Ho Chi Minh City--Vietnam

Thursday, April 10, 2009

Since our last post...

We stayed in Luang Prabang a few days too long, but our stay was relaxing and restful. On March 30 we flew to Bangkok and spent one night in the city and then the following day flew to Phnom Penh (PP), Cambodia a city that falls lower than Bangkok on my list of places I would rather not spend much time in. Our plan was to take a taxi to a hotel that we had found in our guidebook and look at a room. If the room was not what we wanted we would walk and check out a couple of other options that I thought were nearby. Well the hotel was not what we wanted and they were asking way more than we wanted to pay, so we walked around the area realizing there was not much else around and that we were likely not in the best part of the city. Directly across from the hotel was S21 the interrogation prison during the Khmer Rouge reign that was previously a secondary school. Something like 20,000 Cambodians passed through the prison before being taken to be murdered at the Killing Fields outside of the city. We were not to keen about spending our days across the street from the prison. We quickly found another option in our guide books, the River View Hotel, and asked a tuk-tuk driver to take us there. As we drove we realized that there were definitely some nicer parts of the city and that the area near the river was significantly nicer than where we started. Strangely our driver turned away from the river and drove us in the opposite direction stopping in front of a hotel. We asked a guy working at the hotel if it was the River View Hotel. He said that it was so we went in checked out a room and agreed to stay for the night. Only later in the evening when I was taking a card with the hotel's name and address did I realize that we were actually staying at Her Royal Highness Hotel. I was extremely angry and ready to move our things in the morning, but in the morning we had too much to accomplish and ended up staying at Her Royal Highness a second night before taking a bus to Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat and the other ancient temples. During our full day in PP we found out that we could get our Vietnam Visa in a day, so we tried to accomplish everything that we wanted to in one day so as to minimize our time in the city. We went to the Killing Fields to see the mass graves from the Khmer Rouge. We went to S21 to see the classrooms that had been converted to torture chambers and holding cells and that housed portraits of prisoners that had been murdered. The reign of the Khmer Rouge is terrifying and that it only happened 30 years ago is unbelievable. After the museum we went to the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda leaving us exhausted.


A quick complaint about our bathroom set up in two hotels in PP. At Her Royal Highness, we had hot water and even a bath tub. At first sight the bath tub was impressive, but if you looked a bit closer...there was no water fixture for the actual tub and the shower head was placed halfway between the tub and the toilet. So do you shower over the toilet and not have to hold the shower head or do you shower over the tub and hold the shower head? We thought this strange, but did not think too much about it. When we returned to PP and stayed in a different hotel, there was the same set up. Why in the world? I would love any explanation that any one has about this because it simply baffles me.


We took a bus to Siem Reap and bought a three-day pass to see the temples. We spent two full days of wandering the incredible temples. The temples are hard to describe. They were incredible. We went to Angkor Wat first which is the best known temple and it was enormous and beautiful and we were in awe of how it could have been built. The next temple we went to was the Bayon in Angkor Thom and it was our favorite of all the temples that we saw. There were large carved faces all over the structure. The more that you looked at the temple the more faces that you saw. Some of the temples you could climb to the top and walk all around them while others were a bit more restricted. We hired a tuk-tuk driver for both days and he drove us from temple to temple since the entire area is huge. After seeing Angkor Wat and the Bayon, we wanted to know more about the temples and the history, so we talked with our driver about hiring a guide. He said he knew of someone and that his English was good and he was offering a price $5 less than the hotel. We agreed, but the next morning when we picked up the guide, we knew we had made a mistake. The guide struggled to introduce himself and the first thing he pointed out was a souvenir shop. Yes, he pointed to a souvenir shop and said, "That is a souvenir shop." As we drove onto the grounds, we struggled to understand the guide's English, but we decided to give him a chance with Angkor Wat. We were hoping maybe his English would improve and that he would have some interesting facts to offer. We were wrong. He spoke very little and what little he had to offer was usually obvious. He explained that a wall of bas-reliefs was of a war. Well there were definitely soldiers with weapons, so I would have guessed that there was a war being fought. It was painful and would be waste of time for him and for us. Pat and I decided that we would pay him for the morning and then explain that we would continue on without him. We played "rock paper scissors" to see who would have the honors, and I lost and I was the one to fire our guide. At first he did not understand, but we eventually conveyed our point and he headed home. We felt really bad, but we were relieved when we were able to enjoy the rest of our day exploring the temples and reading about them in a guidebook.


After three nights in Siem Reap, we took the bus back to PP and planned on leaving the following day for Vietnam. The bus ride was painful as was the bus to Siem Reap. The roads of Cambodia are not great and the 6-7 hour ride was spent jolting from side to side and bumping up and down. And the road we took between Siem Reap and PP is one of the main highways in the country. I cannot imagine the secondary and tertiary roads.


Back in Phnom Penh we met up with one of Pat's friends, Sam, from Durham and looked forward to heading to Vietnam. As we wandered the streets with Sam, we past a sportsbar where he claimed that he was able to watch the UNC Final Four game. At first we did not believe him because ESPN Asia does not cover basketball especially not college basketball, but sure enough he did get the Final Four game and he was going to get the NCAA Finals. So we postponed our trip to Vietnam for a day so that we could watch the UNC v. Michigan State game. While the game was not too exciting, it was great to watch and the whole thing made Pat especially happy.


We are now in Ho Chi Minh City and have been for the past three nights. We visited the War Remnants Museum from the Vietnam War (which is called the American War here) and we visited the Cu Chi Tunnels where the Viet Cong lived and waged war from an intricate system of underground tunnels. We are really enjoying HCMC and think that it totally trumps PP. The streets are clean here whereas in PP they were littered with trash piles. Some of the main roads in PP branched off to dirt roads (in the city!) while the roads here are well paved. Here in HCMC there are a whole lot of motorbikes!! There are some intersections with traffic lights while others the traffic just goes and pedestrians just walk. As a pedestrian you have to walk across the streets at a constant pace and not stop and then the motorbikes will go around you. If you stop, you confuse the drivers and you are likely to be hit. We have been able to walk around a lot and we have found some really nice parts of town with ice cream shops, little restaurants and boutique shops. Our hotel is simple but comfortable. We get a bagette with jam and coffee in the mornings and pho noodles and spring rolls for dinner, and the staff has been incredible helpful and kind. We will probably stay for a few more nights and do one or two nights in the Mekong Delta before heading to Central Vietnam.

Sorry for the long and somewhat boring blog post. I just felt like I needed to catch everyone up on where we are and what we are up to.