GOOD MORNING VIETNAM
Yao people. OK, tomorrow we get to Hong Kong, so I am desperately going to try and get everything down from my trip in Vietnam before we get to port tomorrow and I fall behind on this thing. The ports are coming at lightning speed now. At the beginning of the trip, we averaged 6 days between ports, now we are averaging two! Being in port is obviously better than being at sea, but shit, I feel like I get back on the ship, shower, just start to think about the amazing trip I just went on and BAM we are in another port. Another suggestion for SAS: space out the trips better! Whatever. Ok, here we go…
Like the couple of ports before this one, Day 1 was spent mostly on the boat. To get to our port in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon, and I’m gonna call it that from here on out because it is shorter to type), we had to maneuver up a really narrow river; at points we were as close as 20 meters from each riverbank. This had to be done in daylight, so we didn’t actually dock the boat until noon. It was cool though; they set up an outside brunch for us and we got to sit out on the deck and eat while going up this really scenic river. Once we were docked it seemed to take forever for them to clear the ship and for the big SAS trips to get of the boat, but we finally made it off at around 3 PM. Because I had no SAS trips planned for Vietnam until our last day in port, I planned to do some indy travel with my friends Ian, Ally, and Jamie. I was really pumped; we were going to get a flight up to Hanoi in the north and spend 4 days seeing Hanoi and Ha Long Bay. We really had no concrete plans, though, and were pretty much going to wing it the whole time for transportation, hotel, and tours. As we headed out, I was just thinking “fuck yeah, we are gonna DO this.” The minute we got off of the boat, we jumped in a cab and headed to the airport to buy our tickets. During the cab ride, we got our first view of Saigon. It is a much bigger city than I expected, and driving through the streets, you would have no idea that there was a war there just 40 years ago. We got to the airport, bought some round trip tickets, and got on a 5 PM flight to Hanoi.
The flight was pretty uneventful, and we landed in Hanoi at around 7 PM. Our next goal was to get into Hanoi and find a good hotel to stay in for the next two nights. With the help of our trusty guidebook, we checked out 3 hotels before finding a good cheap one that didn’t have cockroaches crawling around and was located pretty close to the center of the city. For a two person room, it was 15 bucks a night, which was amazing. The beds were clean, there was TV, and there were hot water showers, which was enough for us. After dropping off all of our shit at the hotel, we walked around a bit to find a place for dinner. We went to a Vietnamese café about 2 blocks from our hotel. I had Hot Pot, where they give you a big bowl of boiling broth and some meat and noodles on the side and you cook everything in the broth. It was soooo good; reminded me kind of ramen noodles except way better. Anyway, chilled out, had a couple beers, and called it a night kind of early because we wanted a good full day to explore Hanoi.
Got up at 7 AM on Day 2 and we were out by 7:30. As I got out of the shower, I realized I had done something extremely idiotic. I had left my contacts on the ship. YOU IDIOT EVAN. Ah well, the rest of my trip was destined to be a little blurry, but nothing I couldn’t deal with. We went to a little café for breakfast right on this lake that was a block away from our hotel. It was a great way to get the day started, looking out onto the water and having some croissants and coffee. After breakfast, we found a cab and went over to Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum. For those of you who don’t know, Ho Chi Minh was the leader of communist North Vietnam during the Vietnam War and was responsible for defeating the US and uniting the country under communist rule. We got to the mausoleum and walked around, but unfortunately we couldn’t go inside and see the embalmed body of Uncle Ho. From what we heard, it was supposed to be a lot like Disneyland, with laser lights behind his upright body. Apparently, during October and November, Ho Chi Minh’s body is sent to Russia for “body maintenance” of an undisclosed nature. Sounds pretty cool. Anyway, the mausoleum and the grounds themselves were pretty sweet, so we walked around for a while and took some pictures. Our next stop was the wreckage of a US B-52 shot down over Hanoi during the war. After some creative gesturing to explain to our bad driver where we wanted to go, we found the downed B-52. We were in the middle of a completely residential area, went down a bunch of random side streets, and all of a sudden there is this pond with mangled wreckage of the bomber plane. It was a very cool memorial, giving some life to what I had previously only read about in history books.
