Day 1:
Our bus from Dalat to HCMC was supposed to be 6 hours long. It ended up being 8 1/2: how long it takes to get from my site to Phnom Penh; it felt like a nice taste of home. So, we arrived into the largest city in Vietnam, our last stop, simply expecting everything to go so wrong (every other group's experiences were terrible). We got dropped off and had no idea where we were. We look at the address for our hotel: Pham Ngu Lau. Great! Our location: Pham Ngu Lao District...so did we get led astray to a general area and not a specific street? We ask a moto driver, and he simply points us in the right direction without giving us much strife for not taking his moto. "That way, to the left," he seemed to say (he was gesturing and speaking in Vietnamese). We turn left, and lo and behold we are on the correct street two blocks from our destination. We walk to our hotel down an alley way and as we walked in he said, "Oh. I'm sorry. I sold your room. You said you would arrive 2:00pm, but it is now 4:30p. I didn't know if you were just going to be late, so I booked a room at family hotel just next door. It is a bigger, nicer room (a family room). It is usually more expensive, but I want to give it to you for the same price as this one. Is that okay?" Is that okay?! What's going on? Excuse me. Excuse me! Can somebody please help explain why everything was working out so well? Hmmm, so our friends that we met in Hoi An had arrived only a couple of hours earlier and text us at that very moment that we got into the hotel that they were at the nearby Subway (Subway!) on the same street as our hotel. What?! We walk to the Subway. It's only 3 blocks away. Hello!!! Why is this working out so well. At this point, by the way, Jill and I were still not feeling well. So, we were in shock. Subway was delicious, if you were wondering. Right before we got there, Jill added, "I bet they'll be out of tuna. Watch." We turn right to walk into Subway: "Tuna special: 40% off. 50,000 VND ($2.50) for one 6" sandwich" Stop it. Stop it. Seriously. We met Rachel and Angela and hung out for the next several hours until Jill and I both retired to our room. We still weren't feeling that great when we saw the commercial for Pizza Hut. We had to. We just had to. We did. We called and ordered delivery to our room one large cheese pizza. It was glorious, enough so that we toasted slices. We called it a night.
Day 2:
Day 2:
I woke up at 7:40a with a sty under my eyelid. The pain was sharp and intermittent. Here it was. Of course. The last day. I wasn't feeling so hot, and here I was, standing in front of a mirror, staring at my blood shot eye hoping it might go away. At breakfast, I used warm water with napkins as a "hot compress" for my eye and after a couple of hours, it started to feel better. And then, my cold started to go away. And then, my abdomen started to relax. Fantastic. By the way, breakfast was scrambled eggs, half a grilled tomato, baguette, iced coffee with milk, and a sausage (or...a hot dog, I found some mustard and ketchup for it). Afterwards, we went to this park 30 min away which was laced with flowers and statues of dragons. It was pretty beautiful (minus the not-so-pretty water). We all walked around for awhile and eventually ended up on a Ferris wheel (one that moved at a normal rate and wasn't 1/4 the size it should be). After that we headed back to the hotel by taxi. Fruit juice stand? Yes. My selection: guava, passion fruit, orange. After that, Rachel and Angela left for Phnom Penh on their bus and Jill and I parted ways for the next part of the day. She went to get some trinkets for people back in her community while I walked to the War Remnants Museum. For your information, the Vietnam War is referred to as "The American War" in Vietnam, for obvious reasons.
The War Remnants Museum:
The museum had a 15,000 VND ($0.75) entry fee. The museum was inundated with tourists of all nationalities (including Vietnamese). I felt almost nervous walking around, ever so aware of my being American. It's hard not to be even more aware of this when you walk into the "Agent Orange and its Effects" room and a young Vietnamese girl, who is walking in front of me, holds the door open for me. The building was four stories tall with a "show room" outside of the main edifice featuring a mock-up of what were prisons for women (where blown-up-picture of several women clinging to the bars of the cell door were gasping for fresh air) and "tiger cages" which were 3m x 2m x 1.5m, the last one being the height, where, during the hot season, 5-7 men would be kept and during the cold season, 2-3 men. Inside the building they had several sections: children's drawings of peace, countries of the world who supported Vietnam at the time, memorials and commemorations to the Americans who opposed the war, the history of American involvement starting with the French in the early 50's, the use of and after-effect of Agent Orange (which has counterparts: white, blue, purple, etc), torture methods used, and a gallery donated by the State of Kentucky of photographs from journalists (half of them Vietnamese). The photographs were stunning and had you staring at them for a little bit longer than the initial glance after reading each one's caption (e.g. "Mr. Ho's three children, dead."). Some of the photos were those you've likely seen (i.e. soldiers crouching through rice paddies) and those you might have not (e.g. a man holding the 1/3 of the remains of a assumed V.C. soldier). I spent a good 2 hour in the War Remnants Museum.
After this, I went back to the room where Jill met me an hour later. We're currently watching 127 hours. My day started with friendship and serenity, transitioned to war and violence and seems to be ending with solitude and reflection (and amputations). Bravo to James Franco, by the way.
We head back to Phnom Penh, tomorrow. Our travel time on the bus should be six hours, however, it's Khmer New Year, where everyone GETS OUT of the city to go back to their "homeland" (provinces where their families live), so it should be either calm or CRAZY getting in. It should be six hours, but it might take nine. We'll see. Anyhow, I'll probably not post for a week or so. I've done a good amount for now. This is the end of my Khmer New Year vacation, and it was absolutely splendid. Vietnam is a beautiful, beautiful country with delicious foods and some really nice people. I hope at some point in my life I can come back and spend a little more time, now that I have a better idea of what to do, what to eat and where to go.
Talk to you soon,
Garrett
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