Cao Dai and Cu Chi Tunnels

My fourth day in Vietnam, which was March 1st, started at 8 am.  Me and Steph were on a SAS trip to the Cao Dai temple and Cu-Chi tunnels.  The Cao Dai temple was about a 3 hour drive from Saigon where I got some sleep in and also stared out the window.  We were finally outside the city and it was so pretty!  Rice paddies were everywhere, and the people working in them all had their rice hats on (the pointy hats that are round) and it looked like the essence of Viet Nam.  We got lunch before visiting the temple at a restaurant near the temple.  We had fried spring rolls (amazing), chicken legs, noodles with vegetables, bread and soup.  I think there was more but I forget.  After that, we went to the temple around 12 because we were going to watch a service there.  Services in a Cao Dai temple take place at 6 am, noon, 6 pm, and midnight…EVERYDAY!  Caodaiism is a combination of religions almost.  They are based on Buddha, saint and sage (I totally wiki-ed that).  Their symbol is the left eye in a triangle and that symbolizes the divine eye.  The temple itself is interesting.  It is bright!  It is in colors of yellow, blue, red and white.  And it is very detailed and decorative.  There is so much going on in the temple that its hard to explain all the interior designs.  We watched the service, where they are dressed in white (some in blue, some in red and some in yellow also)… and they all kneel on the ground and bow at certain times, and in the back of the temple on the 2nd floor there is a group singing and playing music.  It’s interesting.  After the service, we were waiting outside for some to go to the bathroom and a man came up to me and Steph and started talking to us.  He was Vietnamese and had such good English!  And he was explaining the outside of the temple to us, and how apparently in one of the pillars at the top, there was a body of one of the followers I think.  He told us how he went to university and that was where he learned his English, but he is a motorbike taxi driver. 
After the temple, we drove about an hour to Cu Chi where we went to the Cu Chi tunnels.  The Viet Cong used the tunnels during the war and they lived down there.  When we got there we watched a movie that was the Vietnamese side of the war.  It was talking about many people from the town of Cu Chi and how they killed Americans and how many each one killed and how they were giving awards for doing it.  After that, we toured the area and we came to one place and our guide uncovered a trap door!  It was just chilling in the middle of the ground and it was covered by leaves and no one knew it was there.  I thought we were just stopping there to make sure everyone was with us until this guide took the lid off.  The guide then got in and showed how the Viet Cong had used it and you couldn’t even tell it was there when he disappeared into the ground.  It was insane!  Then we each tried it and I was hesitant at first because it was so tiny but I did it.  And it led down to a network of tunnels but all we did was go down and then pop right back up.  It smelled so bad down there.  Wow… sorry this is random but on my iTunes the song Turn! Turn! Turn! By the Byrds just came on.  And it reminds me of American Dreams and this song was playing when JJ left for the Vietnam War.  I remember stupid things like that.  But anyway!
After that, we walked around some more and saw all the different type of booby traps they used in the war and it was insane!  There were so many different types… ones that your foot would go through a nail and be stuck in a cage, some that you would fall through and land on bamboo spikes… just so many… and that was so upsetting because of course, behind the booby traps are paintings of American’s falling into each one and how it hurts them…granted the paintings were more cartoon-ish and not as realistic but it was still upsetting.  After that, we went to another station there and saw how they made weapons.  Then, we finally got to a network of tunnels and were able to climb through them.  It was 100 meters long (you could stop at any set of steps during that 100 meters and get out) and it was sooooo small and dark and I got a little claustrophobic but I did all 100 meters of it!  I was luckily behind a girl with a flashlight so me and Steph stayed close to her.  After that, you could shoot guns at the shooting range if you wanted.  I chose not to because that is not something I am interested in.  I just thought it was so weird too that your at this war memorial type place yet they encourage you to go shoot AK 47s and all.  After people shot guns, we just went back to the bus and came back to the ship around 5ish.  I was EXHAUSTED after that day.  OH!  And by the way.. my stupid camera broke!  I was looking at pictures on the bus before we got to the temple… and then when I turned my camera on to take pictures the screen was completely black!  It still takes pictures but I just can’t see what I’m taking pictures of.  It s such a bummer because I still have like 2 months left and no camera!  But I plan on being a very skilled photographer by the end of the trip.  Haha. 
But I must go.  I’m going to an explorer seminar that Neha is in and it is about arranged marriages which I’m excited to learn about!  Wow, I sounded like a nerd right there. 