After the memorial, we decided to walk around the residential area we were in, and got pretty lost. Eventually, we found some moped taxis and took them back to the lake near our hotel. MOPEDS ARE AWESOME. This was the first of many rides that I would take on the mopeds, and I fricken loved every minute of it. So refreshing. At this point, Ian and I split off from Ally and Jaime for several hours. They were going to get some dresses made, and Ian and I were going to set up a 2 day tour to Ha Long Bay. We spent a couple hours cruising around and going to about 5 different tour operators before settling on one that we thought was good and not overly touristy. Doing this, we got to see a lot of the city, which was pretty sweet. After setting up the tour, we got some lunch at a different restaurant also on the central lake near our hotel. We had some time to kill before meeting up with the girls, so we hit up an internet café. For the first time since I have been on SAS, I got to use AIM. Oh man, it was amazing. And for an hour online, it was a dollar. For the next hour, we just decided to hit up some nearby shops. While we were walking around, we stumbled on a tailor that looked pretty legit. I had heard that Vietnam was a great place to get custom suits made, so I picked up some fabric and got fitted. For a sweet blue pinstripe suit, it was only 100 bucks.
At this point, we went back to our hotel to meet Ally and Jaime. Our next stop was the Hanoi Hilton, the prison where US POWs were held, John McCain being the most notable. Like the B-52, this was a good piece of history. A lot of the prison had actually been demolished to make room for nearby apartment buildings, but some of the cells were still intact. The prison had actually been used by the French colonial government to hold Vietnamese rebels before the French were kicked out in 1954. Some of the pictures were pretty grisly; there was one where the French had hung up the heads of three rebels as a warning to the rest of the inmates. There were mannequins in some of the cells, which definitely gave the prison a more realistic feel. At the end of the visit, there was also a room that detailed the treatment of American POWs. The captions on the images made the Vietnamese seem very generous and hospitable to the inmates, but I’m not quite sure that’s exactly how it went down.
We mopedded it back to the hotel, cleaned up a bit, and headed out to dinner. On our way, Ian and I stopped back by the tailors and tried on the jackets that were being worked on. They were far from done, but I could already tell that this was gonna be a really nice suit. At this point, we went on an absolute wild fucking goose chase to find a place for dinner. We started in a restaurant a few blocks from our hotel, but after sitting down and checking out the menu, we decided that we could do better so we headed back out. We then took a cab to a place that Ian’s sister had recommended to him (she had lived in Hanoi for 6 months), but something went wrong and we couldn’t find that restaurant. We then walked around that area for another 15 minutes, found nothing, and got back in a cab to go to a place in the guidebook. We got there, and the place was full; they wouldn’t be able to give us a table for about an hour. Really frustrated at this point, we got in a cab to just go back to the hotel and go to a place right next door. On the way, though, our cab driver pointed out a restaurant called the Cyclo Bar (after offering us weed, might I add—this was probably about the 20th time that day that I had been so offered), so we finally stopped there and ate. We were tired and starving, so the food tasted pretty damn good. By the time we finished, it was about midnight, so we just went back to the hotel because we knew we had to be up early the next morning for Ha Long Bay.
Got up again at 7 AM on Day 3 and was on the shuttle bus to Ha Long Bay by 7:30. After picking up the other people that had booked with the same tour guide as us, we headed out of Hanoi and started the 3 hour trip to Ha Long Bay. I napped for the first half of the journey, at which point we had a pit stop. At this stop I bought, of all things, an opium pipe made out of buffalo bone. I figured that it would come in handy for my marathon opium sessions back at school. Got back in the van and finished up the drive to Ha Long Bay. This second leg was really scenic, with mountains covered in tropical vegetation making a really cool backdrop for the rice fields where people where planting and harvesting rice.
