Saigon

June 4 Vietnam time

I'm writing this almost a week later. Probably don't remember all my first impressions and things like that at this point.

So as I mentioned before, we got on the bus at 7:30am and made our way to Saigon. I talked about driving into Vietnam and what I saw in the last post which makes me happy because I forgot I ha and I was scared I would have to remember all of that.

We were on the bus for 4 hours I think. When we arrived in Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh city, we had a bit to freshen up and go up to our rooms. Then we met downstairs and headed off for our whirl wind tour of Ho Chi Minh. We stopped for lunch first of course. At this point we were all starving so we made a pretty important pit stop for the Americans for lunch.

In Ho Chi Minh we were saying goodbye to some people from our group and gaining more people. 3 of the people from our next group had already arrived and we met them (Katrina, Saskia, and Andy) and they came around the city with us.

The important pit stop for lunch was a restaurant called Pho 2000. This is basically a fast food pho place. President Clinton and Chelsea came and ate here in 2000 for lunch because they were staying at a hotel just down the way. There was a picture on the wall and you can still sit in the same seat they sat in. Ashleigh was Clinton and Imaad was Chelsea. They took some great imitation photos.

This was the first pho I've ever had I think. It sounds like pho is served a lot in many places, I just must not go there ha. It is basically rice noodles in a soup with beef or chicken or seafood or veggies/tofu. It also has fresh herbs in it and then you add chili sauce or fish sauce to flavor it. I got chicken pho. It was pretty good. Now, 5 days later, I've had better pho.

I have no idea what I was expecting from Ho Chi Minh city, but it wasn't what we saw. It is very metropolitan. There are little parks and lots of green areas but there are also tall buildings and posh bars and shopping areas and hotels. It actually reminded me of Washington DC kind of. There were some streets that were similar feeling to walking down the streets in DC that were lined with cherry blossom trees.

Matt took us to benh thanh market which is only a few blocks long and it is covered. We only stood outside of it, we didn't go shop. We saw the reunification palace. Matt said most of the floors are really boring but that in the basement there are maps and plans of all the strategies for the Vietnam War which is supposed to be really cool. unfortunately i didn't have enough time to see this. The gate is also very famous because a famous photo was taken there the day after the US troops left Vietnam in 1975. There are 9 tanks smashing through the gate to rip down the old flag and replace it with the new one.

He took us to the Rex hotel which I also don't remember too much about but it was popular during the French occupation and a lot of presidents have stayed there. Outside of the Rex hotel is a huge statue of Ho Chi Minh. Ho Chi Minh is pretty much their demi god. He is on all the money. He was very driven and learned Chinese script at a young age to be educated. He was the right hand man of Lenin and then he went to France and or Britain to study I think. He lived in the US and Britain and worked as a cook for some time. He had a lot of power at a very young age it sounds like. While in France he helped develop communist parties. He was the president and head leader of the war for the north as well. We also saw the opera house and city hall. These weren't too impressive compared to the ones in Europe.

Vietnam was originally colonized by the French and you can really see the French colonial style in their architecture. There is also a Notre Dame in Ho Chi Minh. Again, it is not as impressive or as large as the one in Paris, but I guess it is made out of pieces taken directly from the real Notre Dame. All the stained glass windows are also blown out of it so it isn't stolen.

Across the street from the Notre Dame is the post office. I think of all the buildings we saw this one was probably the most impressive. It actually looks like a train station. The inside is very nice as well. I think it had marble floors and the ATMs were set up to look like the London telephone booths. Inside the post office there is also a huge map of Vietnam. Until the 1930s, South Vietnam used to be part of Cambodia. On the map you can see where they did a poor job of trying to cover up the letters of Cambodia. They then slapped South Vietnam on there. It's pretty tacky that they didn't even bother to try to replace the map.

He also took us to Cantinental hotel and the bak packers area near de tham and pham ngu lao streets which is where we were going to have dinner. After the tour which was maybe a few hours and full of dripping sweatiness, we headed back to the hotel.

