enter warm smiles and strong coffee…enter Saigon

My route for the past month since my last update:

In India: Kolkata –> Varanasi –> Agra –> Khajuraho –> Kolkata (–> Bangkok)

In Thailand: Bangkok –> Ko Samui (–> Penang)

In Malaysia: Penang (Georgetown) –> Cameron Highlands –> Kuala Lumpur –> Melaka (–> Singapore)

In Singapore: well…Singapore (–> Saigon)

I flew into Saigon on Wednesday, after spending the night at the Singapore airport. They had free internet at least and a cafe with passable toast and kaya butter. The flight was uneventful since I slept through most of it, but I woke up in time to see the aerial view of the Mekong Delta. It’s beautiful.

Saigon is a lovely place, surprisingly clean, very nice people, and terrific food. The guesthouse I checked into has all the amenities of a hotel, and for the first time since Thailand, I didn’t have to lay down my own sheets. I met up with Jen and Suz  the day I arrive, had lunch and caught up before they left for Dalat.

I went to the War Memorial Museum yesterday, which has a collection of photos and artifacts from the Vietnam War. It was hard to stomach and a very sobering experience. What impressed me the most as I walked through the exhibits was the tenacity of those involved – from the villagers who stood and died for what they believed in to their descendents who are still suffering from the effects of war today to the photographers who risked (and for some, lost) their lives to capture it all.  The inhumanity and senseless of war permeated. It didn’t matter who was right or wrong, or the reason behind it, war left millions dead, homeless, and forever deformed. That being said, it is wonderful to see Saigon at peace, its people, for the most part, happy. Perhaps the lasting legacy of such destruction was the cohesion of its people as they worked to rebuild what was lost.

Today, I visited the Cao Dai’s Holy See. A combination of Buddhaism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Taoism, and Confucianism, Vietnam’s new religion worships a number of gods and holy figures, including, interestingly, Victor Hugo. The grand temple was beautiful and unique, and their noon ceremony (they hold 45-minute long prayer sessions 4 times a day) was a meditative experience of song and chants.

After, I went to the Cu Cui tunnels where the Cu Cui guerillas once fought against the Viet Mihn and the US for the Viet Congs. Because the Cu Cui region was the gateway to Saigon, it was heavily bombed by the US to root out VC supporters. In response the guerilla fighters built a series of tunnels up to 6 meters deep underground, including kitchen bunkers, hospital bunkers, and fighting bunkers. Because these tunnels are meant to provide protection from bomb shockwaves, they were tiny, only big enough to army crawl through. We went through one that was enlarged for the “bigger Westerners” and even that was duck walk all the way. It would be fun to hold tkd workouts there  – the scrapes from the walls when you attempt to stand up would serve as a painful reminder.

Tomorrow, I’m taking a day trip to the Mekong Delta to see the rice fields and fisheries. Then coming back in time to catch my overnight bus north to Nha Trang. With any luck, the nice weather would hold and I’ll get to dive again, or maybe just laze on the beach

That’s it for now. I’m enjoying myself in Vietnam, eating lots of good food, drinking very strong, very sweet Vietnamese coffee, and trying to stay alive in the mad traffic. I’ll try to update more often, and start to recap what happened during my trip in India, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. I’m crossing the border into China on the 10th, then flying to my father’s hometown on the 12th to spend New Years with them – the first time in 14 years. As for after my trip, it’s back to work, applications, and perhaps tkd – all this hopefully in the bay area that I’ve grown to love.

For now, take care everyone! <3

Number in Vietnam: 011-84-(0)933153494 [the '0' may or may not be needed]

Advertisement