Vietnam

Alright, im very sorry it is taking me a year to blog about Vietnam. And I still haven’t blogged China yet!!! Damn, I have a lot of catching up to do. I’ve just been so incredibly busy on the boat. We just finished up midterm week. Ehhhhh It wasn’t too bad. My music midterm was a piece of cake. Yeah I say that now, and then I get my score back and cry a little. Haha

We had the Sea Olympics the other day. Let me attempt to explain this: Every hall of cabins on the different decks is named after a sea. For example my hall is the Aegean Sea. Our team color was baby blue (*vomit*). I really dislike that color I decided. So basically on Sea Olympics day, people ran around in their team colors and competed in a number of different activities. Activities such as: Tug-a-war, Salty whistle (eat a bunch of saltines and try to whistle. Haha), Crab soccer (everybody had mad blisters on their hands after this activity, because the deck was so hot.), Synchronized swimming, lip syncing, etc. I performed in the lip syncing competition. Of course, when I signed up for it I didn’t realize the entire ship was going to be watching. Pfffff. My group was really fun though. We danced and sang to “Don’t Stop Believing” originally done by Journey, but we did the Glee version. Haha I hadn’t even heard of Glee. I still don’t really know what that is. But anyway. It was really fun and scary being up there in front of everybody… dancing. Actually I thought about it, and I can’t recall any time I’ve done that before. I have mad stage-fright. So it’s difficult to even give speeches. And I danced in front of everyone. Oh geez. Yeah our team didn’t win. But there were soooo many good performances, so I didn’t really expect to win. In fact, I think our sea did pretty awful in everything, except for in Extreme Musical Chairs. Haha Anyway, so that was like 2 or 3 days ago.     

 

Alright alright so let’s talk Vietnam- My first real day in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.. The big plan was to find my friend Andrew in the dining hall and then go to a bus station and get on a bus and go somewhere. We didn’t know where. It was going to be somewhat spontaneous. And I was really pumped for it!  Yeah didn’t happen. Andrew got caught up at the Mekong Delta and there for stood me up. Haha I didn’t even think about having a back-up plan in case something happened. I ate breakfast, and went to my room and walked around all confused. Haha I paced. After like 3 minutes I was like ehhh I’ll call Jay to see what he’s up to. Lazy bum was still sleeping!! So I woke his butt up and made him hang out with me. Haha We jumped on mopeds and went to the local market and looked around. It was a huge market! There were food stands, and clothing stands, and souvenir stands. People were selling everything you can imagine! It was super harsh on the nose walking through the food stands. Everything they were selling stunk horridly and that stench mixed with the stench next to it. I definitely held my breath through there, and walked at a quick pace. It was definitely an adventure walking through there. It was so incredibly packed in there. Every two steps I took I ran into someone. I was rockin the flat fanny pack that day though, so I didn’t have to worry about pickpocketers. Did I tell you how much fun it is trying to dig through your pants to find your passport or money? Its mainly fun because nobody around you know what’s going on. I just get dirty looks as they walk by. Even at like airports. They should know what you’re digging for by now! My passport!!! Hellllooo!! I brought this up because I purchased a couple DVDs at the market, and in the process got some awkward stares. What DVDs did I buy you ask? I bought Avatar, The Time Traveler’s Wife, Whip It, and the first 5 seasons of Weeds. : ) I think all together I paid 18 dollars. I’m a pretty big spender. ;)

