Today was a VERY early day. Ho Chi Minh City is not located along the coast, and to get to the port we had to sail up the Mekong River. I woke up at 5 AM to see the river. I grabbed my camera and headed up to the top deck. I was treated to an absolutely gorgeous view. The river was fairly narrow, and there were jungles on both sides. Dawn was approaching and the sky was very colorful. All the colors were reflected on the water in the river, and it was so beautiful. After about 30 minutes, we started seeing some fog. The jungles near us were shrouded in fog as the sun finally came up. It was a priceless view, probably one of the best sunrises I have ever seen in my life. There were hundreds of SAS kids on the top deck in awe of the sunrise…one of the faculty members was very impressed with the fact that about 200 students had woken up before the sunrise. But it was worth it. Several small boats sailed by, and we waved to all of them.
I went back down to my room and packed for our first day. Achal and I had done a lot of Lonely Planet reading, and we had found a very cool walking tour of the city. We were going to follow the tour, which hit up most of the famous sites in the city. We docked in the city a few hours later, and the port was right near downtown. We had a diplomatic briefing first by some US diplomats from the embassy. They told us the usual be-careful-travel-in-groups spiel. We grabbed our landing cards and got off the ship as quickly as we could and headed into the city. As soon as we left the port we were mobbed by a bunch of taxi drivers. After a few minutes of bargaining, we agreed to go to Backpacker's street with 2 of the motorcycle taxis. It was a lot of fun riding on the back of a motorcycle, and 10 minutes later we were there, map in hand.
We began our tour by walking along the street to a plaza. We arrived at the Ben Thanh Market soon thereafter. It was a huge indoor market, and as we walked through the entrance we were transported to a bustling, crowded market that sold everything from fruits to seafood to fake purses and t-shirts. We started shopping…I started with some T-shirts. I found some cool ones of Vietnam and I bargained them down to $1.50 a shirt. Then I bought some Vietnamese silk scarves, and some cool souvenirs. We walked around and found a few shops of fake purses, from Coach to Louis Vitton. I had a request for one so I started bargaining. In the first shop, I was able to bargain one from $55 down to $20, but it was still too expensive. After browsing several more shops, I finally got one shopkeeper down to $15, and it looked legitimate…hehe. Bargaining is fun. The shopkeeper looked rather upset with my bargaining, I don't think she expected me to be so stubborn. I stuck to my price of $15 and she finally reluctantly gave it to me. We were pretty hungry by now, so we crossed the street to eat at a local restaurant called Pho 2000. When we walked in, we saw a picture of Bill Clinton in the corner…he had eaten at this restaurant.
We ordered vegetarian noodle soup, and it came quickly. Good thing, too, cuz I was so hungry I was about to eat the next thing I saw. ;) It was a HUGE bowl of soup, and it was SPICY! There was some spicy chili paste and I added a little too much. Whatever, it was amazing soup and it cost 30,000 dong (~$1.75). Happy from our meal and very full, we left the market and headed to our next stop…ice cream! We walked around the plaza, and started to cross the street. It was very difficult…there was traffic coming from all directions and Achal started the video. A few seconds later, a motorcycle drove by really close to us, and Achal yelled, "Hey, he tried to grab the camera!" The guy had reached out his hand and grabbed the video camera. Luckily, Achal held on to it. Phew! That would have sucked a lot! We finally crossed the street and walked to the ice cream place. But it wasn't there! We walked around in circles for several minutes but could not find it. Then, we walked to the next street and found the sop there…it had moved and had changed its name since the publishing of the Lonely Planet book…hehe. Anyways, the ice cream was DELICIOUS! And it felt so good to eat ice cream in the 100 degree weather. Feeling much better, we headed out into the stifling heat again and walked to the Ho Chi Minh City Museum, passing a few cool buildings along the way, including the new theater building.
The museum was kinda boring, not too interesting, so we only spent a half an hour there. We did take some comical pictures since we were a little bored, but there was no point of hanging out much longer cuz there was no A/C inside the museum :) So, we headed out and walked to the Reunification Palace. It was an important part of Vietnamese history as there was a tank that crashed through the palace when the North and South were united. It was a pretty cool building...it was HUGE, and there were a lot of interesting rooms (e.g. meeting rooms for international visitors, a huge cinema room, a lecture hall, etc…) and a huge statue of Ho Chi Minh. From the top, we had a pretty nice view of the area, and we had lots more to do, so we went down and left quickly after that.
The next stop on our walking tour was INTENSE…we visited the War Remnants museum. This museum showcased the Vietnam War from the Vietnamese perspective. You have to see the pictures to understand what we saw. It was pretty horrible and tragic. The pictures of innocent people who were killed in the war, the absolutely horrible effects of chemical warfare (Dioxin), the prison cells used to detain POWs, etc… I don't want to type too much in the blog cuz I don't know if everyone wants to read about it. I have pictures, and if u want to see, I can show u the pictures when I come back. Needless to say, it was from the Vietnam perspective, so America was not cast in a positive light at all. Some things were propaganda, for sure, but the pictures were all real and some of the quotes that were taken from soldiers in the war were downright disturbing to say the least. It was just something u have to see, even if u don't believe all of it. War is a horrible thing.
