Vietnam

Vietnam
Everyone in Vietnam is SO nice and so welcoming, it amazes me especially after the war. Anyways, When we pulled into port, we had to wait a while, of course, before we could get off the ship. When we got off there were like a million motor bike guys trying to get us to ride with them and take us wherever (SAS says were not allowed on the bikes, but everyone did anyways). We didn’t go on the motorbikes here. We wanted to find a place to go to the Mekong Delta. We went in this random hotel to ask where to find a travel agency, but they had it at the hotel and we just signed up right there, we signed up for the next morning to go to the Mekong Delta, the group was me Eli, Andrew, and this girl I can’t even remember her name now, who was friends with Andrew. After we figured that out we walked to lunch at this cute little place and I got an omlet, beucase everything else was all meat and it looked gross. It was so freaking cheap it was ridicouls, everyone spent maybe 3 dollars on their meal and drinks. After that we went to a market, which sold a bunch of random stuff, like china, but I liked it a lot better, they sold more stuff, like cloth to make clothes, and a huge food market. IT was fun to walk around and look at everything. After the market we walked to the war museum, which was so sad. They had U.S. tanks and miliraty planes out front. Inside was just a bunch of pictures of soldiers and like dead kids and messed up civilians from the war, it was seirosuly so sad and it made us look like the worst people ever. This one Vietnamese guy with no forearms came up to me and Eli and said hi im blah blah, I immediately walked away, I looked rude kind of but I couldn’t do it, I could not look at him and shake his nub, I felt too bad and im really bad at awkward situations like that and I always smile at inappropriate times because I don’t know what else to do and I would’ve looked even worse if I was smiling when I shook his nub. It was so sad though, he just wanted money though I think. After the war museum we walked basically across the street to where the U.S. headquarters were during the war. It was this huge building that was gated. The building was really cool, it totally looked like a government building on the inside (and the outside). There were big conference rooms, a movie theater, chandeliers, production room, and so on. The roof was so cool, it was so open and there was a pool, there was also a helicopter on the roof in the back. After looking at the builiding we went to stop to eat again because we were with new people that we met up with that hadn’t eaten yet. It was similar food to the restaurant we ate at earlier. I just got a mango smoothie, which was SO good and so fresh. I also got orange juice because it was the best orange juice I have ever had (I tried a sip of my friends first and decided to get some). Oh, by the way this whole day it was SO hot and humid and I was sweating so bad and all I wanted to do was drink water the whole time. Anyways, after we ate we walked to where the shuttle bus picked us up to take us back to the ship. We got back to the ship and we were there for a little while and got ready for the night. I went out with a bunch of my girl friends. When we were all ready, we walked to find somewhere to eat/get drinks. Half of us girls went to one restaurant, and the other half went to another right across the street. I was with my friends Emily, Taylor, Noel, and roomie Lindsay. The restaurant was so cute, it was small, but really cute and it was like outside, where there would normally be windows it was just open. We all weren’t that hungry so we just got some appetizers, I split this amazing shrimp appetizer with Noel. Oh, all Vietnamese restaurants use this dipping sauce for anything, and it seriously smells exactly like cat food, its so gross, I refused to eat it because of the horrible stench at our first lunch, it wasn’t bad at this dinner but lunch ruined it for me. Everyone said it tasted good but I could not get over the cat food smell. We all got a drink or two and then we went to meet back up with the other girls. The other girls wanted to go to the club, Apocalypse Now, where everyone was going to be that night. We didn’t want to go yet, so we just walked along the streets and found this cute little local bar that we stopped by. The bar small and really cute, people were playing darts. There was this really weird Vietnamses guy who seemed a little retarded, and REALLY drunk that was funny at first, but annoying after a little while and the owner made him leave us alone. The owner said it was tradition for anyone who it was their first time at his bar to take this drink/shot with him on the house. It was basically a saki bomb, where he dropped the liquor in the beer, it might have been something different but that’s basically what it was. The owner loved us and introduced us to his cousin who was there, his cousins name was Minh and he started speaking and he had PERFECT English, I was like wow your English is so good, and hes like oh yeah I used to live in the U.S. for a while, and we were like oh yeah for what, and hes like for school, we asked where, and he replied “Yale”. Hahaha, he went to a way better school than any of us. No wonder he spoke perfect English. If I hadn’t seen him I would’ve thought he was from the U.S. by the way he talked. He was so nice and so helpful, he gave us a lot of tips and where to go and what to do. He then walked us to Apocalypse Now to show us how to get there. OH, I totally forgot, crossing the street in Vietnams---CRAZY. There are no crosswalks basically and there are constantly Tons motorbikes, and you have to like navigate your way through them to cross the street, they like weave around you, it was so scary the first time, after a while you get used to it, but it’s so dangerous. Anyways, we just stayed at Apocalypse Now for the rest of the night.

