A Haiku: Please Don't Make Me Leave / I'm Not Getting On That Plane / I Need More Time Here

Friday. The last day. I woke up knowing that in about 24 hours I would be on a Boeing 737 en route to Hong Kong. I didn't like that thought.

We started the day with a friendly basketball game against the UEF basketball team. If you know me at all, you know that I am the least athletic person on the planet. I can run, but that's it. I have less coordination than a two-year-old with bad coordination. So I pretty much just ran around and sweated a lot and eventually we lost the basketball game. Then we played soccer against them, I did the same thing and we won that game (your welcome).

We then exchanged gifts with all our Vietnamese friends and that was really pretty sad because that was the last time we would see most of them. From there we went to lunch at a noodle place and it was so delicious but the hot soup was really not what I was feeling after spending three hours in a blazing hot basketball gym...it was the same soup I had had the night before so that was cool because I was like a soup master.

After lunch we finally got back to the hotel and showered (god I was gross after sweating so much) And we had some free time before we went to dinner on a boat on the Saigon river. I spent that time in the pool and packing which was even sadder.

Dinner was really fun though. We ate a lot of really good food, most of which we had had before but it was still delicious. and really cool to eat on a boat in suits. Mine fit really well. After dinner the boat left the dock for a little cruise along the river which was spectacular. Seeing the city by night was amazing. But also very emotional because by the time the cruise was over (about 11:00) we knew we had to be in the lobby ready to go to the airport in about 4 hours. 4 hours left in Saigon. That was it. We finished up our packing and went to Turtle Lake, which is a little man-made pond in the middle of a roundabout near the hotel.

Turtle Lake by day

This was a very nice was to end the trip, everyone sitting atop that little platform looking over the city we had all grown to love so much. Some of us took some time to walk around those little paths and enjoy the street food that was being served around the edges of the pond. Eventually we decided it was time to head back. We had to finish packing and get our stuff together before it was time to leave. I had finished packing so I hung around our room with a few other people while Kohler packed. Meanwhile my good buddy Evan was in the bathroom throwing a green sticky rice cake in the bathtub and enjoying the noise it made. (Evan's blog can be found here: http://evanozaroffvietnamplus3.blogspot.com/ ) and in between packing items, Kohler spent his time throwing coconut candies across the room at poor Kristen who had done nothing to deserve the sort of treatment she was getting. (Kristen's blog can be found here: http://brucespringsteen.net/ )

Before we knew it, it was time to leave. We gathered in the hotel lobby, checked out of the hotel and boarded the bus.

"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. 

Day Ten

I had been looking forward to Wednesday morning the whole trip. I love food and cooking and all of that stuff. Wednesday morning we headed out to a huge five-star hotel for a cooking class (nice). We learned how to make two types of Vietnamese spring rolls. The fresh ones which are rolled in rice paper and the fried ones which are rolled in a bean casing.

The fresh ones were really hard to make, first we took two circular rice papers which, at this step, were very hard and felt almost exactly like plastic. We then got those wet so they would loosen up a bit. After that we put lettuce, bean sprouts, herbs, rice noodles, and placed some shrimp on the paper so that when it would be rolled they could be seen through the rice papers. That was the easy part. The hard part was rolling the wet, sticky rice paper around all this. The rice paper really liked to stick to everything, especially itself. Needless to say, our spring rolls were not quite as beautiful as the ones made by the chef...

Wow, when did Jiro get here?

Okay so my fresh spring roll doesn't look all that great, but i promise it tasted great, and I promise that my fried spring roll came out looking much better, it was also much easier. The chef had prepared a mixture of raw pork, mushrooms, taro, and some herbs that we just put inside the bean casing and rolled that up, it was preposterously easy compared to the fresh ones.

After we learned how to cook, we were cut loose on the lunch buffet at the restaurant...trust me, it was as chaotic as it sounds. Twenty college students let loose on a five-star buffet. but wow was that delicious. 

some super fresh dragon fruit...nice

I bit into this little fish and it was filled with eggs...apparently that is a "delicacy"

some fruit and cheese

those fish, some nigiri, some sushi, a steamed pork bun, and a steamed shrimp bun.

Yeah, needless to say it was a very nice lunch. 

After lunch we went back to the hotel to change and the "shipped out" to the Saigon Newport Corporation (SNP). Basically what SNP does is they handle all the logistics of the ports in Vietnam and some in Cambodia. They are backed by the navy so they are government monitored, and because of that there is no real local competition. The visit to SNP was really interesting because I had never thought about how complex of an environment a port really is, and managine it is extremely complicated. 

After our briefing we walked over to the control tower which was really cool to see. 

The SNP control tower

From the control tower, we could see almost the entire port of Saigon and we could see all the control tower workers dealing with all the different logistics of the port. There were also live feeds of all the different shipments and everything displayed on the wall, I didn't know what any of it meant but it was still really cool. 

We then did a short driving tour of the docks which was super cool because we were driving around with all the container trucks and cranes and everything. 

For dinner that night we had banh mi again (the banh mi was really good) and headed back to the Ben Thanh market for more shopping. We left pretty early and then I fell asleep because I was exhausted. 

