I have to say, when I left for this program I was excited to see the world and indifferent about the formal education I would receive. The first few weeks were rocky. Between getting yet another rocky assigned roommate, to struggling to find people I could more than tolerate. Of course I managed to find when to bite my lip with my roommate, meet some good friends and talked with interesting people. The class environment reminded me of my high school and my memories of how to work a teacher who actually knows your name came flooding back to me. Meanwhile, our small ship (okay, not that small) was cut off from American society with very little internet access and almost no phones. While, I found my niche on the ship, I still wasn’t completely sure about the trip on a whole. The rules and regulations were obviously far more limiting than back packing with Sarah two summers ago. Today I find myself with a complete change of heart. I’m not exactly sure how yet, but I have come across I different way of thought. Without fully understanding it myself just yet, I’m having a hard time putting it into words. Perhaps by the time I get home, it will be more clear. Either way, the world has gotten to me.

We started our way around the world and in the beginning it was rather surreal. Brazil, Namibia, and South Africa flew by in a flurry of extreme sports, beaches, partying and befriending locals. Then we got to India and, because of the large population size, the problems plaguing the world could not be ignored. Malaysia gave us a temporary break from heart-ripping issues, but made us think about racial relations both worldwide and back at home. Then we got to Vietnam. I spoke to some of you before I left about my unexplainable excitement to see Vietnam. Perhaps my interest in the Vietnam War sparked this and part of me definitely wanted to see how the Vietnamese people would react to a boatload of spoiled American college students. Academically speaking, I understood how the culture was able to bounce back from a war that stole 3 million of their people. At the same time, I didn’t understand how a people could recover for the death, destruction, and the after effects of such a violent war. In America, I feel we are still very much recovering from the same war that killed just about 60,000 soldiers and wasn’t fought on our soil.  I was eager to see the country outside the pictures of the war.

The first day in Ho Chi Minh City I went on a tour of temples and churches in the city. The country of Vietnam is largely Buddhist, but also has populations of Catholics and Muslims. We visited the Notre Dame Cathedral, which represented a pretty classic Cathedral. Cross-shaped in structure, tall dome ceilings, and a beautifully decorated entrance and podium area. This Cathedral was not the largest I have ever been to, which directly reflected that Catholics are only about 10% of the population. A classic Catholic wedding was setting up with a bride in a stunning white dress taking photos right outside. Another stop we made was to the Xa Loi and Vinh Nghiem Pagodas. Each of these Pagodas included a giant, gold-painted Buddha in the center and areas to worship. Both Pagodas were decorated with bright and vibrant colors and smelled of incenses. The Mariamman Hindu Temple could have been pulled right out of India. I wasn’t able to go inside the Saigon Central Mosque because I didn’t bring anything to cover my head, but the outside was basic and subtle. Finally, the Le Van Duyet Temple was a beautiful Buddhist Temple that consisted of three areas. All the rooms were well aired and had incense burning. Each were colored with a spectrum of reds and yellows. A small coy pond had one fish that was so friendly I literally was able to pet his head. We got back in the evening to shower and get dinner.

We went out and got a Vietnamese dinner. I really wanted pho, but we happened across a place that didn’t have it first. It was an okay meal, not the best I’ve had, but not the worse. After dinner we went to this area that’s known as the backpackers area of Ho Chi Minh. We started at a club called Allez Boo, they were having happy hour till 10pm and we got there at about 9:15pm. The happy hour special was buy two cocktails and get one free. They had to be finished by the end of happy hour to get the deal, so naturally we each got three cocktails at once and chugged them while we played “never have I ever.” The game can be a lot funnier with people you know but don’t know super well. We decided to go find a dance club, but got sidetracked when these American guys asked to sit with them at this outdoor bar we passed. They turned out to be kind of boring so after a few drinks we left them. While with them we did meet a guy who regularly dresses as a drag queen and lives in back of the clothing store next door to the bar. His name was Quan an he was pretty cool. At this point we hadn’t seen any other SAS kids, which is always kind of nice. One of the girls I was with really wanted to go to the club that we knew all the SAS kids would be at called Apocalypse Now (weird irony, I know). So we get there and me and my friend Becca are totally not feeling it and decide to hang out outside until the other two girls are ready to go. The funny thing about hanging outside is you get to see everyone who goes in and say your hellos, but even funnier is seeing who is leaving… with who… About an hour later, we head back to the ship.