After cruising the market for a while, Jay had to take off for a FDP working at the Disabled Hospital I believe. Luckily I ran into my friend Dani at the market. We hunted down a restaurant that served Pho. It was the most delicious meal of my life. The restaurant was called Pho 24. I think. I ordered the vegetarian Pho. Pho is noodle soup. They give you a plate of vegetables that you can put in your soup if you’d like. Also on the plate that they gave Dani and I were these orange reddish peppers. I dared Dani to try it in her soup. She almost cried after biting one and spitting it back on the plate. Haha It was the funniest thing ever. I definitely didn’t try it after that. I was already crying from how delicious the meal was… haha Alright so after heaven in a bowl, we treated ourselves to manicures and pedicures. They treated us like queens in there. It was the nicest nail salon I’ve ever seen in my life. I guess I really haven’t seen too many though. I don’t really get manicures on a regular basis. But seriously there were 5 thrones lined up with bowls and faucets in front of them. They each had 2 velvet red pillows sitting on them. I felt guilty just sitting in those seats. And then I realized I wasn’t paying as much as I felt I was paying (if that makes any sense.) In total I paid 5 dollars.

So, after the nice lady with the doctor’s mask made us pretty, Dani and I decided it was time to get ripped off. We planned to head back to the ship, but we wanted to take a new form of transportation. So, we found these two guys with weird bike contraption thingys. It looked like a reverse rickshaw, but totally different. There were 2 wheels in front with a seat (like a chair) sitting on top and then one wheel in back and a taller bicycle seat. We kindly asked them to take us back to the ship, and they refused and said they would show us around for a little bit and then take us back. Dani and I said alright just for 2 dollars though. Of course the guys agreed with us, because that’s what they do. They don’t listen to what you are saying. They just agree with everything! So they pedaled us around in the scorching hot sun for a little while. It was such a scary ride. They were pedaling next to mopeds, motorcycles, cars, semi-trucks, you name it. We definitely almost got T-boned by a bus. I almost peed myself. So after a while we can start to see the ship in the distance. It’s like across this busy busy bridge and up a couple streets. So I’m like alright cool we’re almost there. All of a sudden these guys just stop on the side of the road and are like ok you walk. Haha I was super confused, because they didn’t even take us to our destination, first of all, and then second of all the guy asks me for like 20 bucks! I flipped a bitch and gave him 2 dollars, and one of the guys got mighty upset and was like “Hey, I deal with tourists all the time. 20 dollars is a normal price!” And I’m like “oh ok so you rip off tourists all the time. I understand. Here have 5 dollars I’m outa here.” Haha Dani ended up giving the other guy 20 dollars. I wasn’t about to do that. I could have easily taken a moped or a legit taxi back and it would have been 2 dollars or less! They didn’t even take us to the ship!!! They made us walk 10 minutes to get there! Those guys seemed so incredibly nice talking with us and asking us questions and joking around with us. I swear it’s the people that speak perfect English that you can’t trust. It’s not like I was out 100 bucks or something, but it was still mighty upsetting. So, in conclusion, if you ever go to Vietnam, stick to the legit taxis called “Vinasun” or find a moped and tell the guy you’ll pay him 2 dollars. Don’t waste your time on the other guys.

