Savannah in Vietnam (March 1 - 16)

On March 1^st, we arrived in Ho Chi Minh/Saigon very late, so we went straight to our hotel with our guide, Kang. The reason why it’s called Ho Chi Minh and Saigon is because it used to be called Saigon, but after the Vietnam War, they named it Ho Chi Minh because he was the Noth Vietnamese president, so he was very important to Vietnam. He died a year after the Americans did serious bombing in North Vietnam, during which the Viet Cong lost a lot of men, and some Vietnamese people say he died out of sadness because he had lost so many men. Anyway, after the war they changed the name of the biggest city in Vietnam in honor of him, but people still call it Saigon.

On our first day, Kang took us to the Cu Chi Tunnels, right outside of Ho Chi Minh. The tunnels were in a very jungly setting, and the entrances were extremely well hidden. The entrance we saw was very small. The Viet Cong (North Vietnamese) who were entering the tunnel would pick up the little trap door, throw a handful of leaves on top, hold it over their head, and lower themselves in. The camouflage of the entrance was amazing! Dad, Jack and I lowered ourselves in without closing it, and we got a glimpse of the tunnel, which was teeny tiny. We also got to go for a short walk (or should I say crouch) in part of a tunnel. We literally had to bend over double and bend our knees. It was probably only about 2 ½ - 3 feet tall, and very dark without the flashlight. From just that short walk, we could tell just how incredibly hard life was in the tunnels, and we didn’t even have the flashlight off. You would have to deal with not much air, pitch blackness, snakes and bugs, having to crouch to get around, and much, much, more. Also they would have to careful of traps in the tunnels because Americans would send in spies called “tunnel rats”. Only the Viet Cong would know how to stay clear of the traps. When we got out, we saw a few more things. Obviously, down underground, they need some source of air, especially because they would normally seal up most of the entrances/exits. So they piled up some dirt to look like a termite mound, and dig some holes through it. They would also steal something from the Americans and put it by the holes, so that when the Americans came by with their dogs, the dogs would recognize the smell, and they wouldn’t alert their owners. Also at the tunnels, we saw traps, (very clever, and very scary)as well as places where they would hang out above ground, kitchens, eating/meeting areas, and sleeping cabins above ground, bomb shelters, places where really young people like teenagers, would recycle bits of Americans bombs to hammer into spikes for their traps/defuse bombs that hadn’t gone off, places where they made their shoes, (which were sandal/flip flop type shoes made of tires, which were perfect because they were really quiet when you walked around) bomb craters, trenches, and a tank left behind by the Americans (which Jack and I were allowed to climb on top off). The last thing we did at the tunnels was dad did some target shooting with an AK47. It was awesome!!! We got to watch, but we had to wear headphones because it was so load! Overall, it was very interesting, and very sad to think about everything that happened there.  

Savannah in Cu Chi Tunnel



Shoes in all sizes made of old tires

Paul firing an AK47

The next place we went was the main Cao Dai temple. At the temple, we got to look around before watching their mass from a balcony looking over at them. The temple was very colourful and ornate. It was a really long room, with dragon decorated pillars going down the room. At the end of the room, there was a big circular ball with a picture of an eye. All of the people at mass were wearing white, and the more important people were in red, yellow, and blue. It was really nice for the people in the mass to let us watch, and it was very interesting to see.

Cao Dai Temple

Close up of temple decoration

Cao Dai Daily Mass

After the Cao Dai Temple, we went to lunch. At lunch, we got our first taste of Vietnamese food, and we realized how good it was! For lunch, we had pho, (which is like chicken noodle soup with scallions, but a lot fresher (It’s a pretty popular dish in Vietnam). Then we went to our last stop, The Palace of Reunification, which is now a museum, but it used to be the head of the South Vietnamese Government and the U.S. embassy. The Americans also planned the whole war from there, and the high-up people in the war (generals, sergeants, etc.) would hang out there. It was a very big, very fancy building. We saw long meeting halls, a theatre, a ballroom, a casino, and the basement, which was a bomb shelter and also the place where the whole war was planned. The casino, ballroom and theatre were for the entertainment for the high-up officers resting there. The basement had huge maps, and graphs of how many soldiers were where. On the roof, there was also a helipad, which towards and at the end of the war, the helicopters were used to evacuate as many Americans and some South Vietnamese as possible.