Sea Olympics and Vietnam Day 3

Yesterday was Sea Olympics, and the Red Sea won.  I am not the Red Sea… I’m the Caribbean.  Opening games were Saturday night, and it was when each team brought their banner in and did their cheer.  On Sunday, I went to breakfast and then went to sea feud for a little before crab soccer.  Our team did so good but ended up coming in 4th… and it was such a sucky game to end on.  It went into overtime and the Adriatic sea beat us on such a sucky goal.  We had the ball and went to clear it but a Adriatic sea guy was there and kicked it right back in.  It sucked but our team did awesome.  At lunch time we were in 4th, and then it all went down hill from there.  My event was “Dean White Says”, which is Simon Says.  And I came in first in the first heat!  Which meant that I was in the finals.  And in the finals, I came in 3rd and got our team points!  So at least I contributed a little bit.  Dinner last night was AMAZING!  It was a bbq!  With hamburgers, ribs (which were amazing), potato salad, corn on the cob and lots of fruit.  It was the best dinner yet.  Then everyone… almost everyone… got into the pool. 
I did not.  Do you know how many diseases were probably spread?!  Haha.  This one kid on my team was like.. “ew, I am not getting in, its like a cest pool in there.”  Which is sooo true.

Ok so let me get back to Vietnam since I haven’t finished that yet. 
My third day was spent with Erica, Ryan, and Megan.  We went to the War Museum.  The museum didn’t have so many artifacts but instead, lots of pictures.  There were pictures of everything.  Actually, I lied.  It did have artifacts.  It had a plane and tank and helicopter all out in the front yard of it, and then inside it had a bunch of bombs and gun shells and all that stuff.  But there were more pictures than artifacts.  Some pictures were very gruesome.  There were pictures of guys holding Vietcong heads, all the birth deformities from Agent Orange, napalm burns, and destruction of everything.  There was one section of the museum that I thought was very interesting, and it was photographers from the Vietnam War and their pictures displayed.  A lot of the pictures there were shown in newspapers during the wartime, and the one photographer’s collection was in TIME magazine during the war.  There was also a section there that was all about the protestors of the war.  And this section… uh… I guess I got upset in?  I don’t know how to explain how I felt in that section of the museum.  I guess what it came down to was that I felt like the protestors were… mean?  I don’t know, I can’t explain it.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that they weren’t just protesting the war but they were protesting and disrespecting the soldiers and that was what made me upset.  I mean, protest the war all you want, but don’t hate on the guys that are over there.  sorry about my little rant there.
There was one section of that area that it showed pictures of 3 men and it had a story under each man.  And want to know what their story was?  It was that they had each doused themselves in gasoline, and lit themselves on fire in front of different government buildings to protest going to the war. 
They left their families and wives FOREVER, instead of just their term in Vietnam.  It just shocked me.  That’s the thing that I loved about Vietnam though… it shocked me.  Everything about it was a huge shock… culturally, the landscape, the people and how friendly they were (after coming from China where they shove you and cut you in line, Vietnam was awesome), and all the people!  But anway… back to my day. 
After the museum, we grabbed some lunch.  Since we were with Ryan and she had never had Pho yet, we went to Pho 24 again.  This time I got beef pho and it was better than chicken pho.  So if anyone is in Vietnam anytime soon, beef pho, with the filet meat cooked well done, is AMAZING.  And get the iced coffee with sweet condensed milk.  When we were at Pho 24, we sat with a couple who had gone to school in the United States but were from Vietnam.  I believe he said he went to LSU.  And he asked where we were all from and he knew every mascot to the places we were from.  After that we went to the markets for a little and then got some frozen yogurt.  Then Ryan and Erica went back to the markets and me, Megan and this girl I forget her name, went to get some coffee.  When walking back to the market to meet Erica and Ryan, I saw the man again with the burned face.  This time though, I did not see him until I felt a brush on my leg and realized it was his hat that swiped past my leg and he was sitting on the curb asking for money.  And if I wasn’t so shocked at first, I would have given him money… considering how much dong I have left (Vietnam is a crazy cheap country and I took out too much money and have so much left now).  But I would have gave him money anyway because I’m such a nice person.  After the market we just headed back to the ship and grabbed dinner before going to the night markets.  Tons of shopping I did in Vietnam and I’m not even that big of a shopper!  The night markets are the same as the day markets, but just more clothes and no DVD’s.  After the night markets I just came back to the ship and didn’t go out or anything because I had to be up early because I had a field trip the next day to the Cao-Dai temple and cu chi tunnels….which I will right about later tonight because I am going to go to dinner! 