Nothing exciting happened until after dinner. I think Dani and I just went back and napped for a while and then had dinner. A bunch of us went out after dinner though. We all took the shuttle bus to the night market, and then split up into smaller groups from there. The guys I was hanging out with (Jay, Honey bear, and Max) hadn’t eaten dinner yet, and really wanted to try Pho, so we went to Pho 24! Haha I tried the spring rolls and had a cold Tiger. The spring rolls were heavenly and quite greasy. For some reason, I figured that the spring rolls in the states were only greasy because they were Americanized, and all American food is greasy. But actually the spring rolls in Vietnam were A LOT greasier. Delicious the same, I just didn’t expect it. After they inhaled their Pho we headed back to the night market to meet back up with people. There we ran into Thomas. It was so random. We were just standing there on the sidewalk and Thomas rides up on the back of a moped. Haha It was awesome. Soon as we gathered our group, we trekked to the Rex hotel. Along the way people in our group (including me!) kept stopping to buy beer from the random vendors on the sidewalk. It was ridiculous. They are just so much cheaper on the street than they are in the bars. It was fun just walking down the street drinking a beer though. Only in Vietnam. We hung out at this park right across from the Rex hotel. (The Rex Hotel is the nicest hotel in Ho Chi Minh City. It’s very ritzy. It’s also where the shuttle bus to our ship is located.) I didn’t realize it until people started taking pictures and showing them to me, but we were sitting in front of this huge gorgeous building with a big fountain in front of it. Haha I thought it was endless garden behind us, but apparently there was a huge hotel back there. It was really funny. It was a very cool chill spot. People kept walking by that we recognized (because the shuttle bus was right there) so we’d just sit and yell their names, and they’d come over and talk with us for a while. After a while of sitting on the curb we decided to load up in taxis and try to find this bar that had a live band that only plays John Lennon songs. The bar was definitely 20 to 30 minutes away, and out in the boonies, and closed. So we unloaded from the taxis, stood around looking at each other and decided to stroll down the street. We found this random bar called “Metallic,” decided to check it out. They had a live band, so that was fun to watch for a little bit. They mainly played older songs by U2 and other older bands. We weren’t there for too long. Drank a beer, used the bathroom, and split. We ended up back at Apocalypse Now again. It was a lot of fun though! It was super packed with semester at sea peeps, so it was a little weird, but I enjoyed seeing friends and meeting new people, and dancing. It was a long night. After a while, Jay and I jumped on some mopeds and headed back to the ship. We raced. It was so much fun. They were going so incredibly fast. It was scary, but I just closed my eyes, let the wind run through my hair and helmet, and laughed with all my heart. It was sucha thrill.

 

Last day in Vietnam- I would have loved to go to the War museum in Ho Chi Minh City but I just didn’t have enough time in Vietnam. I had to make it to the Mekong Delta, because I heard it was an incredible experience. So we hired a driver. It was Me and 4 other girls that piled into this car. It was 1 and a half hour drive. The bumpiest ride of my life. The driver decided to take us the rural way. Pothole next to pothole next to pothole is what that meant. Finally we made it there, where we jumped on a small boat with a personal tour guide. I actually don’t remember his name right now, but he was awesome. Our little boat took off through these canals filled with brown water. The Mekong Delta is the brownest river I’ve ever seen. As we cruised along the shoreline, our guide pointed out all the fish farms. They were like the floating houses I saw in Cambodia but there were huge nets in the water with huge yellow and orange fish in them. They were legitimately raising fish right there in a big net in the Mekong Delta. They don’t just catch fish. They raise them themselves. I found that fascinating. So then we got dropped off on this small island where there were bee farms. We didn’t actually get to see the farms, but we were able to try this honey tea. It was sooooooo yum, but also very scary to drink because bees were flying at us. They wanted the honey just as much as I did. From there we got on an even smaller boat. The boat held 3 of us plus the paddler. They had us wear those Vietnamese hats that you see pictures of people working on the farm. It was fun. The canals were so small. They kept squeezing 3 small boats through these canals. I was terrified we were going to tip and fall in to the brown water. But apparently those guys were pros. I liked watching the person paddle the boats. They squat right at the edge of the boat and paddle. You definitely have to be little in order to do that. It’s probably sucha work out. The canals were lined with short palm trees. A lot of the branches looked as if they had been torn off or cut off. I think maybe some of the people that paddle the boats around hang on to them and rip them off. Anyway, it was amazing cruising those canals. The tour guide then took us to a coconut candy making island. The coconut candy was very delicious. They showed us how they make it too. I stocked up on coconut candy for friends and family back home! So you better be expecting some. Basically when you go to Vietnam (because you must someday before you die) be sure to experience the Mekong Delta.

The ride back to Ho Chi Minh was a delight. We slept for most of the way.

 

 

So now,

I’m done with Japan, China, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Next stop India. I’m docking today. I still can’t believe it. After India, I will be half way done with my trip. That’s really depressing. It has been the absolute time of my life. Thanks mom and dad!