Palace of Reunification (formerly the US Embassy)

The next day we went to My Tho, where we had a boat ride on the Tien Giang River. On the ride we went past four islands, the Phoenix, Unicorn, Tortoise, and Dragon Islands. We stopped on the Tortuous and the Phoenix Islands. On the Phoenix Island, we saw some honey bees, and then we got to try some tea with their honey in it. It was really sweet, but really good. We also got to try some tropical fruits, like dragon fruit, jack fruit, etc. We also had some live music, which was a three person band and a man and woman singing, which was really nice. They also had a snake, which I held (but not the head!). On Tortoise Island, we saw some people making coconut candy and rice cakes. They both tasted really good! We then took a horse and cart ride through the town, and we ended at our lunch place. For lunch, they really surprised us by bringing out a big cooked fish – but it was still completely intact. Luckily, a waitress comes, breaks it apart, and makes un-fried spring rolls with rice paper, fish, bean sprouts, salad leaves, and carrots. After lunch, we had a short ride on one of the traditional Vietnamese boats, with the conical hats as well, down a small river back to our boat.

Savannah holding bees

Savanna and our guide Kang with snake

Making coconut candy

We tried dragonfruit for the firt time

We also tried jackfruit

Savannah

Lunch??? Seriously???

After we let the Thien Giang River, we went to our last stop before our next hotel. The last stop was the house where a move called “The Lover”, was filmed. It was very fancy and ornate. Our hotel in Can Tho was really nice. Before dinner, we swam. They kept a small cage full of bats (probably to eat). They were so cute!

Before we left the next day, we had a little time to look around the hotel grounds, so we went to the crocodile lake. On the way, we saw three monkeys in a small cage L. At the crocodile lake, they sell long sticks with string with big meat chunks tied to the end. Dad, Jackson, and I all went. You just have to hold on as tight as possible, while the crocodile tries to twist the string so it snaps. It was really fun!

After we left the hotel, we went to the Cai Rang Floating Market, where they well fruit and vegetables. A lot of boats tied one of whatever they had to sell on a big pole on their boat, so you know where to shop. We stopped at a house where there was a baby and a little girl. They let us sample some fruit, which was really juicy and sweet.

Houseboat where we stopped to sample fruit

After the floating market, we went on a walk through some jungle where some of the Viet Cong lived, where we saw more bomb shelters and bomb craters. We also learned that there is a type of leaf that only monkeys know about, which when they put it in dirty water, the water in the leaf turns to fresh so the monkey can drink it. After the jungle, we returned to Ho Chi Minh.

The next day, we flew from Ho Chi Minh to Da Nang. When we met our guide, Tong, the next morning, we started by going to My Son. My Son is the ruined 10^th century ancient capital of the Kingdom of Cham. The people of Cham would walk, while the King would ride an elephant, to My Son to worship. After the capital was ruined, it was much later rediscovered by Frenchmen hacking their way through the jungle. The most interesting part of My Son is that the bricks are held together with very little mortal, yet they managed to hold through multiple earthquakes.  The structures are still in pretty good shape today. There are a lot of places of worship, and mostly everything has pictures of gods and goddesses. Also at My Son, they had some Vietnamese dancers. It was really cool to watch. The costumes were really nice too.