Tomorrow is sea Olympics which I’m really excited for!  I am in Dean White Says, which is simon says but Mark White is Simon.  I hope to beast it.  Tonight was the opening ceremony and we already have negative points because we were “unsportsmanlike”.  We can’t help it that we are the biggest sea and they gave us a very tiny section in the union and we took over another sea’s seating area and then sang, “na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye” to them.  I’m so hype for it.  The winner of sea Olympics gets bragging rights and are the first off the ship when we dock in Florida…which is exciting but depressing at the same time.  I don’t want to think about Florida yet, we aren’t even half way done yet!  And I don’t want it to be thinking about it any sooner than I have to.  But everyone is already talking about when to get their flights home and everything.  Oh, by the way… my sea is the Caribbean sea, and our color is purple, and we are the Purple Pirates.  SPEAKING of pirates… how about the Somalian pirates hijacking a oil thing off the coast of Madagascar!  Uhh… HELLO!  We are going to Mauritius, which is off the coast of Madagascar, and we already changed our itinerary to get away from the pirates (our original itinerary was to go to Egypt, Morocco, Italy, Turkey, then end in England) and they changed it to avoid the coast of Somalia.  I feel like this whole trip though, we are just missing everything.  Like, we missed that storm that hit the west coast, we went out of our way to miss a storm on the way to Japan, there was a tsunami warning for Hawaii and Japan just a couple days ago, and now pirates!  How funny! 
but i must go and rest up for my big game of Dean White Says tomorrow! hahaha.

Vietnam part 2

Day 2 in Vietnam started bright and early… aka 10 oclock ish.  Hahah.  That day it was me, Sarah and Megan.  We decided we were going to go to the market first and then go to the beach which was apparently nearby (according to Sarah) but it wasn’t.  It was like an hour boat ride up the river.  So we went to the market anyway.  And when we were walking there we were crossing the street and a man was walking towards me and I thought I was seeing things because it was hot out and I thought maybe I was dehydrated… but as he got closer I saw that my eyes were not lying and his face was in fact all burned.  He had no lips, his eyelids drooped all the way down…and it sounds mean but I don’t know how to explain it besides he basically didn’t have a face.  Like it was there, but it was just all burned away.  And it was so upsetting.  It wasn’t something I was ready for.  And he like walked right up to me and I stepped away and he said something but I think he was just begging for money and I felt so bad and wanted to cry just right then and there. 
I also wasn’t ready for the markets.  It’s so hot in there and small walkways and the smells in there in some sections are overwhelming.  There is like a market in one section of it and we wandered onto it and there was meat and fish and dried shrimp everywhere and the smell was not pleasant at all.  After the market we stopped to get a bottle water and we encountered another person with a deformity I guess you would say?  Well whatever you would call it, the man had no arms and had planks of wood from the elbow down.  And also in the market there was a man with no legs just chilling there in the walkway.  Like I said before, Vietnam was the first place I felt like a foreign country, and I don’t think I was prepared enough… I didn’t think people would still be so affected by the war as they still are.  And that was shocking to me.  But it’s still such a beautiful country and the people there are very nice… or at least the ones I encountered were. 
After the markets we were wandering and stopped and got some lunch at Pho 24.  I got Pho Ga again, hoping that it would be better than the night before and it was!  It was much, much better than the night before!  I also got fried spring rolls that had pork and mushroom in them with fish sauce to dip them in and they were amazing also!  The food in Vietnam was just amazing.  When we were at Pho 24 we ran into Eric, Ngyuen (pronounced Wing, he is the Vietnam inter-port student) and some other kid whose name I don’t know.  And we asked Ngyuen what to do and he started listing things to do and he told us to go to the zoo and botanical gardens which we ended up doing.  We met up with another girl who came with us to the zoo.  And it was so fun to be at a zoo, especially in a different country.  I saw elephants, monkeys, bears, ostriches (which are sooooo ugly), hippos, a regular tiger and white tigers, apes, rhinos, zebras and giraffes.  When we were in the zoo we got asked to have our picture taken.  I don’t get why they wanted a picture with us because we literally looked like hot messes.  I had chocolate down my white t from my ice cream cone, we were all sweating profusely, and we all had our make up smeared all over our t-shirts from wiping our faces.  Who knows, they probably just wanted a picture with us to make fun of the way we looked. Hahaha. 
After the zoo, we went back to the ship and went swimming and laid our for a little.  We grabbed some dinner and then got ready to go out.   
Today we are actually docked in Singapore.  We didn't get to get off the ship, we are just refueling here.  It looks like a pretty place though!  haha.  because we stopped here, we lost an hour of sleep which totally sucks, but luckily we gain it back very soon.  Hopefully tomorrow night.  haha.  I'm just so glad that we always gain an hour instead of always losing one. 