Feeling not-so-happy, we left the museum, and walked through a small park to get to our next stop, the Notre Dame Cathedral of Ho Chi Minh City…no, we did not magically teleport to Europe. It was rather small, but the architecture was still beautiful. We bought some coconuts since we were thirsty and they were cheaper than water (we bargained for them ;) ). We wanted to go inside the cathedral to check it out, but Mass had just finished, and there was a large group of people coming out. So, we kinda walked inside a little just to get a glimpse of the inside. It was very nice, but it was pretty dark inside and we couldn't see too much. Across the street from the cathedral was the French colonial post office (it was built during the French colonial period), and I had LOTS, and I mean LOTS of postcards to mail. Hmmm…let's see, I was sending 6 home, a couple to everyone at BU, and 6 to Rel. So yea…LOTS! :) The inside of the post office was beautiful, it was probably the coolest post office I have ever been inside. We figured out the postage situation, and I figured out it would be a lot cheaper to send one envelope to each location rather than mail them all individually. I sent out the postcards, and we left to go to our next stop: the Jade Emperor Pagoda.
We hired 2 scooter rickshaws, which pretty much means we rode on the back of 2 motorcycles. Yea…probably not too safe, but we wore helmets, and you should check out the pictures and videos. Anyways, we tried to tell them where we were going, but their English wasn't too hot, and we ended up going to many places, all wrong. Eventually, we got to a temple, and it didn't really look like the Jade Emperor Pagoda. So, we rode to a new place and asked someone else for directions. Apparently, we had JUST been at the right place…OOPS! So, we went back, and paid the 2 drivers a little extra since they drove us around for about 25 mins to go 2 or 3 miles.
The pagoda was very very peaceful. I really needed it after a pretty hectic day. There was a pond outside with lots of cool fish, and the inside was really dark and smelled of incense. I sat down in front of the Buddha statue for a few minutes, just unwinded a little. It was very quiet and peaceful. There is something about the Buddha's statue that is comforting and soothing. Maybe it's the look on his face, or his "mudra," I don't know. But, feeling at peace, we left to head to our next stop: the Ho Chi Minh City Sheraton.
The hotel was very nice. I don't want to know how much the rooms cost per night, but hey, we weren't staying there. We just rode the elevator to the top floor to see the city view. We had to sit down at a restaurant and order something to see the view, which is LAME…hehe. The menu was sooo overpriced and I ended up ordering a small plate of French Fries for $8. Ugh. But the VIEW! It was amazing…we could look out over most of the city and see all the lights. It was pretty sweet, and it was going to get a lot sweeter. ;) After we ate and sat around, admiring the view, I saw a light in the corner of my eye. I looked into the distance, with some hope in my mind that it was lightning. (side note, for all of you that don't know me well, I am OBSESSED WITH LIGHTNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!) I waited about a minute, and then I saw… a bolt…of lightning. And I was thrilled! I instantly started taking lots of pictures, trying to get one with a bolt. And I got pretty lucky… I got a few of pics of Ho Chi Minh City at night with lightning. Now that is an AWESOME picture. A pretty rare opportunity, considering our time frame in Vietnam was so short. So, really happy, we descended back to Earth, and left for the night market.
We walked to the night market, but not without seeing several motorcycle gangs ride by. There were SOO SOO SOO MANY motorcycles on the street, it was wrong. I will show you videos later of the endless line of motorcycles. We tried to cross the street at one point, and we had to wait about 5 minutes for a break in the swell of motorcycles. We finally got to the night market and we were starving. So, we ate at one of the street stalls…SOOOO GOOD! I ordered fried rice with vegetables and tofu, and asked the waiter to make it SPICY. And boy, did he make it spicy ;). It was delicious, and definitely worth $5 ;)
Full from our meal, we started wandering the shops. I bargained very hard and bought a few gifts and t-shirts and assorted other things. Eventually, I found a shop with soccer jerseys. They cost a small fortune in the US, so I decided to try my luck with bargaining. The lady operating the shop was very young, and her starting price was $50 for 1 jersey. I laughed and joked with her, and brought her down…and down…and down. And yes, I eventually bought 2 jerseys for, wait for it… keep waiting… $22 total! Take that for bargaining! :) The lady could not believe I was such a stubborn bargainer and call me "Master bargainer Yash" In exchange for the good price I got her email address and promised to send her a picture of us…lol.
And that was the end of a long and pretty exhausting day. We had covered several of the major attractions of Ho Chi Minh City in 1 day, and the next day we were flying to Siem Reap, Cambodia to see the temples of Angkor Wat. I was VERY excited, but SO tired. I passed out quickly after packing for the trip.
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