The second day Goldie and I have a class-required trip to a rural school for disabled children. We thought we had to be at the bus at 7:30am but it turned out that it left at 7:30am… so we missed it… Luckily there was another trip that met the same requirement that left at 8am! This was a school for the disabled in Ho Chi Minh City. We went around to a few of the classrooms and the children sang for us. After we saw all the performances the kids were released from classes to play with us. This school was for sure a reality check on the affects the Vietnam War, which they call the American War, had and still has on this country. Their environment being soaked with or their parents reproductive systems being messed with by Agent Orange directly caused almost all of the children’s disabilities. We are now almost 35 years past the end of the war, yet it is still greatly affect the individual lives of the Vietnamese. Meanwhile, a good majority of the people on my ship didn’t even have the slightest idea what the reasoning behind America entering Vietnam. We seem to have been able to forget a lot easier… While the children were great, it was hard to know that our country is the reason many of them struggle. When we got back to the ship we were physically and emotionally drained and decided to nap. After a short nap, we went out to the local market for shopping and lunch. I had amazing pho at the market that cost about $1 American. Got a few pairs of sunglasses, a few DVDs and some gifts. It was Halloween so our next goal was to find costumes. We spent the rest of our day searching the city for costumes. Finally, we were able to find a Halloween store and get some cheap costumes. I was a pirate. We grabbed dinner and headed back to the ship to drop things off and get ready for our night.

Who knew Halloween in Vietnam would be so big? I sure didn’t. Once we were all dressed up we went out to meet up with Quan, the drag queen from the night before, who said s/he would take us out. We met up with him at the clothing store and pre-gamed the night. He was super glamorous and we realized quickly it was a good thing we decided to go out with him. He and his friends took us to a drag queen rave like thing at this club called Hollywood. Long story short, it was pretty crazy. At some point we lost them and decided to go somewhere else. We ended up at this dance club called Go2 that had a lot of backpackers at it. My friend was Jamie Lynn Spears and we had put a balloon under a wife beater to make her pregnant. All the Vietnamese people thought that was possible the most amazing/funny thing they had ever seen and kept touching it. Finally, one of the girls we were with was really too drunk to stay out so we all decided to leave. We couldn’t all fit in one cab so me and Goldie decided to try one of those motorcycle taxis. The ship told us they didn’t recommend them because they can be dangerous, but it looked like so much fun! The driver was this really old (60+) Vietnamese man and he said he could fit both of us for $1 American all the way back to the ship. I got on behind him and Goldie on the back. I let Goldie have the extra helmet since she was on the back. Anyway, this ride was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done. Our driver was a little creepy and kept touching my leg and like giggling, but he was so old he was harmless and we were drunk enough to think it was funny. We decided then that we would only travel by motorcycle taxis from then on. Got back to the ship just fine and went to bed after some drunken socialization around the boat.