Day Nine

Tuesday was a long day. We were up early and headed about an hour away to the Vietnam Singapore Industrial Park (VSIP) to get a briefing from them and II-IV industries which is a company that operates out of the industrial park.

When we first got there, we entered a room that had two very large models of the industrial park we were visiting and another one that they have located about 11 km down the road. We were then taken into a conference room fro the briefing. The VSIP briefing was very interesting. I had never realized everything that goes into an industrial park. They handle everything from damage control to customs regulation. They make it incredibly easy for a company to operate and take care of a lot of the dirty work that is involved with managing a company.

The VSIP talk was cut a little short and we then got a briefing from the Chief Engineer from II-VI. The II-VI briefing was really cool. They make lenses for lasers and thermoelectric coolers. Two very specific products for a very niche market. They supply a variety of industries, providing products for the US military, the scientific community, and everything in between. We then took a tour of their manufacturing facility which was really interesting to see. We saw all the steps in making several different types of lenses and how they test them, and we saw all them steps in preparing the parts of the thermoelectric coolers and how they are assembled and tested as well. I had never seen a factory assembly line before so that was really cool to see and definitely my favorite company visit of the whole trip.

After leaving VSIP, we went to lunch in the area at a really nice restaurant where we had an extensive tasting menu including but not limited to: fried prawns, fried chicken, roasted pork, etc. I also ordered a jasmine tea and I was expecting just a cup of tea but I got a whole teapot with really nice jasmine pearls and ended up sharing with everyone because I'm a good guy. After lunch we drove back to the hotel to end the day and it was raining a lot and flooded everywhere.

When we got back we headed back to the war zone that was the Ben Thanh market to buy some last gifts and stuff for people. I was a lot better at bartering the second time and was even told by one of the shop owners that I was really good at bartering. 

On the way back we stopped for Banh Mi, those little Vietnamese Sandwiches that are made on Baguettes and that was super good.

That night we decided to explore some more Ho Chi Minh City night life and went to a sports pub owned by the son of the chief engineer at II-VI which was cool. I had never played darts before and was not very good but it was still a lot of fun. After leaving tere we went to a few other pubs in the area to play more darts.

check out this flood

look at this. I'm crazy

Day Eight

As the fun times and lack of class from the weekend wore off, we were back to the old grind of Vietnamese Culture Class and Vietnamese Language Class. We progressed our scarce knowledge of the Vietnamese language and expanded our knowledge of the Vietnamese culture (which actually turned out to be quite vast in the end). We were pretty pressed for time though because we had to go to the Ben Thanh Market and we had arranged a meeting with VinaCapital, an investment group and charity foundation for the ethnic minorities in Vietnam.

Our first stop after class was to the Ben Thanh Market. We were all enamored by the chaos of the market. From the moment we walked in, we were bombarded with salespeople grabbing our arms, and trying to sell us things. I had never bartered before and oh my god was it fun. I went to buy a t-shirt and the salesman told me it was 250,000 Dong. After arguing with him for about ten minutes, I was able to get it down to 50,000. The "walk away" really does work. After about an hour of similar purchases and exchanges with salespeople we had to leave to go get ready for our trip to VinaCapital. Many of us decided that we would definitely return to the market on a later date.

The visit to VinaCapital was extremely interesting. We first heard from the leader of the VinaCapital Foundation that works to improve the quality of life of ethnic minorities in Vietnam. The guy was from South Carolina which was a refreshing change as far as the language barrier goes. He explained to us that he has visited all but four provinces in Vietnam researching the people and helping them improve their quality of life. He has worked with the government and the healthcare system to receive discounts on different surgeries for children that don't have access to healthcare, and even if they did, they wouldn't be able to afford it.

He also works with girls, trying to get them into and through college. He told us that he has gotten hundreds of girls who wouldn't have even considered college before to not only get into college but also graduate medical or pharmacy school or some other professional school. This is unbelievable to me, that these girls come from societies and subcultures that have little to no emphasis on education to the point where, in his words, "These girls had never heard the word 'doctor' before I got to them, and now they will be one"

The most impressive part of this foundation is that much unlike most charity organizations, 100% of the overhead costs are covered by the VinaCapital Group meaning that all the money donated to the Foundation goes straight to the people they work with. None of it goes to salaries, travel costs, etc. which is very admirable.

For dinner on Monday night, the Vietnamese students took us to a restaurant that served a dish called ban xeo, which is basically a Vietnamese omelette made with an egg and rice pancake filled with bean sprouts, vegetables and various seafood or meats. We also got one with a bunch of exotic mushrooms in it which was delicious. When we first sat down, the faculty member from UEF that had been our guide the whole trip ordered us all iced tea and told us some history about Vietnamese iced tea. After that little lecture several pitchers of what looked like iced tea were placed on the table. I promptly poured some of the contents of the pitcher over a glass of ice that was placed in front of me earlier. I took a sip and it was in fact NOT iced tea. It was fish sauce meant for the pancakes...I was understandably laughed at by everyone, especially the Vietnamese students.

