comparatively cheap...
the next day was another tour, this time to the mekong delta...after having had our fill of time on a bus the day before, we chose a tour where we got to spend time on several different boats...we rode a bus to my tho, a town on the mekong river, and from there got onto a boat that took us to unicorn island...population 6000, there isn't much there...just people living, no real support services...our guide told us that the people have to go to my tho to get medical services, grocery shop, etc...the people on the island mostly live off the profits made by their bee farms...they sell the honey, and of course the usual assortment of other souvenir gadgets...we saw one of the beehives, and of course the bees were very docile...are they always like that? after trying honey tea (my other companions also go to try rice wine and banana whiskey, and the men in the group were invited to try a snake whiskey...ewwww) we got into canoes, where locals paddled us down the creek, where we switched boats again...back to our first boat, we rode it through a maze of waterways to a little coconut candy factory...we got to see the process of making the candy...very labor intensive...wow...tasty stuff, i think nearly everyone in the group bought some of it...i got the kind that was half coconut, half chocolate...(it was either that or half coconut, half green tea flavor, which has never floated my boat)...after the 'factory' we got back on the boat, and rode it to a little resort, where we ate lunch...typical vietnamese fare, rice, veggies and a piece of meat...(pork)...nothing special, nothing horrid...after lunch we had some free time, so ivan and i rode bikes for a while...i don't think many people in that village see foreigners much, as we were stared at quite a bit...but it was fun, and we had an adventure trying to find our way back...we weren't lost exactly, just missed the turnoff...anywho, after the bikes, we changed boats, this time to a speedboat, which took us all the way back to saigon...a long boat ride, that's for sure...it started raining after a while, so we put the flaps down on the boat...which meant it got a bit more muggy, and we didn't get to see the riverside...but at least it wasn't another bus ride...by the time we got back, paul was feeling really sick...he was really really cold, and nauseous...not good...at dinner that night he ate almost nothing, and left fairly quickly, instead of sitting around and chatting...
the next morning paul was still feeling like crap, so correne, ivan and i figured out our daily plan in an effort to keep him involved...we had already decided to stay in the city...our first stop was a propaganda poster shop we had noticed the previous night...it was full of posters from all the way back to the 1950s...slogans from fighting in the war, to uniting together as one country, to how fabulous communism is, etc...way cool...after the shop, we went back to the hostel to check on paul...he came with us to our next spot, a huge market...correne's birthday was the following monday, so paul wanted to shop, and ivan, correne and i wanted to look around...the market was big, and had just about anything we could want or need...there is a saying: if you can't find it in saigon, then you don't need or want it...in the market we visited, we saw clothes, accessories, food, and a whole lot more...after an hour, paul was feeling worse again, so he went back to the hostel to sleep some more...correne, ivan and i went to a restaurant to eat one of the most traditional vietnamese meals, a bowl of pho...(you could describe it as chicken noodle soup, but way better than campbell's)...yummy stuff, i wish i had been able to eat more...after eating, it was off to the reunification palace...it was at this palace that the republic of vietnam (south vietnam) surrendered to the people's republic of vietnam (north vietnam) at the end of the war...they still use the palace for higher ranking meetings that don't have to be in the capital city of hanoi...we also saw the bunkers underground that had been built to sustain extended bombing, back during the war...i wouldn't not have wanted to spend time down there, it felt like the air wasn't circulating at all...parked in one of the bunkers was one of the cars used by the old south vietnamese president...a mercedes, of course...
after the palace it was back to the hostel, and out for one more dinner...then the usual ritual of packing, getting ready to travel, etc...when we got to the airport we saw notices saying that we wouldn't be allowed to have any liquids in our carryon luggage, much like what the restrictions are in the states in the moment...we conveniently ignored those, and nothing came of it...i have no idea if they are really trying to enforce that policy, or if it was only there for show...who knows...we also ran into the area where you get to pay the airport "service fee"...while it's called a service fee, it's basically an exit fee...$14 per person...it would've been nice had someone mentioned that to us earlier...i'm sure the vietnamese government is raking in the money from that fee...they take US dollars, vietnamese dong, and credit cards...i wonder what happens if you don't have any money or credit cards with you...
a simple flight back, a bus from the airport back to seoul, and resting all day sunday...
fun facts for those of you who have read this far: 1. the vietnamese currency is called dong...$1 is approximately 16,000 dong...it makes you feel rich to have so many zeroes on all the money you are carrying...until you remember that they aren't worth much at all...
2. traffic in saigon is absolutely insane...there are motorbikes everywhere...and traffic never really seems to stop...i can't remember all the streets we crossed weaving in and out of cars/motorbikes/bikes...it made seoul traffic look like a walk in the park...
3. saigon is the largest city in the country, with 10 million people...by contrast, the capital city of hanoi has only 4 million or so...
4. it's easy to tell that there aren't a lot of native english speakers teaching english in vietnam...the guides we had for both our tours spoke very differently from anything i've heard before...it wasn't that it didn't make sense...more like their cadence of speaking was different, and the way they accented the words made it difficult to understand...my traveling partners and i found that if we weren't concentrating on what was being said, then we didn't understand...
5. normally i'm not one for doing tours through a company while traveling...howeva, this time we did two of them simply because what we wanted to see would've been difficult to get to without the prearranged tours...we only had four days total, and we didn't want to spend too much time getting to out of the way places...
anymore i could say? probably, but it's not coming to me at the moment...
