I Drank the Water...

And I still feel fine...

On the last day in Viet Nam I needed to pick up the dress that I had asked the tailor to make on the second day.  Lauren, Caitlynn, Sam and I planned to meet on the shuttle and walk to the tailor’s from there.  We lost Sam before getting to the shuttle, but couldn’t wait since Lauren had an FDP she had to make it to.

            When we got to the tailor shop everyone’s dresses were finished except mine, which they said to come back in the evening to get (2pm).  Caitlynn and I walked Lauren back to the shuttle and waited for her to get a ride before walking around.  First we went into a building that sort of resembled a mall to buy a few things.  I bought a Vietnamese singer’s CD.  I tried to get one earlier in the week, but I didn’t like it so I thought I would try again.  Then we spent the rest of the time just walking around.  We stopped in the frozen yogurt shop for bubble tea and lunch.  Liz K and another SAS student came into the shop too.  They were on an FDP and had an hour to walk around the market.

            It was barely 1pm when Caitlynn and I left the yogurt shop, so we went back to the park to walk around.  We spent the rest of the time sitting on a bench and people watching.  A girl named Thu (pronounced ‘too’) came up to talk to us.  She had been learning English and was doing a really good job with it.  She decided she wanted to teach Caitlynn and myself some Vietnamese phrases.  I still don’t know how to spell everything, but this is what they sound like…

 

Thank you- gam ung

Hello- sin chow

Nice to meet you- rah vu dong gup ban

Sorry- sin loi

Question- ya doi howi

Where are you going?- bang mo di dou

I am going to the supermarket- doi di da siu tai

Heart- Jai dim

Hot- naom

Can I help you?- bang toi kai toi yiptoi

The bird is singing- gong jim diang ha

I want to ride a motorbike- dong mo sai say

 

            After talking with Thu for a while we headed to the tailor’s shop to pick up my dress and then went back to the ship.  I had plans to meet Liz K and Matt and go find an internet café.  Unfortunately, the sushi restaurant was closed so we had to go somewhere else.  There was another café around the corner where we decided to go.  On ship time was pretty soon after that so we went straight back to the ship.

            There was a BBQ that night so we got to eat burgers and hot dogs for lunch!  After the BBQ I met some people to watch Captain America before bed.

Ha Long Bay Part 2

            Breakfast was from 7-8 the next morning, followed by a trek on one of the islands in the bay.  We took the small boat to one of the islands (the Australian man just jumped off the roof of the boat and swam to the island instead).  There was a beach with a dog running around.  It was beautiful!  I walked around taking pictures for a little while before starting up the trail.  The trail began with a steep staircase, but then turned into a dirt trail.  It was a fairly easy and short hike.  I was the second to the top because I stopped to take a lot of pictures.  It took me about ten minutes to reach the top.

            We had an hour to spend on the island, so I walked back down and sat on the staircase railing so I could just stare into the distance for a little while.  It was a little foggy, so I could not see too far, but the islands were gorgeous anyway.

            When we got back to the boat we checked out of our room and went to the dining room.  We saw the Fighting Chickens (a formation where two of the islands look like chickens that are fighting.  Not really a complicated explanation) and then went to our cooking class where Jeremy, our guide, taught us how to make spring rolls.  They tasted amazing!

            Our trip was scheduled to return to Hanoi by 5pm, so we ate lunch and returned to the small boat that would take us back to the shore where the bus was waiting for us.  I spent the ride back reading the 100pg play that I had to finish for one of my classes.  We stopped at a shop once more.  There were a bunch of SAS students there on a Global Citizens trip.  We were some of the only ones who had gotten there independently, though I thought it had been pretty simple to get there.

            The bus dropped us off at a hotel called the Rising Dragon.  We had arranged for a taxi to pick us up at 7pm, so we had some time to find a place to eat dinner before our flight back to Ho Chi Min City.  A woman who worked at the hotel told us that pick pocketing was common in Hanoi and let us leave a bag at the hotel so we could walk around freely.  We walked up and down the streets for a while before finding a restaurant that had a balcony overlooking the street.  It was a really good location for a restaurant, although we had to walk down an alley (well lit!) to get there. 

We ate and then headed back to the hotel.  Our taxi driver arrived on time and took us straight to the airport.  The airport was crawling with SAS students.  Not literally, they were all walking normally as far as I saw.  Sam was at the airport not long after we had arrived.  She had stayed in a hostel in Hanoi and spent some time talking with people and walking around the city.

The plane landed at midnight and we reached the ship at 1am.

Ever since watching an episode of Top Gear where they went to Viet Nam I had been wanting to go to Ha Long Bay.  I was very glad to get to visit and hopefully I can go back some day and explore it some more when I have more time.

