Not Busy, Just Thai'd Up

I am absolutely overwhelmed by how much I think I have to say about my trip to Vietnam.  I feel like I did so much that I have to use my journal to remember each day.  Before I start typing more, I’d like to say that I added pictures to the last post, and that for a short while, the frequency of my posting will be irregular.

Now. Let us begin at the start of my trip.  On Saturday, October 13, I woke up in the morn with butterflies in my stomach.  I was about to travel in a foreign country by myself, for the first time ever.  I was excited and nervous- I made sure to try to leave messages with all my loved ones just in case I got abducted or something. BUT OBVS I’M ALIVE!

First stop was Ho Chi Minh City, also known as Saigon, in the south of Vietnam. On the plane trip from Bangkok to HCMC, I slept most of the way, but when I woke up after landing, I was adopted.  A Thai couple and their two buddies started talking to me, and they reveled in the fact that I was studying abroad in Thailand.  They herded me into their group, and after exchanging our Thai baht into Vietnamese dong, we grabbed a taxi (taxis are rip-offs- try to get to Vietnam before 6 pm so you can take the bus which costs 30 cents. THIRTY CENTS!) My first impression of the city when driving toward the Pham Ngu Lao district (the backpackers district where all the sights are) was HOLY CRAP SO MANY MOTORBIKES!

Ma plane and taxi buddies.

 

HCMC is a very bustly city.  And it’s a thing in Southeast Asia for people to ride motorbikes.  I thought there were a lot in Thailand.  I was wrong. 

I parted with my new friends at their hotel, and went in search of my hostel, NgocThao Guesthouse.  I passed it because this hostel is down a tiny, insignificant, kinda grimey alley.  It’s scary if you let it be scary.  The hostel itself is very nice, clean, friendly, and offers a lot in terms of day trips (to be explained later).  The only qualm was that breakfast was an additional 30,000 dong each morning. The breakfast was super tasty though- BAGUETTES! (the French imperialists were expelled from Vietnam in 1954 after the First Indochina War) and pancakes.  It was amazing to see decent bread again.

I met another new friend, Mindy, who was my roommate for the night.  We walked around for a bit, had dinner, talked about life and experiences and whatnot.  Then, we sat on the street along with everyone else atop tiny chairs to have a couple of Saigon Greens (cheap beer for 10,000 dong, which is equal to 50 cents).  I LOVE this part of Vietnamese culture.  Day and night, you will find people crowded on the sidewalks around tiny tables, atop the smallest chairs, drinking beer, eating food, and chatting.  This kind of community is also seen in the parks where all the couples sit on benches, friend groups sit or play sports, and the older folk even do salsa dancing under the pavilions in the evening.  I fell in love with the community of Vietnam.

So, that’s day one concluded.  We move onward to day two.

Day two was a busy, busy day. 

I set out with my handy dandy map at hand, given to me by the lovely people at the hostel.  Normally, I am incredibly directionally-challenged, even with a map.  But, I put my noggin to it, and conquered those streets!  I saw men in green uniforms everywhere, many pastry shops, the longest line of boy scouts and girl scouts known to man (they started chanted which was most excellent), and I learned how to cross the street.

This map was my savior!

 

Crossing the street is almost a death wish.  It’s not as terrifying as it is in Hanoi though, as I found out later that week.  Basically, unless you are INCREDIBLY patient or lucky, you baby-step across the road where a line a cars and motorbikes may be coming at you. You take a couple of steps at a time, stopping in between passing vehicles, until you get to the end.  Sometimes though, there will be tourist police who guide you safely across the street, and cars usually stop for them.

SO! First stop was the War Remnants Museum.  Definitely an excellent museum, and worth seeing.  It was all about the Vietnam War, the other side of the Vietnam War that we don’t hear about in Western education.  It’s three floors, and an exhibit of prison life, of depressing history. I had to sit down after viewing each floor to regain my composure.  I think pictures speak louder than words in this case, so I’ll showcase a few photos below. 

Next, I walked toward the Ngon Restaurant for lunch, which was recommended on my map.  But on the way, I was stopped by Manh, the Saigon native and motorcycle taxi tour guide.  I tried to shake him off, but he pulled out a five-inch thick notebook filled with pictures of the people he’d taken on a tour next to their own positive statements about his tour. I decided to get on his bike because the Jade Emperor Pagoda in Chinatown and another Chinese Buddhist Temple were a bit far away.  He took me to see those, but then purposefully made the tour longer by taking me past the Saigon River to show me how the government was buying the property of people who live by the river to gain land for development.  It’s rather sad- there are a lot of people living on boats or under bridges by the river now.  Manh was really informative- every so often he would tell a random fact about this old building, or that old building.  Much of it I don’t remember because I couldn’t hear him over the honking and the wind, but I appreciated the gesture, and I recommend his tour to everyone. 

With Manh on his motorcycle

Freeing a turtle at the Jade Emperor Pagoda for good luck.

At the old temple.

 

He took me back to the Reunification (Independence) Palace where I took a tour.  It’s really just a bunch of decorated rooms.  The coolest parts were the in the basement where you got to see the planning rooms with all of the old maps and radio equipment.  My blood sugar was low from no lunch so I wasn’t really interested in this experience.  I ate at Ngon Restaurant soon afterward, which was yummy and a bit fancy.  I soon found that papaya shakes are my favorite, and Pho Bo, the famous Vietnamese soup, is super yum yum.

Reunification Palace

LUNCH

 

Then, I walked to Notre Dame Cathedral.  Along the way, I noticed that a lot of the street names are still French.  One street was called Duong Pasteur, named after an important figure in the history of medicine.  Anyway, Notre Dame Basilica was really beautiful, very large, and modern.  They had several tv screens between the pews so that people could sing along to hymns, karaoke style.

Next to it was the Saigon Central Post Office, famous just because of its French architecture.  Inside were telephone books, postal service, and some souvenir shops with some pretty great stuff. 

The basilica to the left, the post office in the back.

 

I walked toward the Opera House where I got invited to go to a cultural performance held twice a month. I really wanted to go, and I would recommend that anyone who travels to HCMC go see it, but I had other plans for the following day.  In that area are a bunch of ritzy, rich people hotels and shops.  Mila Kunis was plastered over the shops, advertising for Dior.  I got out of there as quickly as possible.

Then, I stumbled across the Golden Dragon Water PuppetTheatre.  This is a really special and cultural puppet performance that I think everyone should see. All of the dialogue and singing were in Vietnamese so that I couldn’t fully understand everything, but the plots of the stories were easily summarized by the titles in the brochure.  The performance was divided into fifteen short segments in which the puppets glided across the water, acting out unicorns playing with a ball, or village people catching fish, and more!  The musicians to the side of the stage provide the musical accompaniment, and the voices of the puppets.  45 minutes well-spent.

I got dinner after that, somewhere.  Each night in HCMC was typically, dinner at some restaurant while reading Clash of Kings, journaling in the park, then beddy bye.  So there you have it, the first two days of my trip to Vietnam.  There’s plenty more to come!