| | "Standing in front of the black wall, lots
of names carved in
Trying to make a little bit of sense of it all, where do I begin" ~Bill
Mallonee
A couple of weeks ago, I went to Vietnam. It was Chusok here, Korean
Thanksgiving, and so we had a week off of school, and a group of 6 decided to
head off. There were 4 teachers and 2 dorm staff on the trip. Me
and Eric proudly represented the dorm staff, while Brian, Julie, Angela, and
Liz were the teachers. Brian and Julie did an incredible job of planning
the trip with handful of touristy sites and what not, and also we had some time
to chill out.
We arrived in Ho Chi Minh city
late Saturday night to stay at a 5 star hotel called the Omni, let me just say
it was ridiculously nice, and yet affordable. It was the type of place where I
felt awkward walking through the lobby, because I was under dressed. Not
my typical style of travel, but considering I'll probably never afford to
travel like that any where else in the world, I didn't mind at all. Everything
was super cheap in Vietnam
by the way. Ho Chi Minh is more commonly known to westerners as Saigon,
and when talking to our tour guide about it he said that the people of Saigon
prefer to call it Saigon, so that's how I'll
refer to it from now on.
You can't visit Vietnam
with out visiting the effects of the Vietnam war. I won't dignify the
word war with a capital W. So it's about 50 years, and man, I wish I had
paid more attention in high school history class, because seeing the impact you
can't help but be moved. I wish I could explain how I was moved, or what
emotions I felt, but it was all so jumbled, it's hard to express, but I'll do
my best. That first day we visited the War Remnants
Museum, which basically
just a small museum with photos from the war and facts about it.
From there we took these funny little bike rickshaws that seat one person, but
of course they had us put 2 people on it, to the market. Where of course
the drivers tried to scam me out of money right away. The market was
pretty standard as far as South East Asia goes, lot's of shops all selling the
same touristy things, and lots of people trying to call you into their shop to
buy whatever it is they have; and once your in, the game of negotiation begins.
It's funny though, because of the exchange rate, once you're in that situation
you find yourself negotiating for a few cents, it's all kind of frustrating
actually. After that we went back to the hotel to go swimming and
celebrate being in Saigon.
The next day 2 days we had a tour guide named Binh (pronounced Ben), which mean
Peace in Vietnamese. He was a really cool guy. First thing he did
was take us to a factory where handicapped people would make
"paintings" out of egg shell, which they oddly had painted on all the
signs for the place.
From there Binh took us to the CuChi tunnels. This part of the trip
was crazy, actually seeing the tunnels, seeing the craters in the ground from
bombs dropped. There was a point early on in the tour where they let us
crawl through an actual tunnel (they also had a tourist tunnel later on in the
tour). So Brian, Julie, and myself squeezed through the small hole
to get into the tunnel, I came out on the other side covered in mud, and I had
been smacked in the head numerous times by bats, lots of bats. It was
awesome.
Then they showed us just how the Viet Cong (VC)
had survived during the war, and just what their lives looked like. These
people, they new their business. They showed us some the crazy traps they
would set up, how they would make the tunnels and traps, and even
clothing. They had sandals made from old car tires, which you can still
buy. So when we reached the tourist tunnels I was following a guard who
was leading us through, and this guy was a good 6 inches taller than me, and he
was running through the tunnels like they were nothing, I was thoroughly
impressed. Ok, as some of you may know, I had never fired a gun,
ever. I am not a fan of anything designed for the sole purpose of killing
(I realize I just made a controversial statement). I have a confession;
I can no longer say I have never fired a gun. At the end of the tour they
have guns that you can pay to fire. So it's true I have fired a gun, but
in my defense it was AK47, I mean, how many times ever would I get a chance to
fire one? I also fired an M16. Now that brings into question the
morbidity of going on a tour about war, and then firing an assault rifle at the
end. Well I don't have answer except I like to try new things.
So on the way back to our hotel from the tunnels we stopped
at a rest stopped. So everywhere you go, you see these bottles with a yellow
liquid, and a dead cobra inside, also sometimes other snakes and
scorpions. I thought it was just for show, so I made a joke with the lady
at the counter, "you drink it right?" Thinking I was being
funny, and she says, "would you like to try some?" Keeping in
mind what I have just written about trying new things, it was pretty much a
must do. So Brian and I drank a small bit of Cobra Juice straight out of
the bottle on the counter, and now I am pretty sure I have super powers.
Either I can read minds or I am hearing voices, either way, it's awesome!
The next day Binh took us on a boat tour of the Saigon delta, one of our first stops was at a Chinese temple
for Taoism. Talk about interesting, so the burn TONS of incense there,
and they believe the smoke brings their prayers to God. Then they will
pray as they shake a box of sticks with numbers on them and then when a stick
falls out they take 2 blocks and throw them on the ground, if the blocks match
up, they know they have the right stick. They take their stick to the
front desk where there a bunch of numbered pieces of paper with fortunes on
them, and that's how they find out what's going to happen to them. Wild
eh?
After that he took us to some small islands and villages where I got to hold a
python and where we took a canoe ride through the jungle wearing those cool
hats you see in Vietnam
so often. At one point we reached a bridge, but we could get under it
because the tide was in and there was another boat stuck on the other side, so
we all got out of our boat and jumped into the other one in order to get it to
sink low enough to pass under the bridge, but alas, I am just not big
enough.
The next day we caught a small plane to the Island of Phu Quoc. We stayed at a pretty
nice resort while we were there, in beach side bungalows. So it was kind
of weird though, it was a lot like a ghost town. The resort was kind of
worn down, and empty. It could be that it was the off season, but it was
still kind of creepy, like the town was dying or something. On the upside,
we basically had the beach to ourselves for a few days. I of course, got a sunburn the very first
day. I also can now say that I have been
naked in the China Sea! After a couple of days we grabbed a plane
back to Saigon and then flew home to Korea. It was an amazing trip!
I want to write a little bit about an observation I made
while I was there about the people. They
were amazing, the service was above and beyond, and the people were so nice and
kind especially to tourists. For
example, the traffic in Saigon is INSANE,
there are no lights or traffic signals you just go and there are thousands of
scooters everywhere, and if you want to cross the street, you just walk across
slowly as cars and bikes driving around you.
If a police man sees a tourist though, he will run and stop traffic so
they can cross the street. Granted that’s
a small thing, but in so many other areas the people are so nice, waiters will
just be really friendly, people will let you go first in line, etc etc. It’s all kind of unnerving actually, because
in theory these people should hate Americans.
I asked Binh about it, and he tells us that the people in Vietnam have
learned from the destruction of war and don’t want to repeat it. Bitterness doesn’t help. They don’t want the world to think of the Vietnamese
as the people from war time, but see them as the loving and welcoming people
they are. He explained to me that his
people were really just “chess pieces” during that time; their homes were
ripped apart for a game of chess between communism and democracy. I don’t know how to feel. It wasn’t my generation, but it all defined a
generation. I guess I just hope to learn
from them, learn to forgive and love, even when people don’t deserve it.
While thinking of wars that defined a generation, please
throw up prayer for Kristy Grant, she’s headed off to Iraq.
Thanks for the prayers, keep it real.
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