Rice Hats, Tiger Beer, Street Vendors, and Knockoffs... (Vietnam Part II)

Of course, that doesn’t even come close to summing up Vietnam and all this amazing country has to offer. Vietnam completely blew my mind and I had NO idea what to expect at all. We officially have less than one month left which is pretty sad, but at the same time this trip is just flying by and I can’t describe how much more amazing it gets day by day and country by country.

 

After spending one more day in Hanoi, skipping out on some museums (indy travel rocks!) and exploring some markets and more of the Old Quarter, buying North Face backpacks, Puma shoes, t-shirts, and lots of DVDs, we flew back to Saigon. The last day in Saigon was awesome – I got my dress fitted and finished and I really like it, went to the huge Post Office, bought a really cool painting of a bar/poker scene with people in fedoras, then found some friends we all wandered around the Russian Market which I liked a LOT better than Ben Than. The food in Vietnam was amazing, for dinner my parents and about 8 of my friends and I all went out to Ngon on our last night, a restaurant that has essentially taken “street food” and offers it in a sanitized setting. You could walk around and watch people making the food and then pick what you wanted or ordered off the menu. Everything was fantastic, the best part was when our waiter would show us how to eat some of the food after we would just stare at it for a while! It was absolutely wonderful to have my parents with me in Vietnam. It’s definitely on par with India as being the country I want to return to the most!

 

One of the most intense parts of SAS so far was the Museum of War Remnants. The photographs were very graphic and tough to handle. The entire place was really somber, and it was one of those places where you just want to look at the stuff and leave and forget… but the pictures are just imprinted in my mind. I wanted to turn away so many times but I forced myself to look and see and learn. When things are shown to you in a different perspective, in a different light, it changes you. It certainly made me more aware of the war atrocities. The only other time something was this hard to stomach was when I visited the Holocaust Museum in Berlin a few years ago… It just gives me chills thinking about both those places, but I think they are amazing to have because people shouldn’t just think of history and wars as nothing. People need to know, to take pictures, to tell stories and not just hold everything up inside. War is war. It kills and destroys and causes more damage than people realize, especially when the war is not in their own country and not just a name on a TV or a country on a map. It’s reality.

 

This was definitely the port where people bought the most stuff. Guys were running around in their suits when we all got on the ship, a lot of girls had dresses/skirts/shirts made, people bought backpacks and rice hats and DVDs and t-shirts (Tiger Beer, Good Morning Vietnam, Same Same…but Different) and shoes (well, maybe that was just me since I’m the size of the Vietnamese and fit into the ones on the racks!) and all the guys bought Polos. The Voice even joked about it this morning at the Noon Report, saying that we are testing the capacity of the ship with all our stuff!!

 

3 days at sea and then it’s China. Soon I’ll be able to check off my top thing that I was looking forward to the most on this trip, the Great Wall.

