Day  Twenty-Two

It really just keeps getting better and better. I am currently on my flight from Saigon to Hong Kong where we will join up with some classmates that have been traveling through China for the past three weeks. We have left the budget airlines behind (thank the lord) and are now flying Cathay Pacific who has a fabulous in-flight entertainment system. We are also on a much larger plane with probably 300 some people. Must be a highly traveled route between the two cities to warrant a plane this big.

Backtracking through the last few days in Vietnam, on Thursday we went and toured a waste management factory which as you can imagine smelled like the sewer. They tried to explain to us that garbage here is much more wet given the poor infrastructure and amount of fresh things that go into it like fruits and whatnot that make it so disgusting. Don’t take our dry trash for granted in the United States anyone because we do NOT want this type of trash floating around our country. The center recycles what plastic and cardboard it can since there is really no other recycling across the city. I don’t really know what happens to everything else, all I know is there is trash everywhere and I could have done without this particular class visit.

After this was one of the best experiences of the trip. We went to cu chi and crawled through the tunnels that the Viet Cong used during the Vietnam War. This entire area was wooded and jungly with several tunnel entrances still intact as well as trap doors hidden throughout. You can see some of the pictures below that show us crawling through the tunnels (which I am told have been widened a bit to accommodate tourists but you can still see how small they are) as well as people going down through trap doors. We also got a lesson in booby traps which was all kinds of frightening and disturbing. So barbaric and simple yet effective. Who needs modern technology when you can just get em with wood and nails? Our tour guide all week actually fought for the South during the war and had some fascinating stories to tell us about his time spent in reeducation camps and his experience with training and fighting and capture. It was truly riveting.

tiny tiny trap door

Garrett going though such hole

part of the tunnel system

Yeah, you can shoot AK47s and M60s..

Julia and Laura crawling the tunnels in front of me

Thursday evening we had a girl’s dinner at a fantastic Italian restaurant as we were in much need of anything not Asian. We tend to have segregated dinners for whatever reason, boys one place girls the other and then meeting at some chosen spot thereafter. From here, we went to a rooftop bar at the Caravelle hotel where we listened/danced to Latin music. Lots of dancers on this trip, we always have a fantastic time when we get anywhere with live music and any version of a dance floor.

Caravelle Bar

Friday morning we visited a bakery/food company, Kinh Do, as well as a pharmaceutical company. It’s interesting how regulations are different in different parts of the world. The pharmaceutical company literally let us wash our hands, wear doctor-like getups, and wander around the facility where they were processing and packaging drugs. In our child-like state, we called each other Nurse Ramirez or Dr. Fan as we walked around looking at enormous quantities of pills and other drug components. I get the feeling that would never fly in the United States…

Friday afternoon we had some time off and Lisa and I covered some serious ground shopping around Saigon. It is really popular to get clothes made here because it is so cheap so naturally all of us found tailors in the area to get random things made. Lisa got a few dresses and I got a silk robe that’s white, and magenta, and green. So lovely and fun because it is truly my size. That evening we had another girl’s dinner at a popular Thai place and met up with the boys at our favorite Vietnamese bar- Saloon 17. It was just as entertaining the second time around because not only did the band remember us but many of my classmates sang along with them giving the entire bar quite the show. After this, we went to a bar called Apocalypse Now (how fitting) where we stayed out until 3:30 or so dancing and being crazy kids.

loading the boat for the river cruise

Saturday morning was a rough one as we all rolled out of bed around 7:30 to go visit the Mekong Delta which is known as Vietnam’s ‘rice basket’. Here we took a nice boat ride down the river where we could look at the coastline and enjoy a nice morning. We got off at a few different places where we rode canoes similar to the one’s in Indonesia down a canal and another where we watched them make coconut candy and snake wine (super creepy). We then got off at a third stop to enjoy a nice lunch complete with an entire fish placed in the center of the table. It decided to pour rain while we ate so most of us got wet due to our beachy hut not quite being adequate for blowing water. We ultimately had to buy ponchos just to get back to the boat/bus to begin the long ride home unless you wanted to ride home in damp clothes. Steven and I had to relocate to the front of the bus because our seats had crazy amounts of cold air blowing at us which we dealt with on the way there but were in no mood to deal with on the way back in our tired, damp state.

Riding in canoes

snake wine, creeeeepppy

Our lunch

Saturday evening we had a nice big group dinner in honor of Garrett’s birthday at a local brew house. I need to be better about keeping track of names; this was a really neat place with twinkle lights and kind of an open air feel. I wish I had pictures- many of the boys ordered full liters of beer while Laura and I had to settle for our baby half liters. We have been really good about ordering a wide variety of dishes at dinner so everyone can sample different things. I ordered crab spring rolls which unfortunately came with the claws poking out of them. If you know anything about me, you know that I do not like to eat things that look like they were when they were alive (think peeling shrimp, clams, etc.) it really weirds me out so this was a stretch. From here some people went out for one last night on the town, my crowd decided to go bowling which turned into a boys against girls match. Naturally the boys won, I am convinced bowling is kind of like golf where it is just a totally different game between the boys and the girls and it’s tough to compare. 

Packing sucked per the usual. Kermit is sooooo extremely heavy. I think I am still under the weight limit but just barely. I’ve started to transfer weight to my carryon bags which doesn’t do me much good because then I have to cart them through the terminals. I seem to be collecting things that I’m worried will get broken in a checked back so I hoard them in my purse through the airports. We are beginning our final descent into Hong Kong- it is absolutely beautiful. The runway literally starts at the shoreline which is making me anxious. The plane has a camera on the bottom of it so you can watch what’s happening on your tv as we fly through the skies which is pretty cool. It will be weird to mix in with familiar yet distant faces from the China crew today and see how the group dynamics change. Here’s to one last final hurrah - Becca

Views from my hotel room

so cool

Hello Hong Kong