Dancer at My Son

oday we went to Hoi An City, which is an pretty old city. It used to be a pretty big trading port, and the Chinese and Japanese each had a section, and the rest was Vietnamese. There are a lot of old houses there. The first thing we did was go to a Japanese covered bridge, which separated the Japenese section from the Chinese section. We also went to a family’s house, and me and Jackson got necklaces - Chinese zodiac (Jacksons a snake, mine a rabbit) on one side and a lady Buddha on the other. They also told us that Vietnam zodiac animals are the same, except the rabbit is a cat. The whole city gets flooded a lot, and when there’s a flood, they have to evacuate everything and go upstairs.

The next place we went, they were having a dance show. While we waited for the show, we watched some people making the big, circular, silk lanterns, and some girls making small lotus flower shaped lanterns, and mom and I bought some. The dance show was really good, and the music was great! We also saw a Chinese temple, and we went to a marble store. There are a lot of marble stores, and they all get their marble from Marble Mountain, which is actually made of marble.

Silk lanterns (Savannah got a purple one)

We drove on to Hue. On the way, we stopped at My Khe beach, which was nicknamed "China Beach" by the Americans.  After the beach, we drove over a mountain.  On the mountain we drove through a cloud! 

"China Beach"

            Happy International Woman’s Day!!!!  Today is the 100^th anniversary of International Woman’s Day and in Vietnam, it was a national holiday.  Our guide Tong gave mom and me each a rose!  The first thing we did was a boat ride on the Perfume River (the name is because in the river there is a flower that hangs in the river and perfumes it). The people whose boat we rode on were a family; parents and two little girls, one awake but really shy, and the little one looking really comfortable sleeping in a hammock.

Boat we took on the Perfume River

            The boat stopped by the Thibnien Mu pagoda. The Thibnien Mu pagoda is Buddhist, it was built in 1701, and 50 monks live on the grounds. After looking at the pagoda, we saw the temple where the monks pray, and we also saw a couple of little boy monks playing outside. The other thing we saw there was a car that a monk drove from the Thibnien Mu pagoda to Ho Chi Minh. In Ho Chi Minh, he got out, sat down, poured petrol all over himself and burned himself to death. He did that in protest against the South Vietnamese government, because of their discrimination against Buddhism. That happened in 1963. He was the first but many more followed.

Pagoda

Monks in training

            The next stop was the Imperial City. In the Imperial City there are three concentric walls surrounded by a moat. The farthest section out is the Royal City, where everyone except the Emperors family lived. The middle section is called the Imperial City (also the name of the whole thing in general), and that is where the administrative officers worked and where ceremonies were held. There are a few entrances from the Imperial to the Royal City, one humongous one for elephants and horses, than one for the government, then the one for the Emperor, and then the last one for the soldiers. The inside section was called the Forbidden City, which is where the Emperor, his family, and his concubines lived, and they were all served by eunuchs. The only section that is no longer there is the Forbidden City, now mostly all grass, which was destroyed by Americans in the Tet offensive in 1968. The French also destroyed a little in 1947 and stole all the gold.  

            In the Imperial City (the middle section which is not destroyed) we saw a theatre, a large courtyards where ceremonies were held, and lots of ornate rooms. There was also an ornamental moat (not the real one) which had a ton of koi fish, and when we got some food to give them, they all climbed on top of each other and all crowded in one corner pushing and shoving and opening their mouths as wide as possible. They were crazy!

crazy koi fish

            The Emperor has a wife and some concubines (one Emperor had 500!) and he has children with both his wife and his concubines. (That same Emperor had 142 children!)

The next thing we did was have lunch, which was great as usual, before going to the 12^th Emperors tomb. The tomb was up a couple flights of stairs, with long dragons lining the stairs. The tomb itself was extremely ornate and very beautifully decorated, and it included a life sized statue of the Emperor, and the ceiling was an amazing painting of lots of dragons, which the painter did by foot! Out in front of the tomb, there were stone people, and a stone horse and elephant. They were there to protect the Emperor in his afterlife.