Vietnam, Part I

Hey all my readers!! So here I am in one of the cheapest Internet Cafes in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. This is just a brief update - I am here with my PARENTS! It is a blast. This morning we were in Halong Bay, considered the Eighth "Wonder of the World" which was awesome - we went along in a boat with other SAS parents/students and got to see some amazing limestone formations in the middle of this bay. Yesterday was a travel day to Hanoi from Saigon (aka HCMC but no one calls it that) and then a 3.5 hour bus ride to Halong Bay. Meeting my parents in Saigon was the best thing ever, I had a huge sign for my Dad that read "Happy 50th Birthday Dad!" and I held it up when all the parents arrived, then got my friends to sing him Happy Birthday. Of course, he was embarassed, but it was so much fun. Spent the day exploring the insane streets of the city...if I said that India was insane, multiply it by 10 and you've got the streets of Vietnam!! I loved it. Did a lot of very, VERY cheap shopping, bought shoes that fit me right off the rack, and when we get back to Saigon from Hanoi on Thursday I'll be picking up the dress I had tailored! It's so exciting, this is why I love huge cities. They are nonstop from morning to night and there is way too much to do, hear, see, and eat. According to my Tourism professor, I could fit anywhere, "even into a rabbit hole" and yes, I definitely fit in here except that I stick out with my blonde hair and I keep getting asked if it's real or not. The $1 t-shirts are my favorite, I have the infamous Tiger Beer ones as random Vietnam ones. Next... the CHEAP North Face backpacks and who knows what else! Currently, my parents and I have skipped out on the Water Puppet Show and dinner with the SAS trip we are on and are exploring Hanoi, where we just walked down "Electronic Street" and "Shoe Street"...saying there was a lot of those items is an UNDERSTATEMENT. It's mindboggling, I don't even know where to begin. All the streets in the Old Quarter are named according to what is sold there. It's awesome, I am sitting here typing this, listening to the incessant and never-ceasing honking from the cars and scooters (or simply "Hondas" as they are called here) outside and hey, my Dad just brought me a pastry that is similar to a pancake that is drenched in chocolate. Mmm...Time to eat!! Don't get run over by a scooter, but if you walk in a fluid motion across the crowded streets, they will avoid you like a river flowing around a rock. And yes, it REALLY does look like that!! :) I love boycotting SAS excursions...

An Indiana Jones Movie... aka Bagan, Myanmar

 

Prior to reaching the government/junta-run country known as Myanmar, formerly Burma, our Inter-Port lecturer for the country was Dr. Monique Skidmore. She’s Australian but has written many articles on Myanmar, visited it numerous times and even lived there. The most interesting buzz on the ship was the fact that she was very openly adamant about NOT wanting SAS and us to visit Myanmar, but obviously she couldn’t do anything about it. From what I have heard, no one stayed on the ship, so her efforts where futile and probably more of a tactic just to warn us and let the students know more about the dark side of the country. In Global Studies, we learned that the people are very much in favor of democracy, and in the last election in 1992, a woman named Suu Kyi ran and received 80% of the votes but the government forced her under house-arrest and denied democracy, holding onto their own rule instead.

 

In fact, everyone I’ve talked to so far on the ship LOVED Myanmar. The military were not everywhere like we were told, and the oppression did not seem to exist. All the Burmese people were so friendly, loved to say hi and talk to us about where we were from, and wanted to help us out in anyway possible. Of course, the oppression is there, the government controls a lot of the country and there is lots of civil war near the borders, but it was not nearly as bad as it had been made to sound! We hardly noticed it even when trying to look. In terms of exchange rate, the “official” or government rate is 6 kyat for $1, but the black market exchange rate is 1100 kyat for $1. Of course we love the better exchange rate and NO ONE uses the other one. We were approached everywhere in Yangon to exchange money and felt quite rich since the largest bill in circulation is 1,000 kyat and everything was very cheap.

 

On the first day, I explored the capital of Yangon with Stacey and Kevin. It was an absolute blast – we bought stuff in Scott Market which was gigantic and never-ending, getting lost in the stalls of t-shirts, jewelry, langees (the skirts that all the men wore), and artwork. In the afternoon we hired a driver and saw all the main sites like the Sitting Stone Buddha, the Reclining Buddha, white elephants, a floating restaurant, some lakes, and watched the sunset at the famous Schwedagon Pagoda. We also got to speak and interact with a lot of Buddhist Monks who live at the pagoda which was extremely interesting to hear about their lives. On the second day I left for the archeological city of Bagan. The trip was really fun and I felt like I was in an Indiana Jones movie the entire time, especially while exploring and climbing the pagodas! Now only if  It was hot, humid, dusty, and mostly desolate except for the thousands (over 2,000 in fact) of pagodas that were everywhere. The sunsets were absolutely amazing, we would climb some of the tallest pagodas and get the most incredible views of the dry land just littered with the pagodas that were made to honor Buddha (there are statues in each of the pagodas). We also visited a local village, did pony cart rides one night, had a puppet performance at dinner, climbed pagodas, and explored a local market. On the last day, we flew back to Yangon and got to ride tri-shaws (bicycle with a passenger seat on the side, like a motorcycle) and bought lots of cool t-shirts in Scott Market. The food, of course, was AMAZING. I’m obsessed with foreign food… thanks Mom and Dad for raising me on it instead of on fast food! I ate papadums, lots of rice, papaya, fried vegetables and the most amazing fish one night that tasted like chicken.

