Vietnam: Day 12

Our last day in Vietnam was quite a sad one.  Austin and I woke up around 6 as usual and began our routine, a routine that was about to be no more—showers, getting dressed, down to breakfast  around 7-7:15, out to the bus by 8:15.  We took our normal route through the city with the normal destination of UEF, at which we had our final culture class as well as our final Vietnamese language class.  As promised, our language teacher reviewed everything with us before having us take two speaking tests:  one with a partner, consisting of asking each other four questions and answering them (entirely in Vietnamese, of course), the other being a solo introduction about yourself—your name, where you’re from, what you study, where you go to school, what you did in Vietnam, what you ate and drank, etc.  The second test was scored on a 1-10 scale, with a 10 being the best.  I personally scored a 10 (yes!) and was quite happy that I had managed to grasp as much of the language as I did in those short two weeks.

After the class was over, we took a few group photos to commemorate our class and took a short break while the UEF students finished setting up the room for our final day of activities together:  UEF and UP,  two schools, yet one big family.  When we finally were allowed into the room, everyone took a balloon off the wall.  Inside each balloon was a number, 1-4, that determined your group for the day.  I was part of group two; we decided to name ourselves Angry Birds to show our love for the iPhone and Android game.  In our groups, we did various activities competing against the other groups, varying from hosting a talk show about jobs and differences between the US and Vietnam to trying to eat hanging fruit blindfolded to trying to feed someone yogurt using a tiny spoon, while, you guessed it, blindfolded.  The activities lasted for a few hours and ended with the UEF students presenting us with a gift—UEF keychains and various knick-knacks for us to keep to remember all of our friends in Vietnam.

Following our activities, we headed over to the soccer fields for a fun game of “football” with our Vietnamese counterparts.  Deciding to play barefoot, although a good idea at the time, turned out to be not as fun as we expected:  Austin and I ended up with huge blisters and various turf burns across our feet from not being used to playing without shoes or cleats.  The game itself was quite fun however, and ended with the UEF players winning 5-4 (although they must have let us score some, it was pretty obvious they stopped trying after a goal or two).

Arriving back at the hotel following our game, it was time to shower and try to get some packing done before heading out to our farewell dinner.  However, time was pretty tight, as the game ran longer than we expected, so we only had about an hour before we boarded the bus for dinner.  Quite unexpectedly, and fortunately, according to Dr. Berman, we were able to witness a true monsoon rainstorm on the way as well as partway through dinner.  The rain was coming down harder than I have ever seen rain fall, soaking pretty much everyone as we attempted to get from the bus to the table at dinner, even with umbrellas present.  It was quite an experience, and I was glad that we were able to witness and even be a part of it, especially on our last day in Vietnam.

Dinner was excellent as usual, even better than normal.  Tin had picked out the dishes for the meal, pretty much nailing everything that we have come to like the most throughout the trip.  Tin and Anh were there, as well as our language teacher.  It was really nice being able to see her one last time before we headed back to the US, as we all grew to love her over our two weeks of classes at UEF.  After dinner, the rain had pretty much subsided and we were given the chance to walk around the resort area in which the restaurant sat.  It was beautiful.

We finally said our goodbyes and made our way back to the hotel one last time, as we were planning to leave for the airport at 3:30 in the morning.  After finishing up the final touches of packing and double checking the rooms, many of us decided to stay up for the next 4-5 hours we had before leaving, feeling like it was not really worth sleeping when we had a 15 hour flight ahead of us on which we could sleep anyway.  And with that, we decided to go to Lush one last time, ending our trip on a good note.  Xin Chào Việt Nam!

Vietnam: Day 11

Our second to last day in Ho Chi Minh City had an early start to it.  Up by 6:30, breakfast by 7:00.  Out on the bus at 7:30 and on the road by 7:35.  We were heading out to the Củ Chi Tunnels for a tour.  The entire area was a network of tunnels used during the Vietnam War (or American War, as the Vietnamese refer to it) for Vietnamese guerrilla fighters to hide from US soldiers and attack undetected.  To start the tour off, we watched a black and white video that depicted different events of the war from the perspective of the Vietnamese and how the tunnels played a vital role in the war itself.

