Vietnam Through Chris's Eyes

Interesting Things While At Sea:
Once away from Malaysia, we stayed at one end of the Straights of Malacca doing man overboard drills and doughnuts until the sun went down. At around 1900 hours we all headed out to the back of the ship and the engines revved up. We headed down the Straights of Malacca at a blistering 30 knots to avoid any potential pirates. Additionally, crew members were stationed throughout the ship with fire hoses in case any pirates thought that the MV Explorer would be a fun challenge. Luckily we made it through without any trouble and arrived in Singapore in the morning to begin bunkering (refueling). After spending the day refueling, we were off to Vietnam. I was a bit disappointed to be so close to Singapore without the chance to visit, but I hope to go back there as a tourist some time in the near future. The arrival in Vietnam was quite beautiful because we had to cruise through the Mekong Delta. It was some of the most beautiful landscape that we have visited, but I will go into much greater detail later in this post.

Vietnam:
We (Alex, Alissa, Jay, I) began our visit to Vietnam with a trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels. Our first stop was a lunch stop along a tributary to the Mekong. The food was a delicious traditional Vietnamese feast complete with an interesting array of seafood. The most interesting part of the lunch was meeting a woman who was ranked 57th in the world at minesweeper. She completed the difficult level one (100 mines) in 74 seconds! After lunch, we headed to the Cu Chi Tunnels. This was an elaborate web of tunnels constructed during the Vietnam War, in which the Vietcong forces, lived, fought, and housed ammunition. It was like a huge army base that was fit in tiny, hand-built tunnels underground. This visit really brought the horrors of war to my attention. I pictured what it would be like to be there as a soldier fighting against an enemy which you knew little about in a land that you knew much less about. It was also quite interesting to hear the Vietnamese take on the war. It was hard to hear them call the American soldiers enemies and fascinating to hear the Vietcong referred to as heroes and freedom fighters. The most powerful moment of my visit to the Cu Chi Tunnels was passing by an American Tank that had been blown up and left there. It was really hard for me knowing that some kids my age had died at that site. After seeing some booby traps and entrances to the Cu Chi Tunnels, we headed to a shooting range. I thought it the most absurd and somewhat offensive thing that they would have a shooting range at the battle site of a war. Once the other students had satisfied their desire to shoot an AK-47, we got the opportunity to finally enter a tunnel. The size of the tunnels was quite amazing, and a bit claustrophobic. There was very little space to move around and you had to squat to get anywhere. I feel bad for anyone who had to live in there and worse for the soldiers who had to fight in there. You could not see a thing, even with the lighting throughout the public passages. When then headed back to the ship. Once back, we ate dinner and then headed off to the tailor to get some suits ordered. Alex and Jay ordered a suit, Alissa ordered a skirt suit and I ordered two suits. It was a fun trust-building exercise. After getting the suits ordered we wandered the streets of Ho Chi Minh City, ending up at the Ben Than night market. Ho Chi Minh City is quite an experience. Vietnam has more motorbikes than you could possibly imagine and at the same time, doesn’t really follow many of the same traffic laws that we are used to in The States. Crossing the street consists of just walking out and letting the motorbikes find a way around you. Again a bit of trust was needed for this to work. We managed to find the market safely and spend a fair amount of money on polo shirts and other souvenirs.
The following morning I woke up at 4:15 and headed out on my adventure to Hanoi and Ha Long Bay. This was my first big trip without any members of the family, but I did have some friends (Jess and Heather) on the trip with me. We began with a flight on Vietnam Airlines to Hanoi. Once we arrived in Hanoi we were taken to the Hanoi Hilton. This was not a pleasant hotel, but a prison that was used by the French during their years of colonization and by the Vietcong during the Vietnam War. It was quite an interesting place and looked like a scene straight out of hell. The men that were imprisoned there (including John McCain) were kept with their feet shackled on a slanted wood bed. All the men that were imprisoned there were tortured using various methods which I hesitate to describe in this blog. It was very interesting to see the propaganda of the Vietnamese government, describing the Americans as well treated and the Vietnamese who were imprisoned as political prisoners. The most amazing sights of the Hanoi Hilton were both John McCain’s