As an American, the first things that come to mind when I think of Vietnam are the war, jungles and communism. Honestly, I didn’t know much else about Vietnam that wasn’t related to the war in some way. At pre-port, they told us that the Vietnamese people have had many wars trying to get their independence and are very good at separating the people from their governments. They said that from this there is very little anti-American sentiment (at least much less than what one would expect from the war only being 40 years old) and that the Vietnamese people had moved on. Oh and they refer to it as the “American War”. This was quite surprising to me as it is still such a taboo subject in America, and aren’t we supposed to be the ‘progressive’ ones? In my global studies class, two teachers gave their perspectives on the war, one of which is our ‘pastor’ on board – he’s not ordained, but has gone through Seminary school and has graciously given his time to prepare sermons for us on Sundays. He told of his time as a soldier in Vietnam and the things he’d seen and the pain he still has from it. You would never guess the horrors he had been through because he is one of the nicest men on the ship and has been on many missions trips in his days. His testimony was especially emotional and touching, truly testimony to Christ’s power in people’s lives.
Armed with these things, I decided to wake up early to see the sunrise as we sailed up the river. I didn’t time it well because of the time change from the night before, so I missed the actual moment of daybreak, but I did see the river in the early morning light. The river was muddier than I expected, but it was lined with the ‘jungle’ foliage I had expected. Then, as we entered Ho Chi Minh City (aka HCMC; formerly Saigon, and is still called Saigon by all those in the South), we passed under a highway bridge and things became quite urban. I had an FDP in the afternoon, but my roommate and friends wanted to go out as soon as we could to look for items for our Halloween costumes. I went with them to go to the marketplace. As we entered HCMC, several skyscrapers, lots of buildings squished together and tons of traffic – essentially a thriving metropolis, greeted us. This was not what I pictured Vietnam to be whatsoever. Oh, and there are about 8 million inhabitants in HCMC and about 5 million motorcycles. Naturally, there are motorcycles everywhere – parked on the sidewalk, hoards driving in the streets, some drive up onto the sidewalk – simply everywhere. The traffic is reminiscent of Morocco, where the rules of the road are more of a guideline. This is because civilians cross the street by simply walking at a slow and steady pace, while the cars and motorcycles just go around them. Literally, it is frogger for humans. The tell-tale sign that you are a tourist is a motorcycle burn on your leg, because the exhaust pipe hit you as your were trying to cross the street. Fortunately, I mastered crossing the street so I don’t have said burns. J
We arrived at the marketplace to find it the size of a warehouse, housing innumerable stands with every square inch covered in something to sell you. It was overwhelming to say the least. We could only spend so much time, so we had to leave to get back to the shuttle and back to the ship in time. Once I got back to the ship, I went on the city orientation trip. First, we drove to a Chinese temple, one that was dedicated to a goddess who helped them get through the rough seas to Vietnam (they came by boat the first time, not by land). It was pretty interesting and we learned the four revered animals in Vietnamese culture, the dragon, unicorn (which doesn’t look anything like our unicorn), turtle and phoenix. There is no one dominant official religion in Vietnam, though almost everyone unofficial practices ancestor worship. They have some of the major world religions and one of their own, Cao Daism, which is a mixture of all of the world religions (much like the Baha’i faith; more about this in a later post).
After the temple, we went to lunch to eat traditional Vietnamese food. Naturally, as they are mostly a coastal country, they incorporate fish into almost everything. I’m not that much of a seafood fan, but overall the meal was pretty good. After this, we went to Independence Palace, what was formerly the residence of the president of South Vietnam. This building was quite elaborate, with the center staircase rebuilt as it had been bombed during the war. There were also rooms underground where the telephone systems were set-up and the maps of Vietnam for when they were in the thralls of war. It was quite an interesting building. It is now called Independence Palace because they consider South Vietnam ‘liberated’ the day they stormed this and took over control from the South Vietnamese government. Later on, we passed by the US consulate, what used to be the US embassy – the famous one with in the pictures where people jumped onto the helicopters to flee the Vietnam. I find that interesting that they not only allowed us to reuse that same building, but that we would actually do that. However, the US embassy is now in Hanoi, so the building isn’t exactly used for the same purposes, but it’s pretty much the same.
Later on, we drove by Notre Dame, or the Vietnamese smaller-scaled version of it, to go to the post office which is right across the street from Notre Dame. This post office is huge – I mean massive! Granted, I think that is because the government wants to check the mail and I guess they would need a large facility to do that, but either way, it is quite large. It also has two shops attached to it on either side, which is not what one generally associates with a post office. Then we returned to the ship.
My bosses and associated bosses (so the admin team and the field office team – they put the trips together for everyone) had planned earlier to go out to eat because Josh (one of the field office team members) had lived in Vietnam before and knew some great places to eat. So, we all met and walked to a rooftop restaurant. It was so cool – just terraces above your head and ivy wrapped around them. They moved three tables together for us, each with a burner in the middle. Josh ordered for the group as a whole and we eagerly awaited the food. It came in waves and was meant to be cooked on the burner to your taste. We tried so many things: vegetables, fish, chicken, wrapped our own spring rolls. One dish was live prawns on sticks – you literally placed the squirming blue shrimp on the burner and waited until he turned red and stopped twitching. That was kind of gross. They had to talk me and this other girl into trying it, which it tasted good, but I didn’t really want to watch it die in the middle of the burner. While we were there, there was a birthday party. So, they started playing the birthday song over the loud speakers, starting off with bells and then vocals entering. When the vocals came in, they turned off all the lights, revealing that they had given the party at that table sparklers to light. It was pretty cool. Since Josh’s birthday was during the next week (after we would be long gone), we told the waiters and they did it for us too! Apparently you can get these sparkler things in the States, often around 4th of July, but I’ve never seen one before. I thought it was pretty cool, even though it took me forever to light mine. The funny thing was that the waiters brought out this cute cake which was fake, because they took it back after the song to reuse it for the next guest. Economical, but kind of a downer, in my opinion. Oh, and one of the songs that came on at one point during the dinner was the Macarena. Of course, we all jumped up and started dancing – what a spectacle – a bunch of white people doing the Macarena in the center of an Asian restaurant while everyone else just watched us. It was pretty funny. After dinner, we had a photo shoot because we wanted to. That was fun as well. Then the work studies went to a dance party after, which was the first time I’d actually gone to a dance party this whole trip. It was pretty fun, and basically the entire shipboard student community took over this dance place, so that made it more enjoyable that I actually knew everyone there. All in all, it was a pretty awesome day.
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