Surprise trip to the south

After a week of traveling around by myself in Cambodia, I still had a week left before my friend Anisa was able to get off work. All of the places I still wanted to go, she wanted to go with me. Casting around for something to fill that week, Anisa suggested that I go to Vietnam. The bus from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Min City was only $8, so I decided, why not?

June 6, 2005

Xin chao!
The bus ride here was interesting, but comfortable. It was a nice tourist bus with air conditioning, but they showed the same few Cambodian karaoke clips repeatedly. So far I have wandered around the backpacker nieghborhood a bit and compared hotels before finding one with a huge room, two beds, minifridge, A/C, and a nice, clean bathroom with shower and bath for $8. I'm sure it's more than Anisa would have paid for a room, but I looked at the $3 dollar rooms and decided that the extra $5 is worth it. My hotel also organizes tours - I'm thinking about a couple days at the beach - and free internet. Unfortunately it doesn't work too well, but I'm going to give it a try. I might not be able to add any photos for a day or two.
I don't have a whole lot of news, I just wanted to let you know I made it here without any excitement at customs or other disasters.
Cam un,
Heather

June 7, 2005

Today I started my tourism in ernest. I signed up for a tour of the Cu Chi tunnels just outside of Ho Chi Minh. It was my first time with a group like that, but very interesting. The tunnels are where the people of the village of Cu Chi hid when Americans were in the area or when the area was being bombed. The tunnels include rooms for sleeping, cooking, meetings, medical clinic, etc. Some of the rooms are as deep as 20 meters, and the tunnels themselves are very narrow. You almost have to crawl through them. The tour was accompanied by the typical government propaganda, but in all it was a very positive experience. The guide had fought for the South and when his side lost he had to do eight years in a "re-education" camp. He laughed it off, but I'm sure it was terrible. One positive thing about the tour was that they emphasized the ingenuity and resourcefulness of the villagers, instead of talking the whole time about the politics of the war. I was the only American in the group, but it wasn't uncomfortable, I didn't feel any animosity. I'm glad they've gotten beyond that, otherwise it would have been very difficult.

On the other hand, in the after noon when I visited the War Remnants Museum I did feel the animosity. Nobody there knew I was American (there are lots of European and Australian tourists who are easy to blend in with) but the museum was about violence, and it was made very clear that they blamed the US for the violence. The museum was very difficult, though well made. There were several different buildings for different parts. One large building was dedicated to the journalists who died during the war. At the entrance to this building there were photos of every one of the journalists along with their names and nationalities. the majority were Vietnamese, but there were journalists from all over the world and at least two were women. The rest of the museum made me nauseaus, especially the part about the effects of Agent Orange. My personal environmentalism seems pointless in the face of such a large scale environmental devastation.
It was an intersting day, but I need to sit and think more about what I saw today. Like Toul Sleng, it's just too much to take in all at once. It's a good thing I'm not good at hanging on to guilt, or I would feel even worse after seeing all that. So, on that optimistic note I'm going to sign off for the day. I hope you are all well.
bisous,
Heather

June 8, 2005

I ventured out of the city for a two day tour of the delta, and I have to say it was wonderful. I was almost sorry for it to end, but I was so exausted I needed the break. Those tours pack in a lot in a very short amount of time. In the morning i got on a bus with a bunch of other tourists and we drove out onto the delta. They put us on little motor boats: long traditional wooden boats and we started down the river. After several turns off the main waterway we were moved onto little, narrower wooden boats. Each boat was paddled by two women, one in the bow and another in the stern, almost like a canoe. We visited four islands, each named for an animal: Turtle, Dragon, Unicorn and Phoenix. We had lunch on Dragon Island, but the closest thing I saw to a dragon was a couple skinks. The other people on the tour were very intersting. There was a woman about my age from Vancouver, BC who was travelling alone. She just did a month in China and came down Vietnam from the North. There was an ex-Peace Corps volunteer from Rhode Island who did his service in Suriname. For the first time I wasn't the only American. The other people I made friends with were two women from Germany and a young couple from France. I ended up translating for the French couple a little, since English with a strong Vietnamese accent is fairly hard to understand. It's not so easy for me, so for those whose English isn't great to begin with have a much harder time. The guides here primarily speak English, so everybody has to know at least a little. It's strange to me that English can be more important for tourists here than Vientnamese. After lunch we toured through the canals a bit more, saw a coconut candy making workshop and listened to some traditional music and singing over tea. The singing was specific to the Mekong Delta and so was one of the instruments . They called it a "stalk" like of a plant because it's a long piece of wood, maybe two feet tall with only one string that the musician held upright in his lap and played with a bow. It was beautiful. We spent that night in Cantho, and I was lucky enough to have a room to myself since there were no other women to share with. I was exhausted and fell asleep immediately.

June 9, 2005

This was also a full day, and I had to say au revoir to the French couple I made friends with. They were a lot of fun to travel and talk with. Ingrid has been doing an internship in Phnom Penh but they have to go back to France this weekend. Thursday we toured the canals more and saw a "Monkey Bridge for the first time. They're the traditional bridges that people use to link islands together, but the government is trying to replace all of them with ugly cement bridges. They're very narrow and I suppose not used much since everybody does everything by boat there. A monkey bridge is basically Xs of crossed bamboo across the canal with narrow logs laid in the bottom of the top half of the X. Along on of the outside uprights they attach a frail bamboo railing. It looks very sketchy, but when i walked across it felt pretty stable. One advantage these bridges have is they can lift up one of the bottom logs for taller boats to pass under, which I saw them do. A cement bridge doesn't have that flexability. One of the farms and workshops we visited today was a pepper farm. I had never thought about how pepper is grown, but it's on a vine. I tasted some of the little grains, which grow on a dangly little stalk almost like grapes. Vietnam is the biggest exporter of pepper in the world: who knew?
Again, this was a wonderful day and I learned a lot.
Love,
Heather

June 17, 2005

I actually left Vietnam on Saturday the 11th, but haven't had time to get to a computer until now. My last impressions of Vietnam were of the city of Saigon. It is a huge, busy place, not really my style. It was interesting, but I was happy to leave when I did. It was very relaxing and even a relief to cross the border back in to Calm Cambodia. In retrospect I should have gone straight from Saigon up to Dalat, which is a small mountain town with waterfalls and hikes all around it. Instead I did the tourist thing in and around the city with my little trip out into the Mekong Delta. I'll have to save Dalat for next time. I met very intersting people on my tourist trails - including two Basques who had heard of Boise! The trip was well worth it and I"m glad I had the opportunity to see even a little bit of Vietnam.
Last note: one of my favorite images of Vietnam is a lavender purple tractor that I saw on a small island in the Mekong Delta.