Day 7

Today was a really great day, one that I had been looking forward to for a while now. We got to take a tour of the city, and ride on the cyclos as a group! Even though I had already been on a cyclo I was still exited because this time it was going to be for a longer period of time and we got to do it all as a big group! We began our tour by walking to the famous Notre Dame Cathedral and the post office. Its interesting how so many countries have a copy of the Notre Dame Cathedral! I cant even count the different number of Notre Dame Cathedrals I have been to! It was very impressive, as most big churches are, but what impressed me the most was the post office. I was stunned to hear that the guy who designed the Eiffel Tower was the same guy that designed the post office! I thought it had some French flare to it! The inside was huge—giant ceilings, old-fashioned telephone booths, and two separate souvenir shops! I knew I would be coming back here before Thailand to ship stuff home!
We then went on the cyclos, one American per!!! We took a nice long ride to a famous Pagoda. The ride on the cyclos was really relaxing and was really useful for enjoying the scenery along the way! The streets we rode on were shared with mopeds, cars, and bikes…complete chaos but in a fun way! When we arrived to the Pagoda our tour guide Van told us a little bit about it and showed us an area outside which looked like an empty pool basin and was filled with turtles. He explained to us that in the Buddhist religion it was good karma to “free turtles”. When I asked where the turtles came from, he said that people sold them on the street—how ironic! I guess the sellers weren’t Buddhist because I can only imagine making money off of that would be some bad karma! We went inside and looked around at the different sections, one of which represented “hell” for those who have “sinned.” We saw one statue where there was a donation box and some folded red papers nearby, and were told by our guide that it was the money god and the red papers brought good luck and money. With that information, of course we wanted some of the monetary luck (we are indebted college students after all!) so Cassie, Travis, and I watched the Vietnamese people and copied the “correct way” of taking these magical pieces of red paper. They would put a donation in the box, take the red papers, rub them on the hand of the statue, and they would also take a fan and cool him off a bit (it was incredibly hot in there!). We waited in line and took our turns at it… I was tempted to use the fan on myself as I was aware of my fully functioning sweat glands at the moment but I chose not to just in case it would offend anyone! When we finished our tour of the Pagoda, we went back to the hotel for an entire free afternoon and evening.
I went with a group to the War Remnants Museum while some others went shopping. One of the student’s friends, Tien, was nice enough to offer to take us there and be our unofficial tour guide. He warned us ahead of time that we shouldn’t feel guilty and that there was some pretty rough stuff in there. Boy, was he right! The entire first floor of the museum was pretty shocking! I had read a lot of reviews online before going here, saying that it was completely anti-American and made us look like the bad guys—which in my opinion we kind of were. The pictures showed a lot of gruesome stuff like the aftereffects of the “kill anything that moves” strategy, before and after pictures of destroyed forests, people who were affected by agent orange, etc. I now realized that all the people on the streets we would see day to day with deformities were somehow affected by the war. Most of the pictures had stories by them as told by the war reporters, and the ones that stuck out in my mind the most were of the pictures of people scared to death in front of the soldiers, because almost all of the reporters wrote that after the pictures were taken they were shot point blank. I wondered how badly this could emotionally damage the photographers and reporters who saw this every day during the war. I can’t envision that someone could live a normal life after seeing that. This also made me think about the U.S. soldiers who were following orders, and I now understand why so many veterans of the war were emotionally scarred for life.
When we left the museum we decided it was time for a pick-me up. We went to go eat at a food court, where we could all be pleased with our food selections. I told everyone about the jeans I had gotten the other day at a place called Saigon Square, which was similar to the Bến Thành Market, except indoors and air conditioned, so we uniformly decided to go there afterwards. After splitting up and spending about an hour there we realized that for some reason, bargaining was much harder to do here. The prices though, did start lower than they did at Bến Thành Market, so that was a plus. After being completely exhausted from shopping, we went back home to get ready to go out yet again.
We met up with a few of the HSU students to go to a karaoke bar. I was fully expecting an American-style bar where people take turns singing in front of the crowd but was surprised to find ourselves renting out a room. The way this place worked, and apparently all the karaoke bars in Vietnam worked, was that people would come in as a group and rent out a room so that they only had to “perform” in front of their friends and no strangers. I guess this was a good thing because I am not really the best singer! We took turns singing with the students…they sang mostly Vietnamese songs and we sang songs in English. We were the only ones to order beers except for Van Ang, who ordered a Corona! After spending about two hours there, we decided to move over to an acoustic bar. Travis and I noticed that Van Ang’s beer was still about 4/5th full… I guess she didn’t want to get too out-of-control! Most of the students went home but two of them came with us to the acoustic bar. The atmosphere was really laid-back and the music was really good as well! We stayed until close, and even got to see someone get kicked out! What a reminder of bars at home!!
After our long night, we took a taxi back to the hotel and I noticed that the driver had a towel over the meter. When we got back he quoted us some astronomically large price, to which we were in ready to battle in full barter mode— we handed him some money and told him that was all he was getting. A few wordy exchanges, the driver accepted our cash and left us alone to go up to our rooms and get our much awaited sleep.