Ha Long Bay Day 1

            Caitlynn, Lauren, Sam and I had a 6:20AM flight to Hanoi, so we got up early and left the ship around 4.  There had been some issues with taxis around the port.  A lot of them had been locking people in their cars and refusing to let them out until they gave them all the money they had.  Since we wanted to avoid that, we walked down the street towards where I had seen a bunch of taxis waiting the day before.  A taxi pulled up and we got in.  We didn’t really have a good way to tell whether this would be a good taxi or not, but everything was fine and we got to the airport with no problems.

            The plane to Hanoi took about 2 hours.  I had been planning to work on schoolwork the whole way, but ended up just talking to Sam.  It turns out we love a lot of the same books and movies.  Now I have about ten more books I need to read.

            Sam was planning to stay in Hanoi, while Lauren, Caitlynn and I wanted to get to Ha Long Bay.  So Sam took off to explore the city and the rest of us headed to the tourism desk.  A tour had left not long before we arrived and we hurried to join them.  A driver took us to somewhere in the middle of the highway and parked.  It was kind of weird and he didn’t speak English, but eventually we figured out that we had gotten ahead of the tour bus and were waiting for it.  The tour bus caught up and stopped beside the highway to let us jump on.  That was a new experience.

            The rest of the group had made it in time and were already in the bus.  There was one guy from New Zealand, three guys about my age from England, an older couple from California, a girl from Spain, two guys from Greece, and an Australian with his Czech wife and her parents.  It felt a little like a huge dysfunctional family by the end of the tour.

            The bus stopped at a store for about 30 minutes for shopping.  I thought about buying a huge marble statue of an elephant and sending it back to my parents, but I wasn’t sure they would appreciate it.  I fell asleep for the rest of the ride and woke up when we arrived at a port in Ha Long Bay.

            We took a small motorboat to get to the junk (type of boat) where we would be spending the night.  Lauren, Caitlynn and I had gotten two rooms, since there were no three person rooms available.  We dropped our things in the rooms.  The rooms were slightly bigger than my cabin on the MV Explorer, but not by much.  We walked around the ship for a while taking pictures of different things before we were called up to the dining room for lunch.

            Lunch was awesome!  We had calamari, crawfish, and some other ‘traditional Vietnamese cuisine’ type dishes.  Everything was really good.  Once lunch was finished we all piled back onto the small motorboat and headed to the SURPRISE CAVE (as it said on the schedule).  It was a very big cave that had been decorated with different colored lights on the rocks.  It was pretty cool, but very crowded.

            We spent some time on the junk as it moved to the next spot on the bay and invented a game called Pong Cheskers (patent pending) while we waited.  When the boat stopped we were told we would now spend some time kayaking.  It was amazing!!!  We all were in two person kayaks, but I got one to myself since there was an uneven number.  I wanted one to myself anyway, so it was good.  I was really happy to get to kayak.  It is probably going to be the closest thing to the Top Gear episode I am going to get to for a while yet.  I paddled around some islands, through the floating village and into a few caves before it got too dark and we had to get back to the ship.  Lauren and Caitlynn were in a kayak together and had a count of 12 things that they had either hit or had hit them during the trip.  I may have hit them or been hit by them at least 5 times.

            After paddling around the islands for a while we had a ROMANTIC DINNER (as it said on the schedule).  It wasn’t too romantic with Lauren, Caitlynn, Me, and the older couple from California sitting at a table together, but it was fun.

            Then I went to bed.  The end (of that day).

Tailor Visits in Viet Nam

            Liz K and I wanted to find a tailor to make us dresses.  We were told it was fairly cheap to have a well-made dress sewn in just a few days.  We met up with Caitlynn, Lauren, Rachel, and Sam to go into town and find a tailor.  We hopped on the shuttle bus…  and eventually realized it wasn’t leaving for another half hour.  We decided to wait for it.

            When we got to town we walked toward the Ben Thanh market.  On the way we stopped at an ATM, where one of the machines charged Rachel’s card, but didn’t give her any money.  It should not have been too complicated, but the people behind the desk of the bank refused to give her any money.  We stayed for about a half an hour, but she told us to leave and get our dresses done.  I felt terrible about leaving, but she didn’t want to take away from anyone’s time shopping.  Sam stayed with her so she wasn’t alone.

            We found a fabric store across the street from Ben Thanh market.  The lady who worked there only spoke a little English, and somehow I had missed the lecture on speaking in Viet Namese, so I didn’t know how to say anything.  Somehow she understood us and took us across the street to a tailor where we decided the kinds of dresses we wanted made.  We decided on the designs and had our measurements taken.  Then we went back across the street to decide on our fabric…  and then we went back to the tailor’s to pay for the dresses.  We spent a few hours working on what we wanted.  We are going to go back to pick up our dresses on the last day in port.  Hopefully they all worked out well!