We got to Ha Long Bay around noon, where we got on our junk boat where we would be spending the next two days. After lunch in the harbor, we headed out and started cruising around the bay. Ha Long Bay is a gorgeous place. The bay is surrounded by hundreds of rock islands—I think our guide told us 1,969 individual rock formations in all. The name Ha Long means Mother Dragon in Vietnamese; our tour guide told us the local legend that the islands arose where the mother dragon spat fire into the ocean to help repel Chinese invaders. You’ve probably seen Ha Long Bay in pictures or movies. The one that comes to mind right now is James Bond: Tomorrow Never Dies. You know where that stealth ship cruises around all those rock islands towards the end of the movie? Yeah, that’s Ha Long Bay. Trust me when I tell you it is cooler in real life than in a James Bond movie. Again, I wish I could post PICTURES…what I wouldn’t give for high speed internet right now. Our first stop in the bay was at a spot called the Amazing Caves. They were pretty amazing. No, but seriously, they were really cool caves that had been hollowed out by water. We walked around and saw some cool rock formations, including one that looked like a giant penis. Being mature college students, we took several rather inappropriate pictures. After the Amazing Caves, we went to another nearby island that had a small beach and a small gazebo at the top of the island. First, we climbed up what must have been 200 stairs to get to the gazebo. It was tough, and it was HOT; by the top we were definitely all hurting. It was worth it though, we got some amazing views and pictures of Ha Long Bay. Afterwards, I went back down to the beach to swim for a bit and cool off. I was kind of disappointed though, because the water was pretty gross; there was lots of trash floating around and a distinct fishy smell pervaded the area. Oh well, I had to cool off, so I went in anyway. Fortunately, once we got back on the boat, we anchored in the middle of the harbor, where the water was much cleaner, and were allowed to go swimming off of the side of the boat. Ian and I and some of the other tourists had fun jumping off the top deck of the boat that was about 30 feet above the water. The second time I jumped, I made a huuuge ass of myself. Trying to be the witty kid I am, I stood on the edge and went “Ladies and gentlemen, I have a very important announcement to make. CANNON…” At this point, I slipped, lost my footing, and fell 30 feet to the water in the most awkward fashion humanly possible. When I resurfaced, I saw everyone on the boat doubled over with laughter. Well, I succeeded in making people laugh. Man, I wish I had a video of this; it was definitely one of my finer moments. After swimming, we dried off and had some simple but tasty dinner on the boat. We were done by 8 PM, so we just went up to the top deck and hung out under the stars, which were amazing. There must have been a meteor shower or something, because we saw at least 10 shooting stars in the couple hours we were out there. At close to midnight, I brought my sheets up and fell asleep on one of the beach chairs out on the deck.
Woke up on Day 4 to a beautiful sunrise over the islands of Ha Long Bay. Went inside for a simple breakfast of bread, cheese, and eggs. Our boat was experiencing some technical difficulties, so they sent another boat out from the harbor, we transferred our stuff, and began our morning cruise around a different part of the bay. On our way back into the harbor, we passed by a floating village and saw how some local people made a living by fishing. At about noon, we returned to the harbor and took our shuttle to Ha Long city for one final traditional Vietnamese lunch before heading back to Hanoi.
We got to Hanoi at around 5 PM, and Ian and I went over to the tailors to pick up our suits. As I expected, mine looked damn good; it definitely had the Italian Mafia feel with the white pinstripes. We had just enough time to hit up one of the lake cafes for some coffee and snacks before catching a cab back to the airport. Checked in, watched the Vietnamese version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire while waiting for our flight, and had another pretty uneventful flight back to Saigon. By the time we cabbed it back to the ship, it was midnight, and I needed a shower in the worst way; I hadn’t showered in the past 3 days. Passed out back on the boat around 2.