After the video, our tour guide took us around on the trails, going from craters left by B52 bombers to hidden tunnel entrances to air and light pathways for the tunnels built into existing termite mounds as to blend into the environment.  We saw some remains of American war infantry and weaponry, as well as examples of different hidden traps that the Vietnamese used to slow and injure American soldiers.  There were hidden land mines, swinging trap doors that led to a pit of spikes when stepped on, all sorts of traps that would seriously injure (but not kill; it was more beneficial for the Vietnamese to injure American soldiers) anyone who fell victim to their trickery and camouflage.  It was really emotionally draining to see the war from the opposite point of view, to see Americans viewed as the enemy, to see the harm we had caused from the eyes of the Vietnamese people.

We also had the opportunity to go through the tunnels, only about 2 and a half to 3 feet tall and 2 feet wide.  There were ways to the surface every 20 metres, but most of the group went the entire 100 metres from start to finish.  My legs and back were pretty sore upon resurfacing, but the experience was well worth it.  To think that the Vietnamese ran through and lived in those tunnels with a war going on above them is too much for me to comprehend.  By the end of the tunnel, we could pretty audibly hear the gunshots in the background from the firing range, creating a feeling that completed the experience of being there.  I, being me, left my SD card for my camera in my laptop from putting pictures up from the night before and therefore was not able to take pictures with my camera.  Luckily, I have nice friends like Laura and Austin who agreed to let me have some of theirs later that I could post.

After our tunnel experience, we went to eat lunch on a dock on the Saigon River.  The current of the river made it feel like the dock itself was moving rather than the water, giving lunch a strange but unique atmosphere.  I ate some good calamari, shrimp and rice, along with the always present watermelon for dessert.

Back in the city, we stopped at the hotel for about half an hour to rest and change before going to the War Remnants Museum, only a few blocks from the Victory.  The visit to the museum complemented our visit to the tunnels, as we were able to gain even more insight into the Vietnamese viewpoint of the war.  When experienced from the side of “the enemy” (from what we are taught in the US, at least), the war seemed much more saddening and emotional.  There were pictures of those affected with the US’s Agent Orange; there were death tolls for the Vietnamese innocent; there were quotes (from the Vietnamese point of view) about the war and the Americans.  Seeing all this was quite an experience, one that I will never forget.

After the museum, some of us took a cab down to a souvenir shop that Dr. Berman recommended to finish up some shopping for friends and relatives.  While Tom and I were finishing up making our purchases, the rest of the group decided to up and leave, so we grabbed a taxi and got off at the Reunification Palace to take some pictures before going back to the hotel.  Since the palace is only about a block or two from our hotel, we were going to walk when two guys with rickshaws came up and asked if we wanted rides.  We figured why not, considering it was our second to last day in Vietnam anyway.  They took us on a really roundabout route and ended up dropping us off 20 minutes later, still a block from the hotel, and wanted to charge us 250,000 dong a piece.  Knowing that it was a rip off, I gave the guy about 80,000 (4 bucks) and started to walk away.  Never take a rickshaw without negotiating price first…

As a token of our appreciation, we decided to take the UEF students out to dinner one last time and cover their meals.  We went to a place called The Lion Brewery; it was a nice German restaurant downtown.  I had a pretty sweet sausage platter, consisting of 4 different types of sausage (two kinds of bratwurst and two kinds of kielbasa) along with two pieces of honey-smoked ham, some sweet tasting cabbage, and potatoes.  Although pretty full, some of us still decided to go out for ice cream at Snowéé, a creamery that imports all of its ice cream from Switzerland (and it’s only a block or two from the hotel, score!).  I had a dish called an “Italian Dream”: coffee ice cream with nuts, Oreo cookies, and chocolate syrup.  After we all finished our delicious dessert, we wished Tuan goodbye and walked back to the hotel, exhausted, done for the night.

Vietnam: Day 10

We’re only 3 days from the end of the trip and it’s beginning to sink in.  We had our second to last culture and language classes today, with our Vietnamese teacher bestowing upon us knowledge that we are to have a final test in Vietnamese in class on Friday.  It will be interesting to see how much we’ve all improved in the language in a mere two weeks.  Lunch followed language as usual, during which we agreed on what time to meet in the lobby of the hotel after we got back so we could go to CBRE for our meeting with Patti.

