bats, rats, snakes & dogs

it's the fourth day of my spring break trip in vietnam and i'm loving it...so here are a few recaps and impressions of my love, vietnam.

thursday: we arrived in hanoi at about 7pm and after looking around at flight prices and hotel information, we hopped into a cab and told the driver to bring us to 'city gate hotel' in the old quarter. after being lost for some time, he made a phone call and pulled over to the side of the street about a minute later. (sketch) the hotel owner came to the car and opened the door, presenting a business card of the hotel we were looking for...yet both jeremy and i couldn't seem to find the actual hotel we were supposed to be staying at. the manager found out we didn't have reservations and directed us to the sister-hotel, sunflower. we picked a room for $15 a night and then we went to dinner at a jazz club and walked around hoan kiem lake. hoan kiem lake at night is not that great. do you know why it's not that great? because BATS SWARM overhead and RATS crawl on the ground. RATS.

friday: we slept in until 12pm and then headed to a cafe for caphe sua da and some breakfast. afterwards we bought a ton of dvds for dirt cheap (mistake buying at the beginning of the trip since our bags were already heavy...) and then we walked around hoan kiem once again. hoan kiem is surrounded by stunning trees that are hundreds of years old and some dip down into the water. anyway, we walked to the pagoda in the middle of the lake and took a few pictures before heading to an internet cafe where i had soda chanh. after that and after being played by the hotel owner, we got on a plane en route to saigon. tien, ha, huy and co were eagerly awaiting us (so cute) and took us to our driver (same one we had last january) and then found us a hotel. then it was night night time.

saturday: the day started at noon again. hey, we're on vacation right? so we went to eat at the yummy restaurant that my mom was telling me about and that my dad loves eating at and who did we see? julie, jb & sam from hkust! then we went to the reunification palace, this time with an english speaking guide, which made it much more interesting. after that we headed to the war remnants museum that seemed to demonize the americans with photos of results of agent orange and phosphorous bombs. there were also two jars of preserved, deformed fetuses that were affected by agent orange and it was difficult to look at. bleh.

then my family dropped us off at the hotel (tan my dinh) and kevin, jeremy, michael and i went to ben thanh market to look around and the boys bought some snacks and we sat down to eat bun xeo which was actually very good for being at a dirty vendor. then we went to kevin's friend's house (baller) and had a beer before heading out to eat dinner in the big city! after a yummy dinner of ca ri tom (shrimp curry) we went to the 23rd floor of the sheraton and had a drink that lasted two hours while we overlooked the city. i never knew saigon was so immense! we headed to the club called bounce where we had free bottles, fruit, and perrier (compliments of kevin's buddy) and then headed back home for some rest.

sunday: we woke up at 8ish and had breakfast at the hotel. tien, huy and huy's brother came to meet us and then we picked kevin up and headed straight to cu chi. after about an hour or so, we arrived in cu chi and they actually charge foreigners more as tourists are seen as supporting the attraction while locals are there for nationalism strengthening. we toured the village and saw some traps and things and then headed over to watch some slanted view of cu chi movie. it was so awful! i felt brainwashed. "the cute and gentle of the fields girl became a hero for killing american soldiers" "american soldiers bombed our people, our schools, our pots and pans, even our buddhas" "he became a war hero and received three awards. one award for killing american soldiers, one award for shooting american planes, and one for..." (i forgot what the last was for, but im sure it was something against the americans)

after the movie that we ditched before it was done, we went into the tunnels that were extremely small, even after some were 'widened for western tourists.' we entered the underground through tiny holes where we had to put our arms in the air to fit through and then traveled 100 meters in the dark, dusty, dirty, not to mention TINY, tunnels. these tunnels are miles and miles long (the whole thing is about 200km) and they're so genius (if you want to call it that). i couldn't believe that the vietcong/nlf could dig these, even though it took them about 17 years total. their booby traps were scary too. they have punji sticks at the bottom of the traps (which are sharpened bamboo sticks) sticking up with feces, poision, or other contaminants coating the tips of them so that infection would quickly spread to the americans who were pierced by them. frack.

after cu chi we went to tien's house and had the best lunch ever. we had clams, shrimp, bun beo, rau muong, bread & curry, watermelon and drinks. yum! michael liked the bread, jeremy liked the squid...success! afterwards we got dropped off, which brings us to this point right now. on the way to getting dropped off we saw at least 25 weddings being held because apparently saturday and sunday are the only available days for workers to get married so they all do it in the same area of saigon at the same time. (who gets married during the weekday anyway?)

tomorrow we leave at 5:40am to get on a plane to hue and start our tour of the central part of vietnam! we have a private guide for hue, hoi an, da nang and ha long for the next four days, it's going to be awesome.

until then han gap lai! (see you later)