Last week our team made a quick trip to Vietnam in order to renew our Cambodia visas.
Although we technically only had to cross the border and come right back, we
decided to make the most of our $30 Vietnam
visas and actually spend a couple days in Ho Chi Min City (Saigon).
View from a rooftop
restaurant
We signed up to take a tour of the Mekong River,
but discovered that our day also included many other things as well. We got to
taste fresh honey tea, play with a bee hive, hold a snake, watch coconut candy
be made, and take an afternoon nap in a hammock on an island. It was tons of
fun, and I especially liked the little sun hats they gave us!
Quick photo op stop
while driving to the river
Gas station on the
river
We tasted some honey tea, then held the bees!
I’m not really sure
where the snake came from, but our guide assured us he was perfectly harmless!
I never thought I’d ever hold a snake, but it was really cool and so much fun!
Next we were off to
watch the process of making coconut candy. Yummy!
Just one of the many uses for old coconut husks….
Paddle boat adventure
We got a 2 hour lunch
break, and definitely made the most of it!
Ferry boat across the
river
And that’s the end of
day one…the next day Jon, Talia, Ginger, and I headed off to tour the tunnels
used by the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War. On the way, our tour bus stopped
at a warehouse where the government hires victims of the war to create
beautiful artwork and carvings to sell to tourists. Most of the artwork was
made from egg shells and seashells carefully arranged then dyed, and varnished.
The pieces they made were so detailed and intricate, it was amazing. It was
also cool to see that the government was helping to provide a way for them to
make a living for themselves instead of begging on the streets.
Then we arrived at the tunnels. While we were watching the
15 min. documentary video at the beginning of the tour, it began to POUR down
rain. It was ridiculous. Since our tour guide had warned us that rain wasn’t going
to slow us down, we all bought our little plastic ponchos and prepared to brave
the monsoon. The first part of the tour took us through the forests where we
saw several different tunnel entrances, bomb craters, and other war remnants. We
also heard about all the different boobie traps and weapons the Viet Cong used
against the Americans during the war. Considering how little I knew about the
Vietnam war, it was very good to see and experience things I’ve only vaguely
heard about until now.
Tunnel entrance:
Vietnamese people are very small…Americans…not so much!
Inside the tunnels. To get an idea how small these tunnels
are…give this a try. Stand straight up, then bend over at the waist to a 90
degree angle. Then bend your knees about 3-4 in. Now duck your head and try to
walk, keeping in mind that you only have probably about 10 in on either side to
navigate….oh wait…and turn off all the lights because these tunnels are pitch
black except for the occasional “christmas light” that might appear about every
15 meters. We worked our way through 120 meters of the tunnels, which also
included several places where the path rose or dropped about 3 ft with no
warning. Climb…Drop…Duck! At one point the tunnel narrowed so much that we had
to lay on our backs and scoot through because the ceiling was so low. It was
pretty intense. They offered an “escape hatch” every 30 meters in case people
got too claustrophobic since there’s no room to turn around in the tunnels. I
was very proud that all 4 of us made it all the way to the end!
We were sitting
on the ground to take this picture.
Finish Line!
We ended our time in Vietnam
with a team dinner at a fun restaurant called Windows
Just a small glimpse
of typical traffic here in SE Asia…one of these days I’m gonna post a video
cuz you just have to see it to believe it!
Today was our last day of debrief here in Cambodia. We’ll
be loading up the bus at 7:30am to head back to Bangkok
where we’ll spend 2 days before heading to Hong Kong.
I’m excited to meet up with all the other teams, although I’m sure it will be
pretty insane having all 4 squads (105 people) together for the first time!