The next tomb was the 4^th Emperor, Tu Doc’s, tomb. It was again very pretty and ornate, but it was very peaceful because it was located with forest all around it and a pond in the center. The Emperor used to go there before he was buried to get away. For an Emperor, he had a pretty bad life because he had no son, and not only that, but not many people liked him very much. He was a relatively bad Emperor, and before he died he even wrote a poem about his life and how bad of an emperor he was. He was partly responsible for French occupation, because he didn’t really do anything when they started to occupy. No one knows where he was buried, because since he was a not-so-good king and obviously the whole French thing happened, he acquired many enemies. The people who did like him and wanted to bury him were scared that his enemies would dig him up and humiliate or show disrespect towards the body, so after the workers buried him, they killed the all the workers so no one would know where he was.

The first thing we did today was take a cyclo to the Dang Ba which was really fun! A cyclo is a seat on wheels pushed by a bicycle. On the way to the market, we were on the street next to motorbikes, which was pretty scary. We were cycled through one of the Imperial City walls, and we could see just how thick it was! At the market we looked around for a while. Downstairs they have food and stuff for houses, and upstairs there are clothes. We learned that when someone’s family member dies, they burn fake money for them. Upstairs I brought a pair of purple pajamas!

Daddy & Savannah on a cyclo

After we cycled back from the market, the guide, Dad, Jack, and I, went on a short walk. We first went to a courtyard that is full of tanks and other things that the Americans left behind. After that, we saw the house where the eunuchs would live after they retired from serving the king and his family. The last thing we did was go to a coffee shop, where we watched the world go by and saw the place where the Emperor and his family could go to look out at the people in the Royal City.   

Next we caught our flight to Ha Noi. After breakfast the next morning, we met our guide, Sonny, and we headed out. Our first stop was the French Governor’s mansion, where he lived during the French occupation. We could only see the outside, but it was really fancy! We then saw the two houses where Ho Chi Minh lived during his life, and you could tell by his houses that he was a very simple man, because even when he was president, his houses only had three rooms, and they were very simply furnished, decorated only with a photo of Lennon and another communist we didn’t know. We also went to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, which was extremely heavily guarded. It was only one room, where Ho Chi Minh lies in the middle. His body had been preserved, so that he still looks like he is alive and sleeping. A really interesting fact is that the Vietnamese language is not very old, and Ho Chi Minh wasn’t even born speaking it, because it wasn’t invented yet! Also, the Vietnamese still call him Uncle Ho and in 2,000 years of Vietnamese history, he is the only really important person, so he is very special to the Vietnamese people.

Outsde of Ho Chi Min's Masoleum

 The next thing we saw was a small pagoda called the One – pillar pagoda, which gets its name because it is supported by only one pillar.  People go to the One-pillar pagoda to wish for a son.

One Pillar Pagoda

We also went to the Temple of Literature. The Temple of Literature was first a temple of worship, than it was turned into a school. At first, it was only for Emperor’s sons, but eventually, gifted commoners were also taught there. The coolest part was that they would carve the names of the students who passed the exams into stone slabs, and the stone slabs have turtle heads. The other temple we went to was the Temple of Quan Thanh. Our last stop before lunch was the Pagoda of Tran Quoc. For lunch, we went to a famous restaurant called the Cha Ca. they only serve one dish, fish and vegetables fried in oil, and you put some in a bowl with peanuts and noodles. It was pretty good!

After lunch, we went to the Ethnology Museum, where they had things from the 54 different indigenous ethnic tribes, as well as models of houses from the different tribes. My favorite house was a really tall house that you have to climb up a really thin cross between stairs and a ladder to get to it. Inside, it has only one story but the roof goes up really high. There was also a really long house, which was really cool.

Savannah in the really tall house

Long house at Ethnology Museum, Hanoi

After the museum, we went to the Water Puppet show! It was awesome! It was in a small theatre, and the stage had a temple with lots of water in front, and on the side there was the orchestra, whose music was amazing. The carved wooden puppets float on the water, and they act out stories and legends from all over Vietnam. Water puppets were invented by farmers to entertain the villages during the flooding season.  

