Vietnam Day 4 – March 26, 2008

Okay, so far Vietnam has been pretty cool. This place has definitely grown on me. When we first arrived, I thought it was going to be awful— when Alysha and I stepped out of the airport a huge wave of humid warmth hit me. I couldn’t wait to get into the bus. I guess now, after a few days, I feel pretty used to the heat.
I didn’t sleep at all on the ten-hour flight. Basically, Courtney and I stayed up until 4 am (Hawaii time) so I totally crashed on the first night in Saigon. Even though we had been exhausted, we woke up early the next morning (an hour early by accident). To start our day we went to an Imperial Palace of the ex-president and took a tour. Our guide ‘no speak English’, so Mr. Dang shakily translated everything for us. We saw a ton of conference rooms, dining rooms and map/war planning rooms. Oh, and also the ‘most beautiful’ room with a lacquer painting. Then later we went to the catholic orphanage. It was a new experience for me. It made me very happy yet very sad. It was so easy to play ‘monkey in the middle’ or paint a picture with the children. All the girls seemed really excited to see us. One small girl actually came up to me and told me ‘thank you very much for coming, I love you, god bless you’. I gave her my picture that I painted; I was generally speechless. It was such a strange feeling. We had only been there for a couple of hours and she was able to say something that… powerful. I felt really weird. I was happy we spent the afternoon with them, but I also felt sad, because those girls are all orphans. They were so loving. I found this show of warmth and regard hard to believe. Doug and I were pretty numb-founded on the bus back to the hotel. We never ended up going to the war museum, at least not on the first day (maybe later). Later that evening, the majority of us went shopping with Ms. Haney and ended our day getting lost at one point, but not for long!
On the second day we went to the Cu Chi Tunnels, which was actually pretty cool. The Cu Chi Tunnels had a lot more to do than just being lost in the huge Vietnamese underground maze. We first caught the end of an educational/informative video and then we went on the tour. We saw a lot of scene recreations. There were creepy mannequins dressed in war gear reenacting a ‘typical’ scenario for the troops. We took lots of pictures with them. I got in trouble because I took off one of the fake soldier’s hats. On one part of the path, there was a huge tank and once again, it was the star of our pictures. Everyone climbed on top of it - yea! Continuing on, we reached the site of one of the original entranceways into the tunnels. It was super-tiny; it seemed like only little babies could fit inside. But I guess tiny adults could fit inside. About half our group took a stab at lowering themselves into the dark of the little rectangular slot. The coolest part was probably when we were given the chance to shoot a REAL gun. I chose to shoot an AK-47. It was so extremely loud, my ears felt like they were dying in the shooting area. When given the chance to shoot, I found the gun was so heavy and the kickback was very strong. So strong that Mrs. Dang got her wrist injured. It looked really sore. Actually, later I found out she fractured her wrist due to a fall off some steps at the refreshment pavilion adjoining the firing range. Finally after seeing just about everything, we went inside the tunnel. It was actually not as humid as the outside, but it was really dark. In some parts, it got really claustrophobic; even though the tunnels were five times enlarged! Chris was leading us, so we ended up going farther than a lot of the others in the group. I was happy to be alive when we came out to daylight once again! Anyway, on the way back to the hotel we made an unexpected stop at an orphanage for handicapped adults and children. They made a lot of nice crafts and paintings; it was really neat, especially the fabric flower things. We made a small donation and sat with them for about a half an hour. We sang songs to each other, I felt kind of hesitant to make a speech like John did. It seemed like we were there for such a short time. After we returned to the city, we were given lots of free time, which of course we all used up shopping and wasting time in our hotel suite.
On the third day, we went to the Mekong Delta. The bus ride was extremely long and with musical accompaniment with ipods, speakers, Tiara and Malia (and others). When we got there, Grace and I bought those chinaman hats for a dollar and then we all loaded up onto a boat to Con Phung. Our tour guide had really bad English and it was really hard to understand her. I extracted some information: the water we were floating on was so dirty looking because of soil, soot, and sand. Oh, and that we were traveling to one of a group of islands known as the Unicorn Islands, or something like that. When we arrived at one of these islands, Phoenix Island, we went straight to another boat ride, yet it was a much smaller paddleboat this time. Two people paddled the boat as we went down a river that was like a