When we got to the real estate office in which Patti worked, she informed us that there was a meeting going on in the room that she had planned for us to talk in.  So, we took a little walk down the street to a nice little coffee shop that so gratefully allowed us to set up the tables upstairs and have an informal Q&A session.  Being at a coffee shop, Dr. Berman and Patti told us that we could order something to drink.  They had all kinds of smoothies and milkshakes; I personally went with one of the chocolate variety.  Patti really put things about the city and country in perspective for us, explaining how the government pretty much owns the land; people just pay to lease it for a certain period of time.  She seemed to know a lot about being a foreigner and living in a Communist country, having come to Vietnam in 1995 and living there ever since.

After our nice talk with Patti, we headed back to the hotel, where Austin and I blogged for a bit and then promptly fell asleep by 5, not waking up until 6 the next morning.  It was glorious.

Vietnam: Day 9

Tuesday morning brought us back to UEF for a Vietnamese history class, followed by our Vietnamese language class.  We continued to review what we have been learning over the past week or so and started to learn a little more about the different accents and pronunciations, some of which can be very tricky for foreigners (the tonal language of the Vietnamese is difficult to master, especially for Americans).  We also learned how to say stuff like “Sunday I went to Vung Tau” or “Today I am going to Bến Thành Market”.  Vietnamese is interesting and different from many other languages in the sense that verbs never need to be conjugated (for example, it would be “Sunday I go to Vung Tau”; there’s no different word for the different tenses, it only depends on context).

After class and lunch at UEF, we had about an hour to kill before heading over to e.town for our visit to Glass Egg Digital Media.  Since e.town is closer to UEF than it is to our hotel, we just relaxed in the air conditioned classroom for a while before getting on the bus.

At Glass Egg, we met with the CEO and CFO, Phil Tran and Steve Reid.  They took us on a short tour of their facility, on which we were able to see the company in action.  There were many employees hard at work designing different cars and other game-oriented artistic 3D computer models (such as buildings and characters).  Glass Egg is interesting in that instead of taking “computer whizzes” and teaching them how to use their talents to create good-looking models, they hire artists (that have to pass an initial test to begin with) and put them through a 6 month training program to teach them how to convert their artistic abilities to computerised 3D modelling.  For one person to design one car to be used in a video game (take Forza 3 for example), it takes an average of 32 days from start to finish with an in-game level of detail.

The cool elevators in the e.town building

The view from the conference room in Glass Egg Digital Media

Phil and Steve are also part owners of the night club Lush that we had gone to on Saturday night.  They told us that tonight was ladies night at Lush and that if we were to go, that we would be treated well.

When we got back from Glass Egg, Austin and I went down to Bến Thành Market to walk and shop around a bit.  We were there for about an hour or so before being too overwhelmed and hot to stay any longer, at which point we flagged down a cab to go back to the hotel.  Using only our limited knowledge of Vietnamese, we were able to communicate with the driver to take us to the Victory Hotel on Vo Van Tan street (he didn’t speak any English, as some drivers do).  It felt great to be able to converse with someone in their own language without having to rely on them knowing ours.

After changing and putting our purchases in our hotel room, we headed out to dinner.  We went to a place called Barbeque Garden, only a short walk from the hotel.  It kind of reminded me of Hibachi, for you ordered your food (mostly different types of skewers; I had spicy chicken) and they brought it out raw.  There were two little circular grill things, one built into the centre of each table, on which you cooked your own food.  It was really good once you figured out a good routine to cooking (such as how often to flip, where the best spots on the grill, how long to cook for).

The grill and skewers at Barbeque Garden

Following dinner, we came back to the hotel to freshen up and change into our classy clothes for Lush.  Just as Steve Reid had said, we arrived and were treated like VIP’s.  We got a reserved table in the upper level overlooking the area in which we had stayed on Saturday.  James, another one of the part owners, sat and talked to some of us for a decent amount of time, as if we were important clients or regulars.  It was a sick night, probably one of my favourite nights of the trip thus far.

Lush!

Vietnam: Day 8

Today started off a little differently than our days have this past week.  Austin and I got up around the same time as normal, but instead of going right to breakfast, we went on an adventure, searching far and wide for a bank in which he could get receive the money his dad had sent him via wire transfer.  We had an address and a decent idea of where it was supposed to be in relation to the hotel, so we assumed it’d be a pretty easy walk.  However, when we got to the address, there definitely was not a bank there.  Feeling cheated, we walked back to the hotel and grabbed some breakfast before heading out for the day.