I would have loved to sleep in on Day 5, but I had an SAS trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels and the War Museum that I didn’t want to miss. The first stop was the Cu Chi Tunnels, which were 2 hours away, so I got a well needed nap. The Cu Chi Tunnels were the tunnel system used by the Viet Cong to evade American and South Vietnamese soldiers during the Vietnam War. Overall, there were more than 250 kilometers of tunnels that crisscrossed throughout the whole Cu Chi region. These tunnels were NUTS. It was literally a complete underground village connected by very small, very narrow, very dark tunnels. We got to see different rooms in the tunnels, including the room where Viet Cong generals planned the famous Tet Offensive. Climbing through the tunnels was quite the experience. The tunnels could have been no more than 4 feet tall at any point, and were just wide enough for us to go through single file. They were almost pitch black, save for some floor lighting every 10 yards to ensure that us tourists didn’t get completely lost. On top of that, some tunnels had bats in them, which definitely freaked me out. At one point, we climbed through a tunnel that was 120 meters long. Let me tell you, when you are hunched over and can’t see shit and it is about 100 degrees, 120 meters is a loooooong way. I was just about at the freak out point when our guide finally started to climb up some stairs and we could once again taste fresh air. I was absolutely drenched with sweat, and even outside of the tunnels it was at least 90 degrees, so I was hurting. We walked through the rest of the jungle paths and saw some of the nasty booby traps the Viet Cong used to injure the American soldiers. Finally, we went to a temple that was erected in memory of the Vietnamese soldiers that lost their lives fighting for independence. It was an interesting contrast to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington DC; the soldiers’ names were etched onto the walls of the temple is similar fashion to the names of the American soldiers on the brick slabs.
After the temple, we got back on the bus for the two hour trip back to Saigon; again, I napped. When I woke up, we were at a Vietnamese restaurant in Saigon, and lunch was really good; mainly rice with little pieces of different kinds of meat. After lunch, we headed to the War Remnants museum. This museum essentially chronicles the Vietnam War through photos and artifacts. This was a really amazing museum, though some of the pictures were really hard to look at. The pictures of the victims of Agent Orange were especially disturbing, but I was glad that I saw them and learned about what transpired over the course of American involvement in Vietnam. Following the War Museum, I split from the SAS trip with a couple friends and went to Ben Thanh Market, a huge tourist market in the middle of Saigon. I was warned that this was a pit of spending, and that was good advice; in the 30 minutes I was there I spent a good $40 on souvenirs and fake North Face backpacks.
Went back to the ship, cleaned up, and met up with people for dinner. I was really excited; we planned to go to this restaurant to eat snake meat. I had read about eating snake in a guide book. There is apparently this big production where you can pick your own snake out of a case, the waiter kills the snake in front of you, drains the blood into a container of rice whisky that you drink, and the guest of honor eats the still beating heart of the snake. Afterwards, the snake is cooked up and served in a several course meal. We took mopeds to this restaurant that was about 20 minutes away; however, it took my friend Julie and I about 40 minutes to get there because our drivers got lost and went about 5 miles the wrong way before stopping to ask for directions. We got the restaurant, ordered snake, and we were all super pumped and then the waitress comes back and tells us they have no snakes today. HUGE BUMMER! Whatever, we needed to eat something, so we decided to order other sufficiently weird stuff: fried eel, sautéed frog, and grilled field mouse. Along with many Tiger Beers, it was not a bad meal at all; frog was definitely my favorite. After getting sufficiently tipsy, we took our final moped ride back to the ship and hung out in a bar right off of the ship’s gangway for as long as possible before saying our final goodbye to Vietnam.
I did it! It is still the night before Hong Kong and China, and I am finally caught up on this blog. w00t. HUGE w00t. Vietnam was sooooo fricken sweet. I am really glad that I took the opportunity to do indy travel. Greg, you were right, indy travel is totally the way to go. Don’t get me wrong, I have had a really good time on my SAS trips, but there is something really satisfying about just fucking going off and doing it all yourself and being out in a foreign country with just a small group of friends. OK, shit, I am exhausted here, and this is a long blog entry as is, and I think I have said everything I have to say here. My brain can’t really come up with any deep commentary on Vietnam except that I had a great time here and despite the past, the Vietnamese people were very friendly to Americans and mopeds are awesome.