Vietnam part 1 of many

After Hong Kong we had 2 days at sea until we got to Vietnam… or should I say… Viet Nam.  In Vietnam they spell it 2 words and it means “living in the southeast of Asia”.  I learned that from my tour guide.  In our Global Studies classes those two days we learned about Vietnam.  We learned about the history, economy, and culture.  On the second day we learned about the Vietnam War.  We had a panel discussion and it was our security guard (he was drafted into the war), Dr. Isreal who protested the war, and another professor (Kolbe) who was in the air force in the war.  It was emotional… I guess you would say.  I don’t know… I guess when grown men cry it usually gets me.  Dr. Isreal… even though he was a protestor wasn’t one of those protestors that burned their draft card, or lit themselves on fire or spit on returning soldiers, he was a more civil one.  Prof. Kolbe was telling us about the one guy he fought with Michael Blassie and how he was the soldier in the tomb of the Unknown Soldier in D.C.   They did a test and found out it was him and then sent his remains home to his family. 
        ANYWAY… enough depressing stuff… now onto Vietnam!
Vietnam was the first place I felt like I was in a foreign country.  Sure, China and Japan had foreign characters and different food and we stuck out like a sore thumb there, but they reminded me so much of New York City and of home.  Vietnam was literally a jungle with a mini city plopped into it.  We got to Vietnam on Friday, February 26th and where we docked we had to go up the river to dock in Ho Chi Minh.  Going up the river was so cool!  There were trees on either side but the river was very dirty.  My first day in Saigon, I had a water puppet theater show to see for my human voice in performance class.  It was really neat.  A water puppet show is when like, there is a stage but its water, and there is a curtain and the puppeteers are behind the curtain in the water, which is up past their waist and they control the puppets from behind.  The theater was outside which was awesome and it was a very small area which made you feel like you were part of the show.  There were dragons with firecrackers in their mouths, ducks, swimming puppets, and dancing puppets.  It was a cool thing to see.  We were done there by like 12 and went back to the ship and grabbed some lunch before setting out and exploring the city.  That day it was me, Alison B, and Chi-chi.  We were wandering the city and decided we wanted to get massages and then go to the markets.  We were walking down this sketch alley where this hotel concierge told us to go for cheap massages and we found a place called Rose’s.  We ended up getting a 75-minute massage for 15 dollars.  And it was AMAZING.  The lady literally cracked every bone in my body and it felt so good.
After our massage it was after 4 and we wanted to get back to the ship by 5ish.  The nice thing is that we had a free shuttle the whole time we were there that went from our ship to the Rex Hotel and it left the ship every half hour.  We took the shuttle back and then just got ready for the night and then went out.  That’s pretty much my whole first day in Saigon.  I’ll write more tomorrow!  
Oh, tomorrow we actually dock in Singapore for a couple hours to refuel the ship but we don't get to get off which sucks.  and today while i was lifting this morning i saw like a school of jumping fish!  it was so cool! 