About a 10-15 minute walk, the Hard Rock Café of Ho Chi Minh City sits in a pretty clutch location.  Here we met with Dan Thai, the Commercial Director of the Viet Thai International Joint Stock Company—a company that does a lot of business with large companies in Vietnam.  From Highlands Coffee to Armani to Nike to the Hard Rock Café, Viet Thai international brings these companies into Vietnam to expand the brands to the Vietnamese people.  Dan Thai is the brother of the CEO of Viet Thai International, David Thai, and is a viet-kieu, or a Vietnamese American—born in Vietnam, but grew up mostly in America before following his dream and going back to Vietnam and founding what is now a very successful joint stock company.

Hard Rock, Ho Chi Minh style

Nikki, Laura, Austin, and Ben sitting in the Hard Rock before talking to Dan Thai

After lunch at the Hard Rock Café, we took a walk through a mall that housed some of the Viet Thai brands, such as Armani, Swarovski, Debenhams, and Highlands Coffee before heading over (by taxi) to another Highlands Coffee Café, the training centre for all of the Highlands Coffee’s in Ho Chi Minh City.  There, we talked to Andrew Nathan, the Director of all of Highlands Coffee.  A pretty chill guy, Andrew allowed us all to try some cà phê sữa đá, or Vietnamese iced coffee with condensed milk, and answered whatever questions we had about Highlands Coffee or about Vietnam in general.  Having worked for Starbucks for 15 years prior to coming to Highlands, Andrew had an interesting perspective on the coffee competition and outlook on marketing strategies for Vietnam.

Immediately following our meeting with Andrew Nathan, Nikki, Ben, and I decided to go to the Bến Thành Market to look around and shop for souvenirs.  I found a few neat things that I bought as gifts for friends and family back home, as well as buying another bag to pack clothes and souvenirs in for the flight(s) home so that I do not exceed the weight restrictions.  Only 317,000 Vietnamese dong (about $16.00), the bag was a steal.  Austin and I also decided that we were going back to the market either tomorrow or Wednesday to try and get suits tailored, just for the hell of it (and the facts that I don’t currently own a suit and it’ll be much cheaper than buying a suit in the US).

Karaoke!

Back at the hotel, Comer, Jake, Austin and I took a quick dip in the pool to relax and cool off before going to karaoke with the group and members from Viet Thai International.  We were given dinner while we sang, both Vietnamese and English songs coming through the speakers and microphones.  It was a good experience to get to relax with some important people from such a big South East Asian company—they seemed and acted like your normal, everyday people when in our company.  A few others and I picked out and sang “Build Me Up”, ending the night on a good note before heading back to the hotel to relax and blog for the rest of the evening.

Vietnam: Day 7

7 am, waking up in the morning.  Gotta get fresh, gotta go downstairs.  Well, the hotel didn’t have cereal, but you get the idea.  Vung Tau is an hour and a half away by hydrofoil (a really fast boat), so we had to be up and in the hotel lobby by 7:45 so we could take a cab to the dock.  The girls were in a separate cab than we were, and the driver took them to the wrong dock by accident (or on purpose; the dock they went to was farther down, meaning it’d be more money for the cabbie).  Therefore, they had to run a few blocks in flip flops in order to make it before our boat left (the tickets were non-refundable).  The ride was pretty relaxing; we were going really fast, or so it seemed.

The hydrofoil we took to Vung Tau

Once we arrived, Tin (our “tour guide of sorts for this Plus3 trip) took us to quite a few religious areas in Vung Tau, including a shrine that Tin translated to Pagoda and a small mountain with a giant statue of Jesus at the top.  At Pagoda, I got a lot of really neat pictures of the religious area and a pretty nice video of the shrine itself, as well as people worshiping.  We weren’t allowed to wear hats, sunglasses, or shoes inside the shrine area either, which made it feel more authentic when we worshipped with the incense, just as the Vietnamese do.  After Pagoda is when we climbed the small mountain of stairs and twists and turns up to the giant Jesus statue, claimed by the Vietnamese to be the largest statue of Jesus in the world (though I’m not entirely sure on that belief).  It was a long, exhausting, and hot (let me repeat, HOT) walk up to the top, but you felt a sense of self-accomplishment upon reaching the summit.  There was a beautiful view from up there also.