Good night, and stay tuned for China…
Like the couple of ports before this one, Day 1 was spent mostly on the boat. To get to our port in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon, and I’m gonna call it that from here on out because it is shorter to type), we had to maneuver up a really narrow river; at points we were as close as 20 meters from each riverbank. This had to be done in daylight, so we didn’t actually dock the boat until noon. It was cool though; they set up an outside brunch for us and we got to sit out on the deck and eat while going up this really scenic river. Once we were docked it seemed to take forever for them to clear the ship and for the big SAS trips to get of the boat, but we finally made it off at around 3 PM. Because I had no SAS trips planned for Vietnam until our last day in port, I planned to do some indy travel with my friends Ian, Ally, and Jamie. I was really pumped; we were going to get a flight up to Hanoi in the north and spend 4 days seeing Hanoi and Ha Long Bay. We really had no concrete plans, though, and were pretty much going to wing it the whole time for transportation, hotel, and tours. As we headed out, I was just thinking “fuck yeah, we are gonna DO this.” The minute we got off of the boat, we jumped in a cab and headed to the airport to buy our tickets. During the cab ride, we got our first view of Saigon. It is a much bigger city than I expected, and driving through the streets, you would have no idea that there was a war there just 40 years ago. We got to the airport, bought some round trip tickets, and got on a 5 PM flight to Hanoi.
The flight was pretty uneventful, and we landed in Hanoi at around 7 PM. Our next goal was to get into Hanoi and find a good hotel to stay in for the next two nights. With the help of our trusty guidebook, we checked out 3 hotels before finding a good cheap one that didn’t have cockroaches crawling around and was located pretty close to the center of the city. For a two person room, it was 15 bucks a night, which was amazing. The beds were clean, there was TV, and there were hot water showers, which was enough for us. After dropping off all of our shit at the hotel, we walked around a bit to find a place for dinner. We went to a Vietnamese café about 2 blocks from our hotel. I had Hot Pot, where they give you a big bowl of boiling broth and some meat and noodles on the side and you cook everything in the broth. It was soooo good; reminded me kind of ramen noodles except way better. Anyway, chilled out, had a couple beers, and called it a night kind of early because we wanted a good full day to explore Hanoi.
Got up at 7 AM on Day 2 and we were out by 7:30. As I got out of the shower, I realized I had done something extremely idiotic. I had left my contacts on the ship. YOU IDIOT EVAN. Ah well, the rest of my trip was destined to be a little blurry, but nothing I couldn’t deal with. We went to a little café for breakfast right on this lake that was a block away from our hotel. It was a great way to get the day started, looking out onto the water and having some croissants and coffee. After breakfast, we found a cab and went over to Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum. For those of you who don’t know, Ho Chi Minh was the leader of communist North Vietnam during the Vietnam War and was responsible for defeating the US and uniting the country under communist rule. We got to the mausoleum and walked around, but unfortunately we couldn’t go inside and see the embalmed body of Uncle Ho. From what we heard, it was supposed to be a lot like Disneyland, with laser lights behind his upright body. Apparently, during October and November, Ho Chi Minh’s body is sent to Russia for “body maintenance” of an undisclosed nature. Sounds pretty cool. Anyway, the mausoleum and the grounds themselves were pretty sweet, so we walked around for a while and took some pictures. Our next stop was the wreckage of a US B-52 shot down over Hanoi during the war. After some creative gesturing to explain to our bad driver where we wanted to go, we found the downed B-52. We were in the middle of a completely residential area, went down a bunch of random side streets, and all of a sudden there is this pond with mangled wreckage of the bomber plane. It was a very cool memorial, giving some life to what I had previously only read about in history books.