I just took the time to rest. At 6pm all the new people were going to have their welcome meeting with Matt and then we were heading for dinner at 7pm.

Saigon at night is like a mini New York City with all the flashing lights/colored lights and signs and bill boards and everything. There are also so many motor bikes! The population of Ho Chi Minh is 9 million and there are 5.3 million motor bikes. It's insane. Even during the day there are a millions of motor bikes. The streets are crazy.

The name changed from Saigon to Ho Chi Minh city in 1975. Saigon was the capital of south Vietnam so they changed it when the Viet coms won the war. They are also called Viet Congs I think. They have many names.

We met all the new people and all 22 of us ventured out for dinner. Matt took us to a place that had amazing food. Sandra and I split some spring rolls which weren't actually too great. It was a lot of lettuce and just tasted pretty much like lettuce. For dinner I ordered fried rice with pineapple, shrimp, and chicken in it. It came in a whole pineapple. It was a beautiful display and it tasted amazing. I was so glad I ordered it. I also got a drink that was called PS I Love You. It had Baileys and Amaretto and something else in it and it tasted great. This also came out looking amazing. It was in a martini glass and had I <3 U written on top of it in cursive. There was also a carrot heart on the side. The carrot was a little strange but okay.

On the way home, we decided to go out because it was the last night with our original group. I had a White Russian. Honestly, drinking here is not nearly as fulfilling as it is at home. The drinks are a lot smaller and have less alcohol... But maybe I just have a skewed idea because of the superb treatment we get at the angle from Brandon and his staff.

Going out was really fun. Imaad, Ashleigh, Leanne, Katrina, and I all played a few games of pool. I really suck haha. We kept switching teams and it was always the 3 Americans versus other people but Ashleigh traded teams because she wanted to win. It ended up being Imaad and I against everyone else. We had a lot of fun goofing off and dancing and being silly. I am pretty sure we entertained everyone watching. I think it was the most fun evening out I've had.

It was pretty sad saying goodbye to the original gang. Everyone got along really well and it was great because there were no groups and everyone did everything together. Now that we are a week into the trip with the next group, I have been able to tell a pretty big difference between the groups. Everyone is still great and really nice but there is more of a separation. It is also interesting because we went from having 7 people from North America to having 3. We had a wide range of countries people came from in the last group as well and now of the 16 of us there are 2 from Canada, 1 from Holland, 1 from Australia and me. Everyone else is from the UK. Everyone from the UK is pretty close and there is a group of girls and Ed who really do everything together. There's no drama though so that's really all I can ask for.

These are the people I'm traveling with for the whole 30 days:
1. Robyn and Courtney. They're my age and they're from Canada. They live in Alberta. Courtney ice skates and Robyn plays volleyball.
2. Sarah and Cara. They are both from the UK. I think Sarah is 20 and Cara is 19. Cara lives in Bath and really wants to be an actress. They met at a theater class. Sarah lives in a different city that i cant remember the name of pretty far away from Cara. It is Sarah's first time traveling but Cara has traveled before to South America and climbed Macchu Pichu among other things.
3. Ed. Ed is 19 and he is also from the UK. This is his first time in Asia and I think he said really his first time traveling. On the first part of the trip he was the only boy do he is getting spoiled with attention, especially from Cara and Sarah. He loves it.
4. Matt. Of course, there's Matt. He's our CEO. He's great. Honestly 100 times better than Zahid but he has also been doing this for 5 years with intrepid and due to politics changed over to g adventures. He has been traveling in Southeast Asia for 25 years. So really, he should be amazing at his job. He lived for 5 or 6 years in the US, was born in the UK, lived in Australia and New Zealand for a while. He's so organized and really knows his stuff. He has led 88 tours now (not just this one). When we asked him if it ever got boring he said no because its always a different group so it's so different. But, this is a little random, there is a line in the movie "27 Dresses" that says that she loves looking down the aisle at the groom when the bride walks through the door instead of at the bride like everyone else and Matt said something along these lines with traveling and being a tour guide that I really liked to hear. He said his favorite part is taking us places he has seen a million times and watching our faces light up when we see how cool it is. You can tell Matt really loves his job. It's also nice because when we go out he eats and drinks with us too which Zahid rarely stuck around for such occasions.

