Vietnam

I know that I probably say this every time I come back from a trip, but my trip to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly known as, and still known as to the locals, Saigon) and Mu Nei in Vietnam over reading week (from April 16th - 21st) has been my favorite trip so far. This may have been because I did not have to worry about my two finance classes which ended each with a final on the Monday before we left.

On Thursday morning (extremely early - we left PGP at around 5:45 am to make it to our 8:30 flight) we left Singapore and flew to Ho Chi Minh City (we being Kerry, Katie, Heather and I - unfortunately the other Katie had to stay in Singapore because she just got an internship and needed to fill out paperwork, but she gets to go work in Australia so I guess it evens out) - we spent the day walking around the city and seeing the Reunification Palace (home of the South Vietnamese Government during the Vietnam war - still in tact) and the War Remnants Museum (from the Vietnam War - or American war as it is called in Vietnam). We also discovered two places we would often return to during our stay in Saigon (basically all the locals still call HCMC Saigon). First was the night market (also functions as a day market), which is like any market that I've been to in Southeast Asia (or Asia, because they are similar in Hong Kong), the second place we found was Fanny's, an ice cream parlor which serves delicious sundaes (for like 4 USD, a little bit pricey for food in Vietnam, but we splurged).

A man napping on his motor bike amid the chaos that is Saigon

The reunification palace

Our Tour guide took us into the bunker below the palace

Friday morning, the three of us had booked tickets for a bus to Mui Ne, which is a coastal town (there are a ton of resorts - tourism has got to be a main/probably one of few industries there) on the South China Sea in Southern Vietnam. We got a tip to go there from one of our exchange student friends at NUS (did I mention before that there are like 700 exchange students at NUS this semester, so whenever you travel somewhere it is basically guaranteed that someone else has already been and can give you advice) as Mui Ne for some reason boasts sand dunes (both red and white) that you can sled down on. We went from Friday morning until Sunday afternoon, it was nice to get away from the city in that time and bask in the hot sun, oh and Mui Ne was beautiful.

Our hostel - this is what 5 USD per night will get you (including an air conditioned room) - i think we could have stayed at the nicest resorts (which were probably really nice) for around 25$ per night

View of the South China Sea from the back of the jeep which took us to both the red and white sand dunes

Went to the white sand dunes first to go sledding - its really scary up on the top of the dunes because the wind blows really hard (we were SO sandy when we left) but we could not get the sleds to go very fast.

We went to the bathroom and found this - I included it because its like the Southeast Asian version of Aunt Kate and Uncle Barney's yard.

Red dunes for the sunset (couldn't see it because of clouds)

Night out where we found a bar with some other tourists (mostly far older than we are) -- Kerry won a limbo contest

A great thing about Southeast Asia is that in some places paying someone to drive you on the back of their scooter is the equivalent of taking a taxi.

A bad thing about Southeast Asia is that you can unknowingly purchase "hard seats" for a five hour long bus ride home - which are plastic lawn chairs that go in the aisle.

As the bus ride was about 5 hours long, we did not get back into Saigon until the evening, where we went back to our Hostel, My My Arthouse (which I would recommend for anyone traveling on a budget -- who doesn't mind that it is in an alley, a lot of buildings are in alleys in Saigon - the people here were so friendly, we got an air conditioned room for the 4 of us (later 6 of us) - and complementary breakfast!). Back at the hostel it was not long before Ben and Charles (also Americans- from UNC) arrived. Ben and Charles had left Singapore earlier than we had and had gone from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh in Cambodia, then they came to HCMC to meet up with us and fly out of Vietnam. Obviously, a trip to Fanny's was in order to celebrate their arrival.

Monday, we went out to the Cu Chi Tunnels - which was about an hour away but still considered a part of Ho Chi Minh City - it is a huge complex of underground tunnels used by the Viet Cong (communists) during the Vietnam war. If I'm remembering correctly, I think he may have told us that 100,000 people lived down there during the Vietnam War. We actually went down through one of the tunnels (which have been widened for tourists) about 60 meters I think - We had to crouch and shuffle forward - I almost had a panic attack being down there but luckily I controlled myself. Also I'm slightly embarrassed/ashamed to say that we shot AK-47s at the tunnels.

A man demonstrating how to get into one of the hidden entrances of the tunnel

My turn, I was too scared to crouch down in here

Instead, we went in through a wider entrance, through a section of the tunnel which had been widened for tourists but was it was still a disturbingly tight fit.

This was terrifying

Monday also happened to be Katie's (UConn Katie who was in our Vietnam group) 21st birthday, so obviously we had to celebrate. Luckily, this gave us an occasion to drink the bottle of Bacardi that Kerry won in the limbo contest in Mui Ne, so we made cocktails in the hostel room in true TJ Donohue fashion. Then we went out to one of the restaurants that Anthony Bourdain raves about in either his book or his tv show - I'm not sure, this information was told to me - it is called Com Nieu Saigon. It is clearly one of the nicer restaurants in Vietnam (even though it was so nice, it still wasn't too expensive for us, or too expensive for us to pay for the birthday girl - a reason why I LOVE Southeast Asia). It is also famous for its claypot rice, which as it comes out of the kitchen, one server will break the claypot it is in and throw it to another server across the room who will do cool tricks with it - awesome.

We surprised her with a cake

Tuesday, we got up early for a day trip to the Mekong Delta (area in Southwestern Vietnam where the Mekong River approaches the sea). It was a little bit of a struggle for us to be awake, alert, and excited given the activities of the previous evening - but after an hour bus ride and a little of the first boat ride, we were able to enjoy the rest of our day (even though at this point I had a pretty bad head cold). The tour that we went on had a slightly disneyworld feel to it - as all the activities we did were pre planned - but it was still a really cool experience.

Being paddled around in the Mekong Delta - we were one of the few people from the group that we bussed over with that put our hats on

This reminded me of Apocalypse Now

Coconut candy factory which was DELICIOUS

Wednesday was our last day - we shopped for the morning and then went off in search of "the lunch lady" which is a woman who makes food on the side of the road (quite common) but she only makes one meal per day and its supposed to be amazing. We found her, and it was delicious, only problem is that it may have given two of us food poisoning...

And then we flew back to Singapore on Wednesday night, just in time for ladies' night.

I had my first official final (third actual final) yesterday, so I only have one more left on next Monday. I will post before then about my exciting travel plans which are not finalized yet but are so close! I cannot believe that I am almost done here time has literally flown by, faster than any other point in my life.

I love and miss all of you.