After the memorial, we decided to walk around the residential area we were in, and got pretty lost. Eventually, we found some moped taxis and took them back to the lake near our hotel. MOPEDS ARE AWESOME. This was the first of many rides that I would take on the mopeds, and I fricken loved every minute of it. So refreshing. At this point, Ian and I split off from Ally and Jaime for several hours. They were going to get some dresses made, and Ian and I were going to set up a 2 day tour to Ha Long Bay. We spent a couple hours cruising around and going to about 5 different tour operators before settling on one that we thought was good and not overly touristy. Doing this, we got to see a lot of the city, which was pretty sweet. After setting up the tour, we got some lunch at a different restaurant also on the central lake near our hotel. We had some time to kill before meeting up with the girls, so we hit up an internet café. For the first time since I have been on SAS, I got to use AIM. Oh man, it was amazing. And for an hour online, it was a dollar. For the next hour, we just decided to hit up some nearby shops. While we were walking around, we stumbled on a tailor that looked pretty legit. I had heard that Vietnam was a great place to get custom suits made, so I picked up some fabric and got fitted. For a sweet blue pinstripe suit, it was only 100 bucks.
At this point, we went back to our hotel to meet Ally and Jaime. Our next stop was the Hanoi Hilton, the prison where US POWs were held, John McCain being the most notable. Like the B-52, this was a good piece of history. A lot of the prison had actually been demolished to make room for nearby apartment buildings, but some of the cells were still intact. The prison had actually been used by the French colonial government to hold Vietnamese rebels before the French were kicked out in 1954. Some of the pictures were pretty grisly; there was one where the French had hung up the heads of three rebels as a warning to the rest of the inmates. There were mannequins in some of the cells, which definitely gave the prison a more realistic feel. At the end of the visit, there was also a room that detailed the treatment of American POWs. The captions on the images made the Vietnamese seem very generous and hospitable to the inmates, but I’m not quite sure that’s exactly how it went down.
We mopedded it back to the hotel, cleaned up a bit, and headed out to dinner. On our way, Ian and I stopped back by the tailors and tried on the jackets that were being worked on. They were far from done, but I could already tell that this was gonna be a really nice suit. At this point, we went on an absolute wild fucking goose chase to find a place for dinner. We started in a restaurant a few blocks from our hotel, but after sitting down and checking out the menu, we decided that we could do better so we headed back out. We then took a cab to a place that Ian’s sister had recommended to him (she had lived in Hanoi for 6 months), but something went wrong and we couldn’t find that restaurant. We then walked around that area for another 15 minutes, found nothing, and got back in a cab to go to a place in the guidebook. We got there, and the place was full; they wouldn’t be able to give us a table for about an hour. Really frustrated at this point, we got in a cab to just go back to the hotel and go to a place right next door. On the way, though, our cab driver pointed out a restaurant called the Cyclo Bar (after offering us weed, might I add—this was probably about the 20th time that day that I had been so offered), so we finally stopped there and ate. We were tired and starving, so the food tasted pretty damn good. By the time we finished, it was about midnight, so we just went back to the hotel because we knew we had to be up early the next morning for Ha Long Bay.
Got up again at 7 AM on Day 3 and was on the shuttle bus to Ha Long Bay by 7:30. After picking up the other people that had booked with the same tour guide as us, we headed out of Hanoi and started the 3 hour trip to Ha Long Bay. I napped for the first half of the journey, at which point we had a pit stop. At this stop I bought, of all things, an opium pipe made out of buffalo bone. I figured that it would come in handy for my marathon opium sessions back at school. Got back in the van and finished up the drive to Ha Long Bay. This second leg was really scenic, with mountains covered in tropical vegetation making a really cool backdrop for the rice fields where people where planting and harvesting rice.