Group shot in front of one of the statues

Jake and Eric about to release their birds as a form of worship

Tin!

The statue of Jesus atop the mountain

After lunch (at which we had some shrimp that were absolutely spectacular) we went to the beach to finish off our trip.  It was about 2:00 in the afternoon, and our boat back to Ho Chi Minh left around 4:30, giving us about 2 and a half hours on the beach to relax, plenty of time in Vietnam’s heat.  The water was really warm, almost to the point where it felt more like you were in bathwater than in the South China Sea (but still extremely relaxing).  We tossed the disc around for a bit before coming back ashore, drying off, and relaxing in the sun for a while.  Tin and An (a Vietnamese graduate student who is also helping us out and going with us throughout this trip) decided it would be “fun” to have us make fools of ourselves by doing some crazy team building games—banana races, team platforms, a strange water game… Although we looked ridiculous, it was still a fun time, especially because team 3 won it all (yeah!).

The group in front of the South China Sea

Another hour and a half boat ride commenced at 4:30, during which I slept for at least an hour (which was wonderful, by the way, especially after being out in the sun for so long).  Back at the hotel, I took a shower and began to write this wonderful post.  Why aren’t there places like Vung Tau in the States?

Vietnam: Day 6

Today began with an earlier wake-up call than usual; we had to be on the bus by 7:30 in the morning to head out to the Mekong Delta for the day, an hour and a half drive by car.  On our way to the Delta, we stopped in a small village to visit a farmer and his cocoa farm.  We were given a tour around the farm, were taught how the cocoa was grown (planted, harvested, fermented, dried, and sold).  We were allowed to taste some of the chocolate made from the cocoa farmed on his plot of land (he let us sample dark, milk, and white chocolate, all of which were excellent), as well as had an opportunity to buy some of his cocoa products.  It was very interesting to see all of the steps that have to happen before any chocolate is made.  We also got quite a few good pictures around the farm before going back to the bus to continue our journey to the Delta.

Me eating the cocoa plant

CHOCOLATE!

All of us in front of some cocoa pods

The gracious owner of the cocoa farm we visited

Upon our arrival at the Delta, a lot of us bought conical Vietnamese hats for a buck a pop and wore them most of the rest of the trip.  To explore the Mekong Delta, we took a guided boat tour on the river, stopping on an island of sorts in the middle that worked a lot with coconut and sold a bunch of souvenir gifts.  We also stopped on the far side of the river to do a bit of exploring: there was everything from people feeding crocodiles to bamboo bridges to an old monk temple used many, many years ago.  After our share of being tourists, we returned to the boat to travel back to the dock at which our bus was parked.  Another hour and a half ride (and a lot of laughs) later, we were back at the hotel.  Just to verify, at this point my camera had died, and therefore no pictures are readily available for me to place up.  However, Austin and Laura did get a lot of good shots that I plan on stealing when they post them.

For dinner, we decided to go to a place called Kichi Kichi with some of the students from UEF.  It is essentially a “hot-pot” buffet, meaning everyone had their own pot of boiling water (which you had the choice of picking the kind; for example I got Thailand, which was one of the spicier pots).  In said hot-pot, you placed anything from seafood to red meat to vegetables to noodles and cooked them to your liking before eating.  Not to mention the food all came around on a conveyor belt, and you could take whatever you wanted that passed in front of you.  I enjoyed cooking my own shrimp, squid, clams, corn, and noodles, with the spicy water concoction adding a great flavour.  At one point, Austin tried boiling an egg, only to realise pretty quickly that it was no egg that we were used to.  Upon cooking fully, it was apparent that there was an entire unborn baby chicken inside of the egg, which was quite an interesting experience to say the least.  It was also Alex’s birthday, so we ate cake and sang to him while still at the restaurant.

Following dinner, we came back to the hotel to freshen up and change; we were going to a club (owned by Glass Egg Digital Media, our company visit planned for Tuesday) called Lush.  It was very cool—they had strobes, black lights, dancing, and a sick DJ who knew exactly what he was doing.  The beats were sick, the dancing fun, and the night overall a great success.  Now for some sleep; another early day tomorrow!