 

Myanmar was so interesting. I met a German woman on my flight back from Bagan who had visited the country numerous times and has started up an organization to help educate the children in Myanmar in the rural areas. It was neat to hear how much the country had left an impact on her and how much she wanted to help these people by getting people to donate old computers to give to the schools in the country. It’s incredible how one simple experience or a few words exchanged can deepen a person’s experience and understanding of a country and want to help them out. The United States has disaffiliated themselves with the entire country due to the military regime, but I think visiting it and learning about it and returning is the best possible thing.

 

Travel is the best education possible.

Rickshaw, anyone?

India completely blew my mind. The culture was incredible. The people were the nicest I have ever met. I got stared at, smiled at, laughed at, and I had a blast. I rode insane auto-rickshaws for less than 50 cents per ride and it was like being on crazy roller coasters all the time. I ate the spiciest food, ate with my right hand only (the left is considered unclean) and did a homestay to a town called Erode where we stayed with the landlord of the Jamalpuram (or something to that effect) village and his family who were unbelievably hospitable and have been hosting SAS kids twice a year for the past 17 years! We also spent time at a private high school in Erode where we got to talk to the students who were taking board exams, eat awesome food including samosas and a billion things that I can’t pronounce and lots and lots of curry! I am dirty and tired and I know I smell like human waste (that is the NORMAL smell of this country!)… but I can’t stop smiling. I could write pages and pages and pages on this country…I will return one day.

 

This is what I enjoy the most. Being completely out of your comfort zone and loving every second of it. Zero sleep, too many memories, lots of laughter, peeing “Indian style” in holes, taking ghetto sleeper trains, riding in “The Little Rickshaw That Could”, having my mouth be on fire from the spicy food, walking through thousands of people in the markets, being called “Auntie” by children who can’t say our names (and we hurt ourselves trying to say theirs!), watching traditional Indian dance performances, learning about all the gods, bargaining until we are blue in the face, having rickshaw races, being offered to drive the rickshaw while it was in motion (don’t worry Mom and Dad – I declined!!), getting blessed by an elephant at the Bhavani Temple for Shiva in Erode… so many more things that I know I have forgotten!

 

As more comes back to me, I will update my blog with random thoughts on India. I took a ton of pictures, bought way too much stuff for extremely cheap and nearly died from the spicy food and got laughed at by all the Indians in the restaurants when we were the only white people who couldn’t handle the spiciness and kept shoving rice in our mouths, turning red, and trying to eat only with our right hand since the left one is considered “unclean”…

 

Some people have wanted to hear more details about my homestay, so here goes. The family was the landlord of Jamalpuram, as I already said. We hung out with the women, his daughter-in-laws, daughters, and grand-daughters. Puni and Raji are amazing women who just love their lives in the cities (Erode and Chennai). We spent hours on that first day talking to them, learning about their lives, arranged marriages, marriage issues, culture, living on a farm versus living in the cities, going to university, and so many more things. We all exchanged stories about our lives. We all slept on the floor on mattresses which was really fun, and in the evening we had a performance by a local drum group and we all danced around with them. Their family was upper-middle class since they are the landlords, so they were very comfortable in terms of money. They were the nicest, friendliest, and most hospitable people I have ever met. They always made sure we were comfortable and had enough water or were wearing hats or had umbrellas while we were walking in the sun. That night we taught them how to play Mafia, the card game, and played until 1am! They told us they’d never had that much fun with a group. We also played random silly little games which was a blast, too. On the second day, we got up early to leave for the school in Erode, where we had breakfast and got to talk to a bunch of the teachers and learn about the private school. Later in the afternoon after going to the Bavani/Shiva Temple and getting blessed by an elephant, we visited a handicap school where it turns out that Semester At Sea is the fourth largest donor since it’s installation! The children mostly had Polio and many of them couldn’t walk but some of them had had surgery, but we got performances by some of the kids who had other disabilities. They were so sweet and just wanted pictures with us, one of them came right over and sat on my lap and didn’t move! She was adorable. After lunch and a nap at the school, we played games with the children (basketball, volleyball, and soccer where it was 10 SAS students versus about 75 kids.. haha) and our last stop was the Siddha Medicine Factory which earns $2.5 million per year and uses only raw materials such as Acacia wood, ginger root, and other herbal remedies. After one last amazing meal at the school which included butterscotch ice cream, it was onto the sleeper train to go back home to the ship.