Water puppet show

Outside of the water puppets, there was a big lake, where there is a very old turtle 400 lb. fresh water turtle. He has recently been in the news as he is very sick L.  The news says he is 80 -100 years old, but many Vietnamese believe he is 900 years old (two of our guides told us he was 900 -1000 years old) They are trying to catch him so they can make sure he stays healthy as he is very rare and there are only four left in Vietnam. You can’t see him very often, but there is a shell from one that died in a little museum in the middle of the lake.

The next day we got on a junk from Cat Ba Island. We were going to stay the night on the junk in Lan Ha bay (which is very close to but not as crowded as Ha Long Bay). The junk was small, but pretty nice. It had a front deck where we hung out, the inside was a platform on top of some cupboards, and the platform was like a living room during the day, but at night they laid out mattresses. They made the whole floor the bed. There was also a small bathroom, and the back deck where they cooked, drove, fished, and slept. After we started driving, we had lunch. Lunch was squid salad, seafood spring rolls, shrimp, oysters, dragon fruit, and fish in tomato sauce. On the junk we drove around a lot, and while we were driving, we saw lots and lots of really tall cliffs and rocks, most of them covered in green and vegetation, with only a little grey sticking out. The very bottoms of the rocks, the parts touching the water, were worn away from years and years of waves. We saw one really tall, really skinny rock, which locked like it was just balancing on the small part holding it up.

Our "junk"

Savannah & Sonny kayaking

Savannah & Jackson in the cabin

Lan Ha Bay

Houses on the water

 We also got to go kayaking and line fishing. I kayaked with Sonny, and Dad went with Jackson. We went to look around a cave, but while we were in, the tide started rising a little bit, so we had to get out of there. We also went to a little isolated bay, which was really peaceful and quite. Sonny and I saw a big black squirrel with a really fluffy tail jumping around. We also looked for monkeys, because apparently they have been seen around on the rocks before, but we didn’t see any. When we went line fishing I caught one or two, dad and Jack caught five or six, Sonny caught none, but the captain must have caught at least ten. They were all really small, and there were even a few that were poisonous to eat. Towards the end of the evening, we put our anchor down in a small bay with a bunch of other fishing camps. Dinner was more or less the same as lunch. After dinner, Sonny gave me and Jackson each a small piece of paper folded like origami, with a candle inside that we had made before on our way out to the boat. After a few tries, Sonny managed to get the candles lit and the “wishes” in the water. They are called wishes because when fishermen are out to sea, they make them, put them in the water, and make a wish, which we did as well. We then watched them until they blew out or sank. They looked really pretty, especially because it was really dark out. We then slept on the junk.

When we woke up the next morning, we were still in the bay, but obviously we had drifted around a little. After breakfast of crispy pancakes and bananas, we went to a fishing village, where we docked next to someone’s house. All of their houses are on the water, and surrounded by big pools with fish that the fishermen catch. To see the fish, you have to balance along a couple boards and look over at them. When the fishermen go out to sea to fish, when they come back, they put the live fish in their pools so they can sell them fresh whenever someone wants one, and they sell the dead ones right away at the market. Then we unfortunately had to drive back to Cat Ba Island. After we caught the ferry back, showered, and had dinner, Sonny dropped us off at the train station, where we took the overnight train (so fun and relaxing!).

When we woke up on the train this morning, it was really early. We got off the train, met our guide, Hin, and drove to a town called Sa Pa. when we got to Sa Pa, we had breakfast and walked around a little bit, and when we were walking, we saw lots of women with baskets, and sometimes babies as well, on their backs. In the baskets they had a lot of handmade things that they made at their homes in smaller villages around Sa Pa, and every day they hike down from their villages to sell things to tourists in Sa Pa. They would all gather around you asking your name, where you’re from, how old your children are, and questions like that. Eventually, they would start showing you their things and asking if you will buy from them. If you say no, they will say, “later, later?” We also went to a square where some of them went to display their things. After looking around there, we started the trek. We trekked 12k from Sapa to our home stay in a small village called Ta Phin..