Day three was yet another early morning to go to the Cu Chi Tunnels and a Cao Dai Temple. We started at the Cao Dai Temple to witness the morning service. Caodaiism is a Vietnamese religion that combines ideas from multiple other religions. The temple was very large and open. The service involved everyone wearing similar robes and sitting cross-legged chanting. Definitely was nothing I had seen before on such a large scale. The actual temple was full of color and light and truly beautiful. We headed out to get to the tunnels, so we’d have plenty of time there. On our way to the tunnels we stopped at the American War Cemetery, which was hard to walk through, but was important to see. Then it was off to the tunnels. As some of you may know Cu Chi is an area of Vietnam that took a particularly brutal beating during the War. In the same area, there is part of Vietnam’s complicated underground tunneling system created in the 1940’s to hide from French attacks. The tunnels consist of about 70km and have everything including strategy rooms, traps, secret get-aways, and air vents. These tunnels were used by the Viet Kong and were particularly critical for the Tet Offensive. American forces continually tried to figure out and destroy these tunnels, but mostly failed. In fact, the American army had a base camp directly above part of the tunnels and was baffled when the Viet Kong was able to enter the base multiple times. These tunnels were the cause of a large percentage of American casualties. Today, the tunnels are protected by the Vietnamese government and used as a tourist spot. We were given the chance to crawl through a part of them. We thought it would be fun experience, so we did it. An experience it was, fun it was not. The tunnels are cramped, pitch-dark, and generally creepy. While the tunnels were definitely one of those moments where someone who did not live to see the war, like myself, had an intense connection to brutality of it, it wasn’t the tunnels that really got to me. Before actually going through the tunnels we were walking all around the area of Cu Chi. We were able to spend a long time there just walking and taking it in. At a certain point I was just looking down on the ground and it hit me exactly how many people must have died exactly where I was stepping. I couldn’t help but be flooded with thoughts of the fear, anger, and pain that had been felt in the exact spot I was standing. It wasn’t until after leaving that I realized I didn’t connect any of those emotions to a particular side, but rather the experience on both sides. Here I was standing in a wooded area, in the middle of Vietnam, 33 years after the war ended and the emotion of the area was still so heavy that it couldn’t go un-noticed. We got on the bus for the two-hour trip back to the ship for dinner and to get ready for the night. That night we met up with Goldie’s friend who had been a foreign student at UCSC last year from Australia. She just happened to be in Ho Chi Minh City at the same time. So we went to their hotel and pre-gamed a bit before we went out. We went out to the clubs for a while, but they were all kind of dead… At 2 we called it a night, got some motorcycle-taxis and headed back to the ship.

The next day, Goldie, Becca, Dan and I did a little more shopping (got a few more DVDs and gifts). Then we stopped in a internet café for about an hour since we don’t get any internet on the ship other than our email. When we decided to get lunch, Dan told us about this all-you-can-eat conveyor belt sushi restaurant. So we got sushi and ate until our bellies were so full it hurt. For those of you in Seattle, imagine Blue-C, but all-you-can-eat. After our amazing lunch, we went to the War Memorial Museum. It’s pretty much just one open room with pictures and texts on all the walls, but it still leaves a very strong impression. After taking a minute to digest everything outside, we walked over to the Norte Dame Cathedral. I had already seen it, but the others hadn’t and it’s definitely worth seeing. Across the street from that is the Ho Chi Minh City Post Office. It sort of looks like a giant train station, but somehow they do mail there. We got stamps and postcards and went outside to figure out what to do next. We looked up and saw this terrible, giant, grey cloud and before we knew it, it was pouring. I’m not talking Seattle rain here - this was serious downpour. Dan and I decided to head back to the ship, while Becca and Goldie tried to go out shopping. That night I was pretty tired from everything and stayed in to watch PS I Love You with Goldie and Sara.

Our final day in Vietnam we did some wondering around a neighborhood that we hadn’t been before. We had asked a taxi driver to take us to Chinatown, but he didn’t speak English and ended up dropping us off in this really non-tourist area. We walked around for a while. I met this very cute Chocolate lab puppy that had mange, but still managed to be super cute. We decided to get lunch, but couldn’t find anywhere that had anything that we wanted. Finally we found this cute place and went in. One of the waiters spoke English and helped us order all this great food. We had these little circles of egg with a shrimp in the middle that you put with lettuce and some sauces. At first sight it didn’t look very good, but turned out to be delicious! Then we had some fried rice and dumplings. Our waiter stood over us the whole time we ate, which was kind of uncomfortable, but happened our whole time in Vietnam. He then went on to tell us that his brother works with George Bush and showed us a picture hanging up in the restaurant of them together. It was pretty funny. We got him to put us in a cab and tell the driver, in Vietnamese, to take us to Chinatown. Chinatown was very busy. We went to a market and it was soo crowded and had fake everything. There were fake bags, fake sunglasses, fake jeans, it was crazy. We left the market and walked around Chinatown for a bit before we decided to head back into the direction of the ship. It took us a long time to find motorcycle taxis, and when we did they could speak a word of English. We manage to show them where we needed to go, got on and had a really fun, long ride. We got a small dinner before heading back to the ship.

Overall, Vietnam was emotional, beautiful, eye opening, and fun. Vietnam alone made this entire trip worthwhile for me. Vietnam is definitely a place I want to go to again and may require a backpacking trip including Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand. 

I'm sorry this was so late! I will write and send my China and Japan updates this week! Love you all!
Falyn