 

Chennai, even though it was dirty and polluted, was one of my favorite cities I have ever been to.  The markets were so busy and bustling, the smell of human waste was everywhere, there were women in all different colors and patterns of sarees… and surprisingly, I felt normal at my height!! Yes, I think I really like India. Next time, it’ll be the Taj Mahal!

Sleep? What's that? How about some SEA OLYMPICS!

R-E-D S-E-A   Red Sea  Red Sea  All the Way!!

 

9 different “Seas.” 9 different colors. Over 20 different chants. Who won the spirit point at almost all the events? RED SEA!! (My sea.) The day started at 9am with Opening Ceremonies – banners and chanting, everyone decked out in their sea colors. The events lasted all day, and after a late-night of movie watching plus advancing our clocks, everyone was exhausted. I participated in the “Wheel Barrow” event where I took one of the kids’ legs and wheel-barrowed him across the deck. Our team lost, since it was 3 events in one: Wheel Barrow/Crabwalk/Egg Spoon Race. The Red Sea got 5^th overall, getting 1^st place in only the Karaoke/Lip Sync/Skits contest and 2^nd place in Dodgeball. But our Sea NEVER shut up, half of us were at each event throughout the day, cheering on our team, or even cheering in the Twister competition for the color red. We came up with so many chants and before the Flip Cup (with water, lol) tournament, we all got together on Deck 7 and paraded down to Deck 4 and chanted all the way. It was such a blast! The other events included Big Hair, Limbo, Wet Clothes Race, Synchronized Swimming, Chubby Bunny (that was pretty disgusting, one of the Profs and one of the students somehow fit 14 pieces of mini frosted cake in their mouths!), and a Scavenger Hunt where the ship was a madhouse for 30 minutes as everyone ran around like crazy. In the end, the Bering Sea won overall so they are getting off the ship first in San Diego. The entire day was awesome, it was basically insane but I loved every second of it. People went all out, face paint, hats, chants, running up and down hallways… it never stopped until after the Closing Ceremonies.

 

What I have learned on this trip: sleep is a luxury. Naps are frequent, and for those of you who know me, you know that I have NEVER been a napper, even at college. Now everyone sleeps at every chance they can – people sleep in the Piano Lounge, on deck, in the dining room, in class…I managed to fit in 2 very short (30 minute) naps when there was a lull between events during the day. The food was actually really good that day, too. Taco Day is the most popular, by far, for lunch. It’s turning into a tradition (or maybe it already is?) to have a BBQ on the days we have off. Everyone just eats and eats and we devour the ice cream so fast. It’s also, unfortunately, been midterms. I’ve had lots of homework and 2 exams, and there’s one more before India. I still can’t believe it’s March (Mom – Happy Birthday on the 10^th, since I’ll be in Erode on my homestay!!) and the voyage is getting close to being halfway done.

 

I can’t believe that in 4 days I will be in India… :)

Oh, Ship Life.

Everyday while at sea, we get the Noon Report and the 5 o’clock announcements. Usually there is a “special question” which are the stupidest things in the world that are actually asked by people. Are they made up? Maybe some of them, but most of them are true. Whoever I am with at that time, whenever there is a Special Question, we just look at each other like, “Are you SERIOUS?!”  It makes you wonder about a selection of the people here ;) Here are some of the questions…

 

Since we are in the Southern Hemisphere, does the sun set in the east?

