Vietnam: Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon

We got to Ho Chi Minh City aka Saigon on Friday the 26th.  We were told we’d have to get up for 0730 to get our passports and a landing card. My alarm went off at 0700 and I kept hitting snooze, waiting for the announcement over the loudspeaker.  At 0730 I realized I should probably just get up.  I felt like we were still moving and I looked out the window to see we were still cruising down the channel.  Tania and I got back into bed and slept for another hour.  So glorious.We got up at 0815 to grab breakfast before it ended at 0830.  While at breakfast they started calling us by our seas to come get our passport and landing card up in the Glazer Lounge.  I took a quick shower and got my stuff.  At 0930 we had a diplomatic briefing about Vietnam.  Nothing too special or useful.  Nic, Tania, Becca, and I had to be off the ship by 1045 to get on a bus to go to the Cu Chi Tunnels.  I was supposed to be going on the last day in Ho Chi Minh, but one of our friends was trying to get rid of his ticket for that day and I wanted to go with my friends.  Easy enough.  I got to catch up with Mom, Dad, and Scott for a little bit before the ship was cleared for us to get off.  We grabbed smoothies and water up on the 7th deck and got off the ship.Wow. It was so hot, humid, and sticky.  This was so different from China and Hong Kong.  I literally could not get over the fact that 2 days ago it was  normal weather.  This was worse than Miami in August.  Who thought it could possibly get worse?  Not I.  And apparently it gets worse here, this isn’t really bad.We got onto the bus, which really didn’t have air conditioning.Oh, I should mention that a lot of people’s parents were visiting here.  This was the scheduled SAS Parent Trip.  A bunch of them were here.  None of my friends had parents coming.  One of the SAS trips to Cambodia was a parent trip.  A ton of people were going to Cambodia.  All of our good guy friends were going.  It made me think at first that maybe I wanted to go to Cambodia, too.  I was a little disappointed I wasn’t going.  Mom and Dad, I don’t think you would have enjoyed the heat and humidity here in Vietnam, as much as I would have loved to see you.We got to see a little bit of Saigon as we drove to the tunnels.  The city has much smaller buildings than where we’ve been.  They were shorter and more rundown.  Both men and women were out on the streets selling sunglasses books, drinks, almost anything you could think of.  The streets were covered with motorbikes, that’s the big thing here.  There are cars, vans, and SUVs, too.  But there are about 30 bikes to every one car you see.  Some of the stores were sketchy looking with souvenirs.  Right next to these were silk stores and stores from back home like Gucci and Versace.So we got on the bus to go to Cu Chi Tunnels.  It was about a 2 hour drive. One of the teachers leading the trip had his 2 kids along with him.  Halfway through the ride he walked back with his 10 year old daughter and left us on entertainment duty.  She’s cute and funny, so it wasn’t bad.  We stopped for lunch.  Vietnamese style.  It was pretty good, but seafood was in random things and there was fried fish.  The place we ate at was outside in the heat.  It was an open sided wooden structure.  It was a ways out of the city in a rural area.  It was along a little muddy river.  Everything was so green and lush with beautiful pink and white flowers around everywhere.  I would call this the adjustment period where I just sweated and hated the heat.  But everyone was disgusting and sweaty, so I accepted it.After lunch we got back on the bus and arrived at the Tunnels.  We had a tour guide named Tam.  He took us to an large dug out rectangle with a thatched roof.  We watched a movie on the Vietnam War and the tunnels.  There was also a cross-view replica of the tunnels.  The video was old school and black and white.  It was narrated in English by a woman with a British accent, but it was clearly Vietnamese.  They refer to the war as the American War.  The video also kept mentioning how they would reward the “American killers.”  They loved this phrase.I actually felt like I had a decent background on the Vietnam War, thank you, Mr. Snyder.The Tunnels were used by the Vietcong and they lived underground in them for years.  It wasn’t just those fighting either, it was families.  There were kitchen rooms, sleeping rooms, rooms that connected to rivers, everything.  The tunnels had 3 different levels and they had to have little tunnels or holes that led down to each level for air.  People lived in these, got married in them, had children in them, and anything else you can imagine.  It was so crazy.We took a tour around, it was woods and tons of trees and cracked dirt.  It was really weird to think about men running through these woods and grounds avoiding bombs and gun shots.  There were bomb craters everywhere. One of the men who worked there showed us a trap door/torture device.  