The first quarter of the trek was extremely muddy. Since it was very slipperly and we were going extremely slow, when two little boys came by with big knifes from cutting firewood for their families, Hin borrowed the knife and cut us big walking sticks from bamboo, which made it much easier. After we got through the mud, it was much easier because it was on a pathway.

Along the way, we saw a lot of children and a few adults, and we brought some candy along for them. We saw some more women with baskets on their backs as well. We saw two different types of indigenous people, the Black H’mong, and the Red Dzao. We also saw a lot of pigs and piglets, dogs and puppies, goats and kids, and on the side of the path, mom and I saw a mother and baby water buffalo.  After about 8k, we stopped for lunch. Hin had brought a picnic in his backpack. We ate at someone’s house, before doing the rest of the trek.

Savannah handing out candy

Trekking to the homestay

Savannah with the rice fields in the background

Black H'mong extended family

Playing a hoping game with a Red Dzao child

Red Dzao woman with baby

Goats & kids

Pigs & piglets

Baby waterbuffalo

 Ta Phin is a Red Dzao village. When we got there, we saw that they have a really nice school, and they are building a hospital. Hin told us that UNICEF had been there and assisted the village some time ago. The house we stayed at was very nice. Downstairs in the main room, they had a table and about 8 plastic chairs, a T.V., and a refrigerator.  They had a separate kitchen and bathroom. Upstairs they had the beds, which were mattresses on the floor. The family was really friendly and made us feel very welcome. There was a dad, a mom, and two kids, a boy and a girl. When we got there, we gave candy to the kids in the village, which they really liked. They were all really cute! The family made dinner for us, which was good. After dinner, we went to bed.  We had no trouble sleeping as everyone was tired from such a long journey there.

Homestay living room

Unfortunately, we had to leave the homestay in the morning, so we got up and had breakfast, (pho) but we didn’t have much time after that. By time we woke up, the kids had already left to go to school L.

Outside of the homestay as we were leaving

Red Dzao children

Savannah handing out candy

After we said goodbye, we took a van back to Sapa. In Sapa, Hin took us to a market, where we saw dog meat.  It was horrible! We also saw a barber that had a mirror, a chair, and some scissors out in on the side of the street. We walked around the square again, and we saw a lot more of the ladies with their baskets. We also saw a bride and groom having a photo shoot in front of a church. After lunch, we took a car back to Lao Cai. After dinner, we said goodbye to Hin and took the overnight train back to Ha Noi.

Savannah finds a kitten in Sapa

Our last day in Vietnam was pretty busy.  After the train, we started by going to two temples, the Dinh Thien Hoang, and Le Dai Hanh. Both were old and beautiful. Our next stop was a boat ride through some cliffs made of limestone, which were pretty amazing! We were in two small boats that the people rowed with their feet!  We saw lots of rice paddies, a woman weeding, a few mountain goats, and some really pretty graves. It was long, but relaxing. We went under three caves which was awesome!

The next stop was lunch. For lunch, the unusual dishes we had were shrimp and goat spring rolls and stir fried goat meat (which you were supposed to wrap in rice paper with pineapple and mint leaves). After lunch, we wanted to get back to try and see the giant old turtle before the park closed, so we rushed to the Bich Dong Pagoda, which was different from other pagodas because it is built on three stages of a cliff. We only had time for the first and second stages. The second stage was built half in, half out of a cave. In the back of the cave, there was a big stone slab that had the names of the people who built the pagoda. After the pagoda, we all rushed to the car and tried to get back quickly, but because of the rain there were a few accidents, which held us up for several hours and we didn’t make it to the turtle exhibit L.

We left Vietnam on March 16.  I loved our time there and I will miss Vietnam’s wonderful people and food so much!