About two and a half weeks ago, after what felt like my 100th overnight bus to Bangkok, I set off to the airport with two friends, Heather and Kelsi, for a week-long exploration of Vietnam. As we headed towards the airport we discussed our feelings on leaving Thailand, the place we had called home for over a year now. I couldn’t help but feel those nerves and excitement that I get whenever I travel somewhere new. We arrived to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) in time to see the sun set as we traveled by car to our hotel. Once there we found that $30 dollars per night got us a pretty great room in the best part of the city. We headed on to dinner and toasted our vacation with our first sips of Vietnamese beer.
We woke up early (thanks to Heather’s alarm…mine didn’t work) and headed out to explore our area. We visited a church, perused shops, and enjoyed many stops at cafes. Diving right into the conflicted past of Vietnam, we also toured the Reunification Palace, which signifies the North and South coming together. The palace, overrun by tourists, is decorated in full-on 1960s and 70s décor. I loved it!
From there we headed to the War Remnants Museum. Also overrun with tourists, with a broken air-conditioning system, the museum proved to be an interesting experience. Absolutely drenched in sweat, I learned more walking around that museum than I have ever learned in school about the Vietnam War. I discovered the atrocities of “Agent Orange” as I viewed photo after photo of generations of people affected by the toxic chemical. I read quotes from American soldiers describing the horrors of war and what it can do to your mind, and I watched videos of the innocent Vietnamese expressing their sorrow and rage at what happened to their country and specifically their rage at the American contribution for those happenings. It was disturbing, disheartening, and gave me lots to think about.
After a full and tiring day of touring the city, Heather and I woke up early the next morning to take a day trip to explore the Chu Chi tunnels about 50k outside of town. The drive took us through part of the city we had not seen and after two hours in traffic we finally broke out into views of rice fields and quieter living. Seeing these villages we couldn’t help but to compare them to our own in Thailand. Though close geographically, Vietnam and Thailand seem to be very different. Though again a complete tourist attraction, the tunnels gave us yet another glimpse of the War that we had not been exposed to before. The tunnel complex, hundreds of kilometers long, was built to hide and protect the villagers of Chu Chi from American soldiers and the VC. The tunnels consisted of very small crawl-spaces leading to a series of different rooms, including kitchens. After about 2.5 minutes crawling through the tunnels safe for tourists, Heather and I were astounded. The space was so small and so hot we could simply not imagine spending any more time down there. During the tour we also learned of simple traps to keep Americans at bay and saw a destroyed American tanker. The vibe of the tour and its signs, was definitely that the Americans were the bad guys. Being the only Americans in the tour group, Heather and I sheepishly exchanged glances whenever these references came up. It was a very interesting experience.
That evening, reunited with Kelsi, we hopped on a two hour flight north to Hanoi. We landed in rain and were immediately struck with the enormity of the whole place. Seeing the motorcycle traffic for the first time, made me feel like I was on a different planet. The sheer number of motorcycles was enough to make you never want to walk anywhere. We quickly learned that there was a method to this madness and timidly stepped out into the streets to explore. My first instinct was to run screaming across the street with my eyes closed, but turns out this is not the way to do it. One must slowly cross, with eyes open of course, giving the drivers enough time to gauge your speed so that they may just zoom around you. It’s weird, very weird, but it works.
Through misty rain we spent about 2 days exploring the city and trying all kinds of food, Vietnamese and Western. Because of the French influence, the food is an interesting and tasty blend of Asian and Western styles. We saw famous pagodas, spent time drinking coffee in cafes (all the while feeling like we were in Europe) and were able to go to traditional Water Puppet Show. Our last day we took on a full day trip to see the Perfume Pagoda. After 2 hours in the car we got into a small boat for one more hour to the foothills of the mountains where the pagoda was located. It was raining and the mist surrounding the mountains made it feel like we were in one of those traditional paintings of China. It was beautiful…..and cold (especially coming from Thailand). The pagoda complex, was not overrun with tourists but Vietnamese as it was the time of year to make pilgrimage to the site. Traditionally, those without children would go to this complex order to pray for children for the next year. Now Vietnamese, for many reasons, go here to make merit. It was a great day, filled with beautiful sites and a good way to end our trip. By noon the next day we were on our way home, to Thailand.
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