"The Penultimate Day" or "The Beginning of the Sad Times and the End of my Money"

Thursday. Thursday I woke up with the thought already in my head that we would be leaving the next day. I didn't like that. We got up and headed to class. We had our last culture class discussing art and some final notes on the Vietnamese culture in general. Then we had our last language class. The day we all realized that we actually knew a lot more Vietnamese that we realized. We took a picture with the teacher and oh boy that was sad. She was great.

In between classes we went to our favorite cafe for the last time...That was when it hit me. Sitting there at that cafe, looking out on the streets of Saigon, not a very busy part, and by no means a touristy part. But just your average cafe on an average street. I felt so comfortable there. I felt like I belonged. It had taken two weeks but I finally got there. I ordered my coffee (in Vietnamese) with no problem, I said "thank you" without an issue and now we were leaving. But soon enough it was time to head back for language class.

The last coffee at our favorite cafe

After class we headed to our regular lunch spot for the last time. And then we were off to the Xa Loi Pagoda. The Xa Loi Pagoda is the Buddhist Pagoda where Thich Quang Duc started his march through the streets of Saigon and finally ended by setting himself on fire in protest of the government. We spent a while at the Pagoda and then walked the same route he did back in 1963 ending at the site at which he performed his act of protest. This was a very cool cultural experience, That incident is so famous and we got the opportunity to walk the route he did and see his memorial. It was incredible. 

From there we went to the War Remnants Museum. I could talk about the museum for hours but I'll try to keep it relatively short. The museum is run by the Vietnamese and it contains artifacts and stories of the war which we call the Vietnam war but they call the American war. It was unbelievable to see the war through their eyes. I'm not going to lie, it was really hard to see a lot of the photographs in that museum and at first I wanted to leave, but then I realized that I had to see their point of view on such a controversial conflict. I was really taken aback by the whole thing and left feeling really weird, but much like the Thich Quang Duc memorial, it was a very important cultural experience and probably one of the most memorable parts of the trip.

When we were done at the museum, we headed back to the hotel, hit the pool for a little while then went to dinner at a little noodle house, 'm not entirely sure what I ate but I think it was a very comprehensive beef soup that contained pretty much every part of the animal. It was really neat. 

That night was our last night experiencing Saigon night life. We went to a night club called "Apocalypse Now" (I know, Ironic right?) and we all danced the night away. We came back to the hotel exhausted but not wanting to sleep because we wanted to be awake for as much as possible before we left, but eventually fell asleep against our own will. 

This was also the day I ran out of money and had to rely on my good guy roommate Kohler for money. Kohler if you are reading this, I'm going to buy you dinner in Pittsburgh in August. 

Kohler's blog can be found here: http://kohlerinvietnam.blogspot.com/  Enjoy.