After dinner we went to a karaoke house which was ridiculous. We had our own soundproof room that was decorated very glamorously and sort of in the style of Louis XIV's palace of Versailles. This was very fun and everyone got very into it.

After karaoke a few of us went to a night club for a little bit that turned out to be a bit lackluster since it was a Monday night. After not too long we left and went back to the hotel to sleep.

Vung Tau Beach (Day Seven)

On Sunday we drove about two hours to Vung Tau Beach in the southeast of Vietnam. As much as I wanted to sleep on the drive there I stayed awake because I couldn't stop looking out the window of the bus. The drive goes through some very rural parts of Vietnam and seeing the dichotomy of that versus the city was unbelievable. We drove past farms that had little shack houses made of bamboo and palm fronds that just had hammocks for beds and didn't even have walls. At one point in the drive we literally passed an ox-drawn cart on the road. It was crazy to see how some of these people live and I was blown away by the standard of living for these people.

When we finally arrived at Vung Tau, the first thing we did was climbed up what seemed like thousands of cobblestone steps to the top of a mountain where an enormous statue of Jesus was waiting for us with open arms. We then proceeded to climb up inside the statue and stood out on those open arms. The view was incredible. Words cannot describe the overwhelming beauty of the beach and and the surrounding town. Unfortunately, we could not stay up there long because there were a ton of other people waiting to come out and see.

We then went to a hotel/resort that was our base camp for the day and went swimming in the ocean. The water was so unbelievably warm and stayed shallow as far out as we were comfortable going so in my mind that beach experience was perfect. The only problem was that if we went out too far we started to run into a lot of trash and a lot of jellyfish too. The jellyfish were really cool but then someone got stung so we kept our distance. The most fun thing to do was have my good buddy Chris "Dad Jump" me where he would go underwater and I would stand on his shoulders and he would stand up and I would jump off soaring into the air like the graceful swan that I am. You can check out Chris' Blog here: http://chrisherrick.blogspot.com/

At the beach we were served a glorious lunch that started with a plate of fried calamri, then steamed oysters, then we were served chicken wings and steamed prawns, and finally a fish soup and a large seafood hot-pot. The hot-pot was not as good as the one we had before, but it was still quite delicious.

After lunch we headed back to the water for  bit and departed around 3:30 for the ride home which for me involved sleeping.

We ended up stopping at a truck stop on the way home for some snacks and to use the bathroom. I was not expecting to get such a cultural experience out of this but it was incredible. There was a whole farmer's market type thing going on outside with people selling dried meats and seafood and fresh fruits and vegetables and there were people inside selling food out of street food type carts and stands everywhere and there were a bunch of little convenience store type places selling snacks and drinks. It was completely different from anything else I have ever seen and it was utterly fascinating.

When we got back to the hotel there was a schism in the group. We split into two schools of people: Those that were pining for the fjords and wanted american food, and those of us that wanted to immerse ourselves in the Vietnamese culture. So the burger group went and got burgers (lame) and I and a few others went to a noodle house. The noodle house was very strange, it looked sort of like street food with a woman cooking out in front of the little shop, but inside were a few small tables and chairs. There was only one thing on the menu and that was a beef noodle soup with very thick round rice noodles. I'm not sure what this dish was called, but I wish I did because it was delicious.

After that I fell asleep.

Cu Chi Tunnels (Day Six)

Saturday was the day we drove about an hour to the district of Cu Chi, which is the site of the notorious Cu Chi Tunnel network. The tunnels were built originally during the early 20th century to be used in the World Wars, and were later vastly expanded to be used the war against the Americans. These tunnels were entire underground cities where people could eat, sleep and fight without leaving the tunnels for months at a time.

The beginning of the tour was very strange. They showed us a video that was made in 1967 and it talked all about how terrible the Americans were and all of us found it very offensive. It was so strange to see their perspective on the war, because all we ever hear is the American side of things.

The tunnels were so expertly camouflaged, the holes that were dug to let air in were disguised as termite nests, which in the middle of the jungle don't seem out of place at all. There were also small outposts built where guerrilla fighters could shoot out of little slits in the ground that were barely visible. The tour guide showed us the opening to one of the tunnels and it was so well disguised that he actually had to knock on the ground to find it.

We actually got to crawl through some of the tunnels too which was really cool because some of us (including me) could barely fit inside, and the tunnels had been expanded for tourist purposes, so I couldn't even imagine what they were like originally. Inside the tunnel system there would be a long tunnel and every once in a while it would open up into a room, there were dining rooms, sleeping areas, kitchens, medical rooms, work shops, etc. It was amazing to see all the different amenities these underground tunnel systems had.

For Dinner on Saturday, we went to a restaurant that was just down the block from the hotel. It was very good. Three of us ordered a tuna soup with rice noodles. The first soup came and it had the tail of the tuna in it. The second soup cam and it had a nice filet of tuna from the body of the fish. Then my soup came and it had the head of the tuna...just the head. I was fine with it but it was still very shocking to receive my soup and just see a dead tuna staring back at me. After dinner we went to a bar that was situated on the 32nd floor of a sky scraper and that was an incredible experience. the view was amazing. there was also an outdoor patio, and I guess there isn't very much wind that high up because the weather was perfect.