We got to Ha Long Bay around noon, where we got on our junk boat where we would be spending the next two days. After lunch in the harbor, we headed out and started cruising around the bay. Ha Long Bay is a gorgeous place. The bay is surrounded by hundreds of rock islands—I think our guide told us 1,969 individual rock formations in all. The name Ha Long means Mother Dragon in Vietnamese; our tour guide told us the local legend that the islands arose where the mother dragon spat fire into the ocean to help repel Chinese invaders. You’ve probably seen Ha Long Bay in pictures or movies. The one that comes to mind right now is James Bond: Tomorrow Never Dies. You know where that stealth ship cruises around all those rock islands towards the end of the movie? Yeah, that’s Ha Long Bay. Trust me when I tell you it is cooler in real life than in a James Bond movie. Again, I wish I could post PICTURES…what I wouldn’t give for high speed internet right now. Our first stop in the bay was at a spot called the Amazing Caves. They were pretty amazing. No, but seriously, they were really cool caves that had been hollowed out by water. We walked around and saw some cool rock formations, including one that looked like a giant penis. Being mature college students, we took several rather inappropriate pictures. After the Amazing Caves, we went to another nearby island that had a small beach and a small gazebo at the top of the island. First, we climbed up what must have been 200 stairs to get to the gazebo. It was tough, and it was HOT; by the top we were definitely all hurting. It was worth it though, we got some amazing views and pictures of Ha Long Bay. Afterwards, I went back down to the beach to swim for a bit and cool off. I was kind of disappointed though, because the water was pretty gross; there was lots of trash floating around and a distinct fishy smell pervaded the area. Oh well, I had to cool off, so I went in anyway. Fortunately, once we got back on the boat, we anchored in the middle of the harbor, where the water was much cleaner, and were allowed to go swimming off of the side of the boat. Ian and I and some of the other tourists had fun jumping off the top deck of the boat that was about 30 feet above the water. The second time I jumped, I made a huuuge ass of myself. Trying to be the witty kid I am, I stood on the edge and went “Ladies and gentlemen, I have a very important announcement to make. CANNON…” At this point, I slipped, lost my footing, and fell 30 feet to the water in the most awkward fashion humanly possible. When I resurfaced, I saw everyone on the boat doubled over with laughter. Well, I succeeded in making people laugh. Man, I wish I had a video of this; it was definitely one of my finer moments. After swimming, we dried off and had some simple but tasty dinner on the boat. We were done by 8 PM, so we just went up to the top deck and hung out under the stars, which were amazing. There must have been a meteor shower or something, because we saw at least 10 shooting stars in the couple hours we were out there. At close to midnight, I brought my sheets up and fell asleep on one of the beach chairs out on the deck.
Woke up on Day 4 to a beautiful sunrise over the islands of Ha Long Bay. Went inside for a simple breakfast of bread, cheese, and eggs. Our boat was experiencing some technical difficulties, so they sent another boat out from the harbor, we transferred our stuff, and began our morning cruise around a different part of the bay. On our way back into the harbor, we passed by a floating village and saw how some local people made a living by fishing. At about noon, we returned to the harbor and took our shuttle to Ha Long city for one final traditional Vietnamese lunch before heading back to Hanoi.
We got to Hanoi at around 5 PM, and Ian and I went over to the tailors to pick up our suits. As I expected, mine looked damn good; it definitely had the Italian Mafia feel with the white pinstripes. We had just enough time to hit up one of the lake cafes for some coffee and snacks before catching a cab back to the airport. Checked in, watched the Vietnamese version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire while waiting for our flight, and had another pretty uneventful flight back to Saigon. By the time we cabbed it back to the ship, it was midnight, and I needed a shower in the worst way; I hadn’t showered in the past 3 days. Passed out back on the boat around 2.