flight suit from the day he was shot down and imprisoned and a guillotine that was used by the French for capital punishment. It is hard to think that we can be so cruel to fellow human beings. After visiting the Hanoi Hilton we headed to a Confucian temple, where Ho Chi Minh and many other political leaders got their inspiration and wisdom. It was a very beautiful temple with a lot of history. After lunch at a local restaurant, we headed on a 3 hour bus ride to Ha Long Bay. It was a scenic bus ride with typical scenes of Vietnamese countryside and rice paddies. Once we arrived at the Grand Ha Long Hotel, we headed off to the local street market. After dinner at the hotel, we once again ventured out to the night market and had a great time buying some more souvenirs. It is amazing how cheap things are in Vietnam. It is very weird, though, to spend thousands of dong and it only being a few dollars (the exchange rate was 16000 dong = 1 dollar).
The following morning was another early one. Slava (first time roommate wasn’t alex) and I woke up at 6:30 and headed to an early breakfast. After breakfast we headed to the marina where we boarded the Junk (Chinese sailboat) to head to the amazing natural sculptures. Our first stop was at some caves in the heart of the bay. The caves were a little too touristy for me, but they were still pretty spectacular. After the caves, we boarded the junk again and toured the various outcroppings. Ha Long Bay means the bay of descending dragons because the cliffs that spring up from the sea look like a dragon’s tail. After a seafood dinner onboard the vessel and some swimming by some of the more adventurous voyagers, we headed back to the bus for our long ride back to Hanoi. Once in Hanoi, Jess, Heather, Douglas, Amy and I headed off on our own for the evening. We went shopping and had a meal at the Sofitel Hotel. It was nice to break free from the group for a little while.
The next morning was our city orientation to Hanoi. Our first stop was Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum and former residence. It was so strange to see a dead person laying in display like that. The interesting thing is that he actually wanted to be cremated, but it is against the culture of Vietnamese to cremate so they decided to make him permanently on display instead. His house was beautiful and simple. It was a two story, two room building that overlooked a large pond. After touring his home and the surrounding area, we went to the Vietnam War Museum. Again, this was a very powerful exhibit of the horrors of war and the ways in which the winning side gets to decide how history is remembered. The most moving part, for me, was seeing the collage of US airplanes that had been collected and thrown together to make a piece of art. After getting a few hours to roam around Hanoi, we got on the Boeing 777 and headed back to Ho Chi Minh City. Once in Ho Chi Minh City, I met up with my parents and we toured the city. I was their official bargainer, but I also purchased a beautiful painting of Ha Long Bay for only 25 dollars.
Our last day in Vietnam was spent at the Mekong Delta. After about an hour long bus ride, we (Alex, Alissa, Jay, Sheryl and I) arrived and boarded a 20 foot motor boat. Our first stop was a honey factory. We had traditional Vietnamese tea with honey and some rice wine. Our next stop was at a fruit restaurant of sorts. We tried many native Vietnamese fruits; my favorite was the pineapple. We then got on some small traditional 4 person, hand-powered boats and rowed through a small waterway. We then transferred to a medium size motor boat (12 ft) and headed to a coconut candy factory. The candy was so tasty and we all ended up buying quite a lot. Our last stop on the Mekong Delta day trip was lunch on an island in the middle of the delta. It was a very interesting Vietnamese lunch complete with octopus pho and fried Elephant-Ear Fish. After driving back to the ship, we headed out to get our suits and spend our last bit of time in Ho Chi Minh City. We got to the tailor and tried on all of our suits and to our great surprise everything fit and looked beautiful. We then looked around for some last minute souvenirs and headed back to the ship for dinner. The ship spent the night in Vietnam and we were off on our way to Hong Kong early the next morning.

Things I’ve Learned In Vietnam:
-In Vietnam, you can be a millionaire in one ATM withdrawal.
-A little dong can go a long way.
-Birds got their design for their nests from Vietnamese telephone poles.
-Just start walking and don’t stop or go backwards.
-Trust can get you across a crowded street.
-Even though you may not know what it is, chances are it tastes good.
-Just because its called Elephant-Ear, doesn’t mean it can’t be eaten.
-You can really buy a fully tailored suit for $70.
-Enemy to one person may be freedom fighter to another.
-Enemy is a matter of opinion.
-Everyone who died in those statistics was a living, breathing human being with a story.