We woke up at 7 the next morning to walk to right outside the hotel to get picked up and go to the Mekong. Our guide was a girl that was my age (20), and we talked to her for a long time about their culture on the drive to the Mekong, I also slept for a lot of it, it was like a 2.5 hour drive. When we got there we bought those funny straw Vietnamese hats. We got on our boat, which was this skinny, long boat that was really close to the water, we had our guide that was with us from the drive, and we had a guide that was with us from the Mekong. I loved the Mekong, it was SO cool, it is basically like people living on a river and they use boats as cars and the water is their roads. We drove through the floating market, and everyone was on their boat selling their stuff (a lot of food, clothes, etc.). There were houses/shacks everywhere along the river, it was so cool. It was also nice to be by fresh water and not ocean water, you can totally tell the difference. We drove a little ways down the river and we stopped at this one little pier to get off. When we walked in there were the cutest little girls trying to sell us post cards, I couldn’t say no they were only 1 dollar (they love dollars in Vietnam) and they were so cute. We were in their home basically, and it was this cute little island looking home, with a grass roof and everything. We went there and saw how they make rice paper and ate it, we also tried some banana wine, and saw how they make candy, we got to try this hardish/chewey chocolate flavored candy, which was so good. Then we walked to the next little house, where there was another little house with their family business, they made rice cakes, the whole family was wrapping them when we got there. We saw how they popped this rice thing, it was like popcorn in a huge pan. We got to try the rice cakes too, and some fruit, I think we tried guava, it was weird, it was kind of like the texture of a potato and not that flavorful. Oh, there were also these 2 little boys playing soccer in the back of the house outside, they were so cute. It was so nice that everyone let us into their home, they seemed so used to it. We also got served tea at both houses we went to, they love tea here too. We got back on the boat and then we took the boat back the way we came and drove to this island, we drove past this one part on the island that had like a fence in the water, we found out that it was how they trap fish. We pulled up to this one pier, and on the island there weren’t any buildings you could see on the edge of the water, we pulled up to the pier and got off at this family’s home. It was really cool, they seemed to like live in this island, like in the forest, they had little buildings and walkways all over, there was a little stream that went through the middle of their “property”. They seemed like they were a lot more well off than all the other places we saw before this. I think they said that they caught and sold fish for a living. We saw the Vietnamese dad catch a fish in this little area with a net, it was cool, he made it look so easy. The little girl was SO cute, and she was playing with this puppy that was tied up, it was so adorable. Their little huts and walkways were really nicely made, it was nice tile and everything. We sat in this one little shaded hut and we got to eat fruit. I don’t remember what anything was called, but there was this one fruit that was like grapes kind of, but tasted like apples. There was also this really good soft yellow fruit, it was like passion fruit or something. We also tried a sip of their fruit alcohol that they made, and it was so strong I could barely swallow it. They also made me this AMAZING lemon tea because I had a sore throat. We left the island and got back on the boat and drove back to where we got on the boat originally. The trip included a lunch there, which was really nice. The lunch was outside in this really pretty garden type area. We were served this fish that was literally sitting in the middle of the table, it was like a dead fish with some type of breading covering it. There was a lady who cut it for us and made it into rolls for us with rice paper and pineapple, it was sooo good. We also got shrimp and they were honestly HUGE, we each got one. I have never seen shrimp so big. After lunch we we got back in the van and drove back. On the way back we stopped at this place where they use eggshells to paint all sorts of pottery, it was really cool, but everything was so expensive, and overpriced so we didn’t get anything. When we got back to the ship we relaxed a little and got ready for the night. I went out to dinner with Emily, Taylor, Lindsay, and Laurel. We went to this Thai food restaurant. We were the only ones in there, it was this really cute small restaurant and the people working were just so incredibly nice. The food was really good, we got some like spicy shrimp and pineapple rice to share; as a meal I got this seafood omelet, it was okay. After dinner we were just going to walk around and find something to do. We ran into some more SAS kids and we ended up just walking around with them. Laurel met this kid who walks around and sells gum the night before and she took him to dinner and she ran into him again. Him and some other little kids (with no shoes one) were just following us everywhere, they were so cute. They were obsessed with taking pictures on our cameras. They thought our cameras were so much fun, and they loved looking at the pictures. All of us started drinking a little bit in this grassy area until we figured out what we wanted to do, two of the kids were still with us and following us. We went to this club that this random guy told us to go to, but he was totally doing it for commission. We were there for like 10 minutes, I hated it, way too loud and way overpriced. Me, Emily, Laurel, and Taylor left (Linds went to meet up with her friend Brooke who was also in Vietnam) and tried to find somewhere else to go. We ended up trying to walk to some bar that looked cool, but there was a circle of Vietnamese guys that were sitting in a circle and playing the guitar, drinking, and singing. They started talking to us and invited us to sit down. We all sat down in the circle with them foreverrrr. They had this really cool thing of alchol with rice in it, it was like this big pot and you just used this straw to sip it out with someone at the same time. The people were SO nice, we just talked and sang with them for hours. It was such a cool experience. Later in the night they took us on their mopeds and they gave us a ride, it was so much fun.