It was a door that led to a pit of spikes underneath.  It was creepy and somewhat awesome.We came to one of the entrances to the tunnels.  It was a little bigger than the size of a shoe box.  It had a cover over it that was water tight to keep the rain from flooding the tunnels.  One of the men who worked there demonstrated how you got into the tunnel.  I can’t believe people would fit down there.  Although the Vietnamese do seem to be really small.  They let a few people try it.  You had to pull leaves over the cover and then squeeze down.  When it was completely closed with the leaves you never would have known that they were there.We saw a few other entrances that had been widened for us to see into them.  We got to see a few manikins set up in a camp next to a tank.  They would walk around outside for a good part of the day and enjoy the day.  At this location the bombings by the Americans were scheduled and pretty regular so they knew when to be underground.They showed us a few of the torture devices they used.  It was creepy to see these.  They seemed really proud of them, which was even creepier.  They all had paintings behind them showing just how they were used.  And the pictures were pretty graphic.We got to go down into one of the tunnels.  It was almost pitch black and none of us remembered to bring flashlights.  It was dark and dusty.  You had to walk hunched over and almost crawl at some points of it.  It went into all different directions.  I can’t imagine being down in one of those.  It was creepy enough for a few minutes.  One of the girls was freaking out and must have felt claustrophobic.  I could easily understand that.There was also a shooting range within the area and you could pay a few dollars to shoot different guns.  We decided to shoot an AK47.  We felt so badass.  They gave us the worst ear protection you could ever imagine, you were almost better off without it.  It was so cool to shoot a gun.  This was my first time ever shooting anything besides a squirt gun, so you can imagine my excitement.  We got some sweet pictures of us shooting the guns.After the tunnel we were given raw tapioca.  Not good.  It wasn’t the typical taste and way that you normally eat it in.  It had the consistency of dry, sticky coconut meat.  It really was not for me.  But that was what they ate most of the time.  We finished up our tour and got back on the bus for the ride back.  We continued entertainment duty.  At this point I would have preferred nap time.  She was not about to nap.Also, on the way to and from the tunnels we saw a ton of rubber trees.  We all learned that rubber comes from trees.  Something I didn’t realize.  But everyone seemed to be oblivious to this fact.When we got back to the ship we all decided we needed to shower before we went out for dinner.We dressed up semi nice and took a cab into the heart of the city.  We got majorly ripped off for the quick cab ride.  We were told they would try and screw us over because we’re American.  It actually made me want to punch the cab driver in the face.  They charged us a whole lot of dong.  Oh, yes, dong is the name of the currency in Vietnam.  Cue the jokes.  They don’t get old.  We spent the whole first day discussing how we needed to use dong to get into the Cu Chi Tunnels.  And 20,000 dong is equivalent to $1 USD.  So I took money out of the ATM, I was a millionaire.  I kid you not.We walked around a little bit.  We learned how to cross the street here.  There are designated cross walk areas.  But you don’t wait for traffic to stop.  You literally just walk into the street and walk briskly and confidently.  The motorbikes, bicycles and cars go around you.  They slow down or speed up or swerve.  It’s so weird.  I didn’t like this at all.  I kept thinking I was going to get hit by something.  It made me so nervous.We found a nice looking Italian restaurant.  The four of us went in.  Inside we found a few teachers and their families and kids.  They’re always telling us to go out and try new foods and stuff and there they were eating Italian, night one in Vietnam.I got spaghetti with meat sauce.  It was so good.  I was starving.  Tania didn’t feel too well so we ate quickly and left right after we finished.  As we stood up to go she said she was going to puke and run upstairs to the bathroom.  Becca and Nic had no idea, and I went after her.  They waited outside for us.  She puked a few places throughout the restaurant and finally made it to the bathroom.  She felt better after puking.  We were afraid that they’d notice and get mad at us for making a mess.  We creeped out and downstairs and NO ONE noticed.  We left as quickly as we could and grabbed a cab back to the ship.We decided it was best to not go out.  Tania and I had to leave early the next day for different trips.  I had to pack and get ready.  I got into bed and was asleep by 2000.  I had to get up the next day at 0315 to be ready to go at 0345 up north to Nha Trang