            We needed to be back on the ship by noon because a few people had FDPs to get to.  Liz K, Caitlynn, Yesenia and I had lunch on the ship before heading back out again with Rachel.  We spent the rest of the day wandering around and shopping.  Liz K, Caitlynn and I got some frozen yogurt while Yesenia and Rachel looked into getting dresses made.  They decided not to get anything in the end.

            We got back to the ship around 4, took showers and then met for dinner.  After dinner we decided we wanted to look for internet and ended up going to second dinner/snack/tea time at the sushi restaurant across the street.   We only ordered one roll, but it was really good.  Hopefully I can go back again sometime while I am here.

            Tomorrow I have to get up at 4:15AM in order to get to the airport in time to make it to Hanoi and Ha Long Bay!  I am really excited.  I have wanted to go there ever since I saw the Viet Nam episode of Top Gear.  I just wish I had enough time to buy a scooter and drive there.  Maybe next time I can try that.  For now, I am heading to bed!

Adventures in Viet Nam!

            I had no plans for my first day in Viet Nam.  Liz K had an FDP and I had not really asked many of my friends what they were planning to do.  Eventually I ended up walking around town with Matt, Joe, and a few other people.  We were planning to go to the Mekong Delta.  They had a floating market there that sounded like it would be interesting.  Eventually we found out it would take us at least three hours to get there.  Matt, Joe, and I didn’t really want to spend that much time in a taxi, so we decided to break off from the group and walk around Ho chi Min City (or Saigon, as it is called by the locals.  Why do we have separate names, anyway?).  First we took a riverboat tour.  The lady driving our boat was nice and had a huge smile on her face.  I couldn’t speak to her because the boat was too loud for me to shout over.  We were able to see some of the city and swamps from the riverboat, which was pretty interesting.

            Once the ride was finished the lady driving our boat pulled us up to the side of the river where there was a crumbling set of stairs leading up to a fence that separated us from the sidewalk.  The others had no problem jumping the fence, but it was almost to my shoulder.  Of course, instead of accepting anyone’s help, I decided to fling my body over the fence like a… comedian who is focused on physical comedy.  Probably not my most graceful moment.

            We walked over to see a giant building that we kept taking pictures of because it looked like it had a helicopter pad on it.  Turns out what we thought was a helicopter pad was actually a sky platform for tourists.  We decided not to pay for it and kept walking.  For lunch we stopped at a place called Blue Ginger.  I tried some Pho (pronounced like fuh, as if you are asking a question) in Viet Nam for the first time!  It was soooo good!  After lunch, the next stop was the Ben Thanh Market.  It was a little overwhelming.  It was a giant building filled with different vendors.  I could barely walk around without running into stalls or people.  We split up for 30 minutes in order to buy things.  I didn’t really need anything, but I got a few random souvenir’s anyway.

            We walked down the street and came to the reunification palace and then the War Remnants Museum.  It was a really good museum, but the pictures were extremely graphic and horrifying.  I suppose that is what wars are like.  It was a lot to take in and I walked around the building in a daze until I ran out of rooms to look in and we went to the next place.

            We stopped at Vietnam House for dinner.  I tried to order something different this time, but when I got it, it still looked a lot like Pho to me.  Pho is very interesting to eat because it is broth and noodles that you are supposed to eat with chop sticks and a spoon.  I think I am getting better at it.  After dinner Joe decided to look for an internet café and take the shuttle back to the ship, but Matt and I decided to walk since it wasn’t too far.

            People have told me that the streets in Viet Nam are terrifying to cross.  Until this point in the day it had not seemed too bad to me.  The streets were completely crowded with motorbikes and cars.  At the preport meeting they said to just look forward and walk at a steady pace to cross the street.  So that is what we did.  I thought at least four of the bikes were about to run over my toes, but they missed me by inches.  Matt tried to record the street crossing on his camera, but it died.  Maybe I can get something next time.

            We stopped at the bridge on the way back to the ship because a bunch of kids were jumping off of it and into the river.  One of the kids ran up to us and tried to get us to jump too.  His name was Hung and he didn’t speak very much English.  He was only able to say he was from Viet Nam and tell us his name, then he ran back to his family.

            Back on the ship we drank some Milo and tried to figure out how to get the Viet Nam episode of Top Gear to watch.  I am still working on that, but we were able to start watching the India episode.  We got about 10 minutes into the episode before the Lizzes came to join us and we switched over to the Office instead.

            So far I like Viet Nam.