There are so many Vietnam refrences possible as a title, but they all seem cliche

Okay okay, I’ll say it before somebody does: Good morning Vietnam! This port was interesting because I spent more time out of the country we docked in than I did in it! The majority of my time (3 days) was spent in Cambodia visiting Angkor Wat, but I did get a taste of Vietnam as well. And that includes the food, which I could eat forever and ever and never be sick of it.

We got a later start than normal this port because we had to wait for the tides to be right to go upstream on the Saigon River. Luckily I was on a SAS trip so I was first off the ship. I went to visit the Cu Chi tunnels. It was a two hour drive from the port, but I actually love all of these long drives in foreign countries –there’s so much to see! Our first stop was the war memorial, with symbolic headstones because so few of the bodies were recovered. It was interesting in contrast to Arlington Cemetery in D.C.; this one was littered with dead leaves and branches and the headstones were already deteriorating, where as Arlington has pristine landscaping and gleaming headstones. Then we went to the tunnels. Cu Chi was a village where most of the fighters were civilians; a lot of them were women too, which really confused the American soldiers. The tunnels actually existed long before the Americans arrived –they were originally used for hunting, and the traps were used to catch tigers. It was very eerie to see them demonstrate how all these different traps worked. They also showed us a video that praised the “American killer hero.”A side we never hear. At the end we got to crawl through one of the tunnels; it was so tiny, and this was the one enlarged 40%! We were crouched down the entire way through, squatting with our backs bent over just staring at the person’s butt in front of us, and at one point we had to slide down a small slope. When we got out our backs were completely covered in dirt. The strangest part about the entire experience for me was the shooting range; I just can’t imagine how someone could pay to shoot an AK-47 that could have been used against American soldiers at one point in an area where their relatives were fighting for their lives not too long ago. It just baffles me; I found it entirely disgusting. On our way back we got caught in horrible traffic –it was like a Tetris game with motorbikes, and our giant coach bus was a block too big to move anywhere. When we finally made it back I went out to eat with some friends at Pho 2000 –it’s the restaurant Bill Clinton went to when he visited Vietnam, and there are pictures of him all around the walls of the restaurant; as our tour guide said “He ate two bowls! He hungry man!”I honestly don’t know how he did it, they were big bowls!

The next morning I left for Cambodia. It was only an hour flight, and we went straight from the airport to Angkor Wat. Absolutely breathtaking. We just walked around the temple for a couple of hours and took disgusting amounts of pictures, but everything was so incredibly crafted! It took 37 years to build, and when you see it that time seems way too short. We got to see the sunset, which we spent sitting alongside the moat watching local boys do crazy backflips and dives into the water; it was so hot I seriously considering following suit despite the sketchy water in the moat, but I resisted the temptation. That night we had a buffet dinner with a show of traditional Cambodian dance.

On day two we got up to see sunrise at Angkor Wat. It was a bit disappointing, actually; it’s the rainy season right now, so it had just stopped raining when we got there and it was very cloudy, so we saw very little sunrise. But it was very calm and relaxing. We returned to the hotel for breakfast before going out again, this time to explore Angkor Thom, another temple a couple kilometers away from Angkor Wat. Plans for both complexes were made at the same time, although Angkor Wat was built first. They didn’t just decide, “Hey, you know what we could use? More temples!”They actually planned out a gazillion temples in close quarters! We entered through the South Gate, which was lined on either side with statues; one side was demons and the other gods. It’s a very depressing site, because, like most of the statues in the ruins, many of them are missing their heads. During the chaos of the Khmer Rouge, looters stole many of the statues’heads because the entire bodies were too heavy to transport. Angkor Thom is unique because all of the temple peaks have 4-faced Buddhas. Along with the entry gate, there are 52 Buddha faces in the temple, which may have represented the provinces of Cambodia at the time. The temple also has a long series of stone carvings representing daily life. Our tour guide showed us that you could tell the difference between the Cambodians and the Chinese because the Cambodians had long stretched ears and the Chinese had goatees. My favorite carving was one of an alligator eating a man. Nin, our tour guide, also told us that until 1995 there were very few tours through the Angkor complex because the area was filled with land mines; that is such a short time ago, it’s incredible how much it’s changed. My favorite part of the temple was the Elephant Terrace, where the King and Queen used to sit for shows; across the field from them were twelve buildings that used to have a rope stretched between them for tightrope performances!

While that may seem like a complete day already, that’s just up to lunch. In the afternoon I took the shortened trip that cut out an hour and a couple of temples, and I was still exhausted by the end of it! Unfortunately it also means that I can’t use my itinerary to remember what temples I saw that afternoon, but there were two –one was jungly and one had lots of stairs, hah. The first had huge trees growing into the temple, with roots snaking around the walls and into doorframes. The most memorable part, however, was the walk down with the child vendors. Now, by now we’ve dealt with this phenomenon many times. But I have to say these kids were the hardest to walk away from yet. They really knew how to play the pity card. With just the right whine in their voice, they said “Madam, 5 bracelet one dolla! Please, one dolla for school. Madam…”Luckily I actually wanted the bracelets because it was too difficult to not feel sorry for them. The second temple we could climb up a huge set of stairs to the top of one of the peaks and get an incredible view of the land. The stone stairs were so huge for me though that it was like scaling a mountain, I had to use hands to boost myself up.

On the third day we went to Tonle Sap Lake in the morning to see the floating villages. It’s the second largest lake in the world (during the rainy season) and 6,000 people live on it. Everything they need is on the lake, from their jobs fishing to markets to hospitals and schools and churches. Children came out from all the house boats to wave to us as we went down the river. It was a very neat experience. On our way back they were selling plates with our faces on them! They had taken the pictures when we walked to the boat; it was so creepy! After lunch we went to one more temple! Ta Phrom. Apparently it’s the temple were Tomb Raider was shot, but I wouldn’t know. It was one of the most abandoned temples and overtaken by the jungle and cool to wander around, but we were pretty templed out at that point and overheated. Afterwards we headed to the airport and back to Vietnam!

This morning, on my last day, I did a food and shopping tour of Vietnam. I got some more pho and winded my way through the intense aisles of the Ben Than market. It was worth it though; I got some good purchases for very cheap. The big thing to buy hear was backpacks and duffels (to carry home all the stuff we’ve bought so far) but I was all set in that market so I got chopsticks and DVDs! Now I dive straight back into the world of school, unfortunately. Two very quick days until Hong Kong, one of which will be spent glued to my computer for election results. So my time in China isn’t completely ruined by me sinking into a pit of depression, don’t forget to go out and vote Obama!

On a side note, if you ever send me an e-mail and I don’t respond, I’m probably not ignoring you, my e-mail service is just choosing not to send everything through sometimes. So don’t hesitate to send another e-mail yelling at me for neglecting you from halfway around the world, I won’t mind.