I would have loved to sleep in on Day 5, but I had an SAS trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels and the War Museum that I didn’t want to miss. The first stop was the Cu Chi Tunnels, which were 2 hours away, so I got a well needed nap. The Cu Chi Tunnels were the tunnel system used by the Viet Cong to evade American and South Vietnamese soldiers during the Vietnam War. Overall, there were more than 250 kilometers of tunnels that crisscrossed throughout the whole Cu Chi region. These tunnels were NUTS. It was literally a complete underground village connected by very small, very narrow, very dark tunnels. We got to see different rooms in the tunnels, including the room where Viet Cong generals planned the famous Tet Offensive. Climbing through the tunnels was quite the experience. The tunnels could have been no more than 4 feet tall at any point, and were just wide enough for us to go through single file. They were almost pitch black, save for some floor lighting every 10 yards to ensure that us tourists didn’t get completely lost. On top of that, some tunnels had bats in them, which definitely freaked me out. At one point, we climbed through a tunnel that was 120 meters long. Let me tell you, when you are hunched over and can’t see shit and it is about 100 degrees, 120 meters is a loooooong way. I was just about at the freak out point when our guide finally started to climb up some stairs and we could once again taste fresh air. I was absolutely drenched with sweat, and even outside of the tunnels it was at least 90 degrees, so I was hurting. We walked through the rest of the jungle paths and saw some of the nasty booby traps the Viet Cong used to injure the American soldiers. Finally, we went to a temple that was erected in memory of the Vietnamese soldiers that lost their lives fighting for independence. It was an interesting contrast to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington DC; the soldiers’ names were etched onto the walls of the temple is similar fashion to the names of the American soldiers on the brick slabs.
After the temple, we got back on the bus for the two hour trip back to Saigon; again, I napped. When I woke up, we were at a Vietnamese restaurant in Saigon, and lunch was really good; mainly rice with little pieces of different kinds of meat. After lunch, we headed to the War Remnants museum. This museum essentially chronicles the Vietnam War through photos and artifacts. This was a really amazing museum, though some of the pictures were really hard to look at. The pictures of the victims of Agent Orange were especially disturbing, but I was glad that I saw them and learned about what transpired over the course of American involvement in Vietnam. Following the War Museum, I split from the SAS trip with a couple friends and went to Ben Thanh Market, a huge tourist market in the middle of Saigon. I was warned that this was a pit of spending, and that was good advice; in the 30 minutes I was there I spent a good $40 on souvenirs and fake North Face backpacks.
Went back to the ship, cleaned up, and met up with people for dinner. I was really excited; we planned to go to this restaurant to eat snake meat. I had read about eating snake in a guide book. There is apparently this big production where you can pick your own snake out of a case, the waiter kills the snake in front of you, drains the blood into a container of rice whisky that you drink, and the guest of honor eats the still beating heart of the snake. Afterwards, the snake is cooked up and served in a several course meal. We took mopeds to this restaurant that was about 20 minutes away; however, it took my friend Julie and I about 40 minutes to get there because our drivers got lost and went about 5 miles the wrong way before stopping to ask for directions. We got the restaurant, ordered snake, and we were all super pumped and then the waitress comes back and tells us they have no snakes today. HUGE BUMMER! Whatever, we needed to eat something, so we decided to order other sufficiently weird stuff: fried eel, sautéed frog, and grilled field mouse. Along with many Tiger Beers, it was not a bad meal at all; frog was definitely my favorite. After getting sufficiently tipsy, we took our final moped ride back to the ship and hung out in a bar right off of the ship’s gangway for as long as possible before saying our final goodbye to Vietnam.
I did it! It is still the night before Hong Kong and China, and I am finally caught up on this blog. w00t. HUGE w00t. Vietnam was sooooo fricken sweet. I am really glad that I took the opportunity to do indy travel. Greg, you were right, indy travel is totally the way to go. Don’t get me wrong, I have had a really good time on my SAS trips, but there is something really satisfying about just fucking going off and doing it all yourself and being out in a foreign country with just a small group of friends. OK, shit, I am exhausted here, and this is a long blog entry as is, and I think I have said everything I have to say here. My brain can’t really come up with any deep commentary on Vietnam except that I had a great time here and despite the past, the Vietnamese people were very friendly to Americans and mopeds are awesome.
Good night, and stay tuned for China…
posted by ehindman at 8:10 AM
2 Comments:
I am so jealous of all your travels... as there is too much to comment on, I will just say this: I nearly died laughing reading your "cannonball" story... Fantastic!!!!
i want to suck on your let nut
- matt
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