Disneyland ride. It was kind of boring, but it was all right – very tranquil. We got off at a small village, where we proceeded to give out toys to little children. It was pretty messed up because they kept begging and reaching into our boxes for more. The kids took one and then ran back to their parents and went for another. Women even came up to us claming that they were pregnant and for us to give them a toy. At least they served us some really good tea and coconut candy at our next destination on the island. We watched them make the coconut candy, starting from husking the coconut. Everyone bought lots for their family and friends. Then the coolest part of the day, we all got to hold a snake. It was so cool; the shin felt like smooth plastic. We then took the boat back to the dock and the bus and our guide sang us a ‘thank you song’(?). It was… interesting. After our Unicorn or Phoenix Island adventure, we went to a really big market in Saigon (According to Mr. Dang, it is the largest market in Vietnam). It was a crazy maze in there and Mr. Dang was right, this market had everything from pots and pans to slippers and clothes. It was near closing time though, so I only bought a necklace, but Courtney and Jen bought lots of nice thing like slippers and fake wallets.
On the fourth day, we all packed up and loaded onto the bus for a four hour ride to the resort in the small beach town of Mui Ne in the district of Phan Thiep, Northeast of Saigon. On the way there, we stopped at the Buddhist orphanage; where we were served a vegetarian lunch because they don’t eat meat. It was actually pretty tasty; there were little round disc-shaped rice floor cakes that tasted like noodles and a jelly-like noodle wrapped in banana leaves. They also served a super spicy soup with noodles. There was a lot of food! Then we went inside the Buddhist temple to spend time with the kids. We spread our projects out on the cool marble floor of the temple and divided the children into small groups. Groups were fluid as children moved from one project to the next in their own time. Many of the children were really young or looked young. When we asked their age, some who looked 5 or 6, were actually 10 -12 years old. Many of the older kids were in school at that time. A lot of them were really shy initially, but with time, time they opened up. I taught them how to take pictures on my digital camera, and they went crazy with that. They seemed really happy snapping shots; it dawned on me that it’s cool that even across the world you can share the same kind of joys over simple projects which included painting and making picture frames of Polaroid shots of each kid. When we left, they were really grateful to us. They posed for our pictures and gave us mangoes, which is really sad because they are now rotting inside our deluxe double room. I didn’t exactly feel the same as last time; I guess I felt happier. When we finally arrived at the resort, I felt pretty exhausted. But Courtney and I felt much better once we got in the pool. It felt so refreshingly good. But then it got cold and windy. We ended the night staying up late watching junk movies in Margot and Julia’s room. Because there was no wake up call the next morning, we could! Yeah for sleeping in and not waking up at 7:00!
Finally, on the fifth day we had our first whole free day to do whatever we wanted. We woke up at a stunning 8:00 and just hung out for a little while. Then after lots of persuasion by Courtney and Eddie, I decided to board the bus and head over to the inormous sand dunes. It felt like the hottest place on the planet. There were no clouds, just sun, super fine ‘Kailua beach’ like sand and tons of pushy little kids. The actual sliding was pretty cool. The kids (who seemed little but were actually about 12 years old) put sand on a plastic thing and pushed us down the dune side. It goes unexpectedly fast and sand flies everywhere. It’s pretty fun, actually, but the bad part of it being fast is that we then had the long hike back up to the top. After we went twice, the kids demanded us to pay. Mr. Dang said to pay at most 15,000 Vietnam dong, and the kids were asking for 50,000 each. Eddie argued with them all the way to the point where the girl who was helping us started to cry. It made me feel pretty bad; though our girl was bossy, a lot of people had ‘sweet’ little darlings who asked ‘what your name?’ and gave lots of compliments such as ‘you are so beautiful’. In the end, Mr. Dang handled it and they all flipped us off. They were really “nice”. I wonder if they go to school. Probably not; perhaps they learned all their swear words from snotty rich Americans. Though it was upsetting and at times scary, its kind of sad they have to live a life like that. Anyway, after we went back to the hotel and cruised around the grounds to our rooms and the pool. Welcome to the good life! Okay, so I guess I’m done typing this and it’s super long. But that’s okay. These are some of my experiences in Vietnam—so far.

---Dayna Hiyakumoto

P.S. it’s March 27, 2008 when I am finishing this, so…
Happy Birthday Mr. Doug and Ms. Malia! ☺