Mars is the only person traveling for 20 days. She's 37 and she's really fun and youthful. She's from Melbourne, Australia. She takes more pictures than I do I think and she is a foodie. Her parents are originally from Croatia so she also speaks Croatian.. If that is the language?

The people I traveled with through Cambodia for 10 days:
1. Imaad and Ashleigh. They're also my age. They just graduated from NYU. Ashleigh got we degree in directing and Imaad was premed. He is going to Texas in the fall for med school. He is originally from Houston I think and Ashleigh is originally from Missouri maybe? They're both really fun. It's always nice to have Americans around. Imaad was flying back to Texas just to turn around and fly back to India with his parents and sister to see his grandparents for 10 days. How painful do those travel days sound, ha.
2. April. I think I've already talked about April. She's a nurse in London but she is from Ireland. Shes looking to change jobs though.She is hilarious and such a fun person to be around. I was really glad she was my roomie. She's 29.
3. Sandra. She is also 29. She's a trauma surgeon. It's not ER, just any trauma. She really wants to specialize in shoulder and elbow surgery though. Sandra is from Germany. Also very sweet and nice and fun to be around.
4. Kristen. Kristen is from San Diego and is 35. She's an oncologist. She's only been practicing for 2 years since med school and all that jazz. She was really nice and I really enjoyed talking with her. She eats a lot of Asian food at home so she was loving the food.
5. Liz. She is also 29 and she is from Mexico City. She's studying abroad in Scotland right now for her MBA. She also got the opportunity to study in Shang hai from The university in Scotland so she came from and was flying back there. She had class the day after she got back!

I'll write about the new people toward the end of Vietnam so I can get to know them a little more.

Matt gave us a bunch of information, as always, about Vietnam.

81% of the country is Buddhist. It's more from a confusionism influence though so it isn't the real Buddhism. Matt said that confusionism actually contradicts Buddhism. The women work and the men drink and play cards while the women think they are working. Drinking is a huge problem in Vietnam.

10% of Vietnam is Christian. There are random tombs in the middle of the fields. This is where they burry family members. There have also been a few large graveyard type areas. It's really weird to see that here. It's not very common and definitely not something you're expecting to see.

Vietnam is #1 exporter of rice in the world. India is #2. USA is #3. Thailand used to be #1 but they had bad crops because of the flood. Vietnams coffee is #2 for exportation in te world... Columbia being #1. Some other top exporting goods for Vietnam include the pepper plant and rubber trees. They are #3 for sugar.

Most of the countries over here are technically communist even though there are different names for the parties. In Cambodia you can vote, but as I already mentioned its not really voting for who you want. There is a lot of corruption everywhere it sounds like.

This is confusing so I'm not sure it's correct. In 1945, Hanoi was the center of Indochina (Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam). The 9 year was was then started when the Vietnamese rebels came tried to take over and France was upset and wanted Indochina back. The French lost the war in 1954. I think I'm missing something after this. In 1954 a lot of the heads of states went to Geneva. But then from 1954 to 1959 a bunch of CIA operatives were underground in Laos and northern Vietnam. Vietnam was now receiving arms from Russia and the Americans tried to stop the route. At the same time, Vietnam is training what will become the Khmer Rouge as well as the Laotian army to fight the Americans. At the time they weren't these groups yet. 1973 was the last B52 bombing in Cambodia which stopped the supply line from the Russians.

Random:
Naga is the snake protector in Cambodia. We saw it at the entrance to Angkor Wat. Bonhisattva is the protector in Vietnam. It is a large woman statue. Each city or area has its own protector for Buddhism. The Buddhism they practice in Cambodia and Vietnam is a variation of the older an more traditional Buddhism of India, Nepal, and China. Matt said there are 4 types.