After finally getting all of our visas in order we got out of Bangkok as soon as possible - destination, Siem Reap, Cambodia. Although we were only in Cambodia for less than 48 hours, we got to see some great sights and spend some time with a buddy of ours from Notre Dame. Eric Hillegas, also a Grace Hall resident from the Class of '95, is in his fifth month of a six month stay in southern Cambodia working and teaching at a local orphanage. He flew up to Siem Reap, met us at the airport, and we were off to see some of the amazing 11th and 12th century Angkor ruins. We spent much of our two days in Siem Reap touring the ruins and got to see some spectacular sights. We now understand why Angkor Wat, one of the main sights, frequently gets ranked as one of the greatest man made structures in the world (along with the pyramids in Egypt and Manchu Picchu in Peru).
After our brief stay in Cambodia we said goodbye to Eric and were off to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), an absolutely chaotic city. This city is unlike any other Asian city we have been to. The number of motorbikes (mopeds) competing with each other for space on the roads is incredible. The drivers manuver these things in ways that westerners would not dream of. For instance, it is not uncommon for a moped to go up the middle of a one way street going the wrong way, and everyone manages to somehow avoid each other. It is as though they have invisible force fields around them. The driving methods are truly inexplicable.
The local currency here in Vietnam is called the "dong". OK, yes, we are 27 years old, but we can't quite help laughing sometimes when we hear this currency used in various sentences. For instance, in the economy section of our Lonely Planet guide book, the author writes that "the dong has experienced its ups and down over the past couple of years". Hee hee... And then we were in a discussion with a fellow traveller about taking local currency out of the country, and she told us that "people are allowed to take currency out of the country up to a certain limit, as long as they place their dong in a basket for customs to see". For some reason she didn't find it quite as funny. Call us children if you will....
While we have been traveling locals often ask for our names. As we mentioned in an earlier journal, every time Bill introduces himself, the local will say "Oh, like Bill Clinton". Well, we noticed something
else funny recently. It seems that none of the locals in any of the countries can say the name Rob. Instead they say Robe. So after about 7 months of travelling Rob started introducing himself as Robe. Chris and Bill Clinton picked up on it and have been calling him Robe ever since.
As a day trip out of Ho Chi Minh we went to explore the Cu Chi tunnels. These tunnels were used during the "American War" by the Viet Cong. The tunnel system was truly amazing. It was three levels deep and there were hospitals, kitchens, meeting rooms, bunkers, and sleeping areas underground. They also had under water entrances to the tunnels in the near by river. We crawled around in the tunnels to check them out with our guide. There were booby traps all over the place and one of their main defense tactics was to make the tunnels too small for American GI's. Needless to say, Chris found it easier to move around then Robe and Bill Clinton did. At one point Robe even knocked a bat off the ceiling with his back and the thing b-lined towards Chris. After the tunnels, they asked us if we would like to see the video. The video began "Cu Chi was a nice quiet and peaceful village....and then came the evil Americans". That was the general idea of the entire video.
We also spent a day in Ho Chi Minh visiting the War Museum. Prior to 1995, the year American tourists were finally allowed to enter the country, the museum was called The Museum of American and Chinese War Crimes. Quite an amusing title! The museum turned out to be very interesting. Throughout our stay in Vietnam we surprisingly never experienced any ill sentiment towards us. The Vietnam people were actually some of the friendliest people we have met, and our experience in Vietnam has been a surprising highlight of our trip.
After several days in southern Vietnam it was time to begin our journey up the coast, and our next stop was a beautiful, small mountain town called Dalat. We only spent two days here, but our brief stay was quite a relief from the heat and the crowds in Ho Chi Minh. Our next stop was a beach town along the east coast called Nah Trang. Nah Trang is a town known by backpackers for its beaches and its pick pocketers. We had a little of each. After spending some time on the beach during the day, Chris and Rob decided to check out the Nah Trang nightlife and headed out on the town. After several hours of playing pool with the locals and sampling some of Vietnams alcoholic beverages, Chris and Rob left the last bar and were immediately surrounded by motorcycle taxis offering rides and local women hanging on them asking if they wanted massages. Since we're used to having women hang all over us, the last thing we expected was for them to go after our wallets. Just joking... Rob was able to keep his women out of his pockets, but when Chris finally was able to get his women to stop grabbing him in certain places and hanging on him, they took off and hopped on motorcylces. Chris quickly realized that they had run off with his wallet. Yes, they managed to get both dongs in one night. Luckily they only managed to get a $12 train ticket, five US pennies and about 15,000 dong (approximately $1.10 US). And of course they got his wallet, the second wallet he has managed to donate this trip!
It was soon time to leave Nah Trang and head north to the city of Hoi An. The three of us debated for some time about whether to take the train or the bus to Hoi An. Each mode of transportation had its benefits, but we ended up chosing the train because we figured it would have more space than the bus and we could stand up and walk around on the train. Well, this proved to be a big mistake. When we got to the train
station, we were the only westerners (which is not a problem other than the fact that it usually indicates that the mode of transportation is not going to be comfortable). When the train pulled in we realized that it had steel shutter windows but no glass. We quickly deduced that the train did not have air conditioning which we some how forgot to inquire
about. We also had no idea why the metal shutters were over the windows. We got onto the train and found our seats, and since it was about 95 degrees at 8pm, we were a bit damp. Thankfully, the train had
oscillating fans on the ceiling. Little did we know that they would soon bcome very annoying. Imagine this if you will. 8pm...95 degrees...all
locals...plants and animals in our train car with us...some locals were 3 to a seat...metal shutters...mosquitos and other bugs everywhere. Then
it went from bad to worse. The ceiling had about 10 fans and an equal number of lights. The bugs were attracted to the lights and then were getting sucked into the fans. The fans were chopping up the bugs and
sending bug-parts down on the passengers below. Thankfully, we were sweating enough that the bug-parts stuck to us. To make matters worse, we thought we would get to our destination at 5am and we did not get there until almost 9am. For the last 4 hours of the ride, we were convinced that our stop was going to arrive any second. Since our train was continuing on past our stop, we knew we would only have a couple of minutes to get off the train. We essentially sat with our bags on our laps for 4 hours. There was one very comical moment that evening. We found out that the shutters (which were very thick screens) were to keep rocks out. It seems that locals enjoy throwing rocks at the train and many had been hurt until they installed the screens. The screens kept the rocks out, but not the water baloons. Robe was a drive by balooning victim at about midnight. Lesson learned from this whole experience...no more overnight trains in third world countries!
So that pretty much sums up our first half of our 17 days in Vietnam. We decided to break this journal entry up into two parts due to the length of time since the last posting, so stay tuned for another update in the next couple of days!
Robe, Bill Clinton and Chris