Hong Kong Part 2

Hello, hello!  Sorry it took me so long to update but we just left Vietnam this morning at about 7 am.  On ship time was last night at 8 pm though.  I know I am HARDCORE slacking in everything and now that we have a stretch of 7 days from Vietnam to India, I will update a lot a lot. 
But first… let me finish with Hong Kong before I move onto Vietnam (which I loved loved loved love LOVED!)
        Our 2nd and last day in Hong Kong was on February 23rd.  It started bright and early (about 10 am Hahah).  Me and Jamie decided to go to Victoria’s Peak.  Victoria’s Peak was on Hong Kong Island (our ship was docked on Kowloon) and it has a great view of all of Hong Kong.  We took the Peak Tram all the way up it and it was like going up a log flume.  We got to the top and just wandered around taking in the views and taking lots of pictures.  Jamie even got asked to get her picture taken with someone and it was very very funny.  While we were up there we decided to grab some lunch before heading back down the tram.
        When we got off the Peak Tram we went to SoHo.  (South of Hollywood Road).  We were walking the streets when this girl passed us with frozen yogurt and instantly wanted some.  The frozen yogurt place was like 2 steps later and we went in there and got some.  I got half vanilla and half original tart with crushed oreos on it and it was really good.  After we got our frozen yogurt we found the escalators that take you to Mid-Levels and just took them all the way up to mid-levels.  Once we got up there, we just wandered around taking everything in.  While wandering, we stumbled across a Wet market!  We walked up and down that and this time I wasn’t as grossed out by them as I was the first day in Japan.  When we emerged from the wet market, we decided to head back to the ship because it was probably around 2ish and we wanted to use the internet before on ship time.  The bad part about this was that we had NO idea where we were because we had literally wandered from mid-levels down to I don’t even know where.  I whipped out my handy map and we sat at this little park to figure out where we were and to find a subway station.  Little did we know, we were sitting right across the street from a subway station!  Lucky us.  So yea, we just grabbed that, came back to the ship to use the internet and then we pulled out of Hong Kong at 8 as the light show was going on which was pretty cool.  Hong Kong was one of my favorite stops so far.  There was still so much that I wanted to do there but didn’t have enough time to do.  That saying, “there’s not enough hours in the day” is sooooo true.  There is so much that I want to do in each port that it is close to impossible to do it all. 
But yea, that was my Hong Kong adventure and I will update about Vietnam very very soon…. Maybe even later today.

Hong Kong Part 1

I know... I know... a double post in the same night!  so here it goes....
My first day in Hong Kong started VERY early with a Skype call to my family!  I “met” them at 7:30 am (6:30 pm their time) and my Poppy was there!  It was nice to see familiar faces and see my house and Gracie!  I’m so glad I missed out on all the snow and was sitting in beautiful weather in Hong Kong.  It was the first time I talked to my family since Hawaii so it was nice.  It’s so weird to think that we only have 10 weeks left of this trip! 10 weeks!  That’s so little time!  I feel like we just got here but we are almost half way through!  It’s crazy to think and I am trying not to think about it actually.  Haha.  After Skype-ing with my family, I went in and grabbed some breakfast and then started my day. We met in Tymitz Square around 9:30 and started our day. 
We went to the wet market where there were so many fish and all this produce.  That was really cool to walk through and it is where people get their fresh produce.  Ryan bought 2 oranges and I had a piece and it was sooooo good!  After the wet market, we headed over to the jade market and did some bargaining.  After the jade market, we went to the Tin Shua temple.  It has a bunch of incense in it and I could only be in there for like 5 minutes before I got a raging headache and had to leave and sat on a park bench by myself.  After the temple we went to the Modern Toilet Restaurant.  It’s where you sit on toilets at a tub-table and you order food and the food comes out in a urinal or toilet or tub or sink.  It’s pretty funny.  After lunch we went to the fish street.  It’s a street with a bunch of fish in baggies outside the stores and it’s like a whole street.  After that we went to the bird park where old men bring their birds in their cages and hang them up and the birds sing to one another.  Hahaha it’s definitely a sight to see.  I’m not a fan of birds but it was cool.  After the bird street we all headed back to the ship but me and Ricardo left and went to the Avenue of the stars which is where all the Asian stars have their stars and hand-prints.
 After that we just headed back to the ship to watch the light show and then get ready to go out for the night.  We went to Lang Kwai Fong which is a street on Hong Kong Island that basically you just party in the street and walk freely in and out of the bars.  It was so much fun.  And guess who I ran into there… THE RUGBY TEAM FROM BEIJING!  They followed us to Hong Kong!  Seriously… what a small small world!
But yea then we just went back to the ship and crashed.  Well this was a short post but I will update you about the rest of hong kong later.  Now i need my beauty sleep for VIETNAM tomorrow morning!!!