The next morning everyone had something going on, some sort of planned trip with SAS (a lot of people were going to Cambodia), and it was just me and Emily left. Lindsay had booked like the 7 am bus to Mui Ne, a gorgeous resort town. Emily wanted to catch a bus there too so the next morning when we woke up we ate breakfast/lunchish on the ship and then went to a travel agency to figure out how to book the bus to Mui Ne. We walked around forever trying to figure out where to go. We ended up going to the wrong place and had to walk back across town to book it. We decided to just stop halfway at the Rex Hotel and get a drink because we heard a lot about it. The rex hotel was a famous place during the war where all the high up military officials went during the war. They have this really cool rooftop restaurant/bar open to anyone. It was sooooo cute and really big and so relaxing. I got a mojito. It was so freaking hot out and humid it was nice to stop for a little while after walking all over with our heavy backpacks. After we finished we walked to near the area was where we get the bus ticket and by this time we were starving so we decided to find a restaurant, which was seriously impossible to find, we were not in the restaurant part of Ho chi minh city. We finally find this mall and it said it had some restaurant in it. It ended up being this Japanese food restaurant, but it was actually really good. Emily and I both got sushi. After we finished eating we went to find the place to book the bus. We walked around in circles forever trying to find it, it was on some random little street. We FINALLY found these tiny little agencies that you book the bus through. It was like 5 bucks to take the bus there and we booked it for the 8pm bus. We also looked through hotels there and booked one for 2 nights. We booked one at the Canary Resort, it was so cheap (40/night total), so it was basically 20 dollars per night for me. This little place also sold a million DVDs so we spent a long time looking through DVDs, a lot weren’t in English and a lot had subtitles so I only got like 5 DVDs, I just wasn’t in the mood to buy stuff. Even though now I regret not buying more DVDs, most the time they work and they were seriously less than a dollar for a DVD, I regret it so much, oh well. Anyways, by the time we got done looking it was like dinner so Emily found a restaurant close to where the bus picked us up (at 745pm). Em and I found this cute little restaurant that was like half outside/half inside and it was so funny it was like 10 restuarnts in one. The menu had one page of Vietnamese food, another with Chinese, another with Italian, and Mexican. Em an I were so overwhelmed, it was so much to choose from. I ended up just getting some shrimp dish thing. Another thing I noticed—basically all restaurants serve smoothies and I got one every time, they seriously have the best fruit in Vietnam. I also didn’t realize how many tourists were in Vietnam, I mean it wasn’t like filled with tourists, but there were more than I expected. Anyways, it was also weird in the restaurant, people were coming in the restaurant trying to sell us stuff and beggars were coming in and asking for money. It’s crazy how people are just allowed to do that there. Someone was trying to sell us books, and its like yeah im eating dinner right now about to catch a bus and I was just thinking, I REALLY want a book on China, not. Anyways, we showed up at 745 to catch the bus, and we were like the first ones one it. We picked up like 15 more people, but it was really nice to have to have a seat by myself to sleep. The bus took like almost 5 hours to get there, it went by fast because we slept basically the whole way, only stopping once to get food/bathroom. The resort was so cute and nice when we got there. We checked in and went straight to our room, which was pretty nice, but maybe a little rustic, but it wasn’t bad, it was pretty big and the bed was really comfortable. The next morning we woke up and got breakfast at the buffet, which was pretty decent. We went back to sleep for a little while because we were so exhausted. When we woke up, again, we just layed out by our pool. It was a really nice pool and resort. The beach was seriously gorgeous. It was such a nice day too. When we went inside we got ready and met up with Lindsay and her friend that was visting her, Brooke. Brooke and her boyfriend met on SAS and her boyfriends little brother , Chris, is on our ship too so we met up with all of them. We got motorbike rides to the restaurant, it was so fun, I seriously love the motorbikes in Vietnam. Dinner was so cute, it was outside on this rooftop, and I got really good red snapper. After dinner we went to like 2 beach bars, which the first one was really dead. So we went to this other one and it was a little more crowded, but not many people at all. We were only there for an hour or so and then took motor bike rides back to our resort. The next morning we had to catch an 8am bus to take back to Ho Chi Minh City. The bus ride was completely full, and hot, and a really long 5 hour bus ride. Two other SAS girls sat behind me and Em. When we finally got back to Ho Chi minh, Emily and I got lunch at this cute modern restaurant, the owner was talking to us, used to live in California until recently when he came back to Vietnam to open this restaurant. I got this fish fry, it was decent. After lunch it was kind of around ship time (3 or so), so we went back to the ship. I tried to get off and use the internet at this café like 2 steps from the ship, but it was so slow and everyone was using it so I gave up.