If we keep losing an hour, will we miss the sunset?

Is the reason lobster is so expensive because it is extinct?

Is Table Mountain the flat one?

Do elephants hear so well because of their long trunks?

Do they speak Asian in China?

What time do the 10 o’clock snacks start?

When we are in China and we want Chinese food, do we just ask for food?

 

Well, it makes me laugh!! Enjoy.

 

 

Mauritius: The Middle of the Indian Ocean

French. Creole. German. Italian. English. There were just a few of the languages I heard on a daily basis while in Mauritius, an island in the middle of the Indian Ocean that no one has ever heard of. Think of Hawaii – wait, no, don’t. The beaches (such as Flic en Flac and Mont Choisy) were the most amazing and perfect ones that I have ever seen. The water was so blue you could look right down into it. Breathtaking doesn’t even come close. Warmer than bathwater! I ended our 3-day trip with a trip to Mont Choisy where my friends and I went inner tubing on the perfect azure waves. I flipped twice and probably drank enough saltwater for the rest of my life, but it was a great ending!! Backtracking, on the second day I did a day trip to “Parc Adventure” or Adventure Park in the southern part of Mauritius. With carabineers, we went across rope bridges, slippery logs in the treetops, and ziplines. It was so much fun!! A group of us stayed at the back and has a great time. We got rained on, dirty, just COVERED in mud. After that we were taken to Flic en Flac beach for 2 hours and got to swim and lie out in the sun. Each trip I do, I feel like I make more friends and it’s just great. That night, it was 2 of my friends birthdays, so we all went up to Grand Baie, an adorable beach town, to celebrate. That was great, too.

 

The central Market in Port Louis was awesome. I did a lot of bargaining and came out with items that I got down to 1/3 of the original asking price! The food I ate was wonderful; I had some Chow Mein-type dish and some Samosa-type pastries (points if you know what those are!). We are some random foods at the food market which was great, too. Also had some amazing pizza on Tuesday night where I used “un peux Francais” to get buy, since no one else knew any French! The basics get you very far. English is the official language, but French and Creole are widely used due to the fact that 68% of the population is Indo-Mauritian. The bargaining was a great way to practice for the upcoming countries. Most people rented villas at the beaches, but I didn’t. EVERYONE got bitten by bugs, the running joke was “Don’t get the Chicken Nugget/Chicamunga virus” which we had been slightly warned about before Mauritius – there was no problem, everyone used bug spray and we STILL got bitten up! Some people are covered on their legs, I just have some on the backs of my calves from the Adventure Park trip!

 

On the first day, I went wandering around the Caudan Waterfront of Port Louis and the Market. It was hustling and bustling, lots of people (1.2 million on the island) and everyone was buying goods and bartering around us. I pretended that I was from South Africa, and sometimes I spoke German to confuse the sellers. It was so much fun. In the afternoon I had a Service Visit to the SOS Children’s Village in Bambou. It was very interesting. There were seven 2-story houses where 6-7 kids lived. They go to school during the day and play/do homework during the rest of the day. Each house has a “mother” (not biological, all the kids are orphans and most of them had been abused and neglected) and an “aunt” who is there while the “mother” works. I spoke one of the mothers who was very nice and told me all about how the village runs. The kids come at young ages and stay until 18, where they are given savings and move into a middle house. It’s a sad situation, since none of them are able to go to college. All my service visits definitely put things into perspective!

 

Mauritius was a good median. It wasn’t that long, but the strong Indian culture and the Market will help the culture shock when we arrive in India in 7 days (and 1.5 hours of time change)… The seas are extremely rough right now, with swells at approximately 11-13ft. It’s incredibly cloudy and raining a little bit, but still in the high 70s with some humidity. A lot of people are seasick, including professors. Now it’s study time – I have 3 midterms over the next 4 days. Next stop, the 2^nd most populous country in the world!!