Vietnam: Part 1, by Sarah

During a jeep ride back from the White Sand Dunes in Vietnam, I had this idea for a travel blog. I wanted to write a blog with Lee about the times we've shared both abroad and in Korea. Lee and I both would write a post about different parts of our trips. I thought that we could use the blog for two reasons: as a record of our memories and as a way for both our families to get a bit more insight into the other's personality. I hope that we will be able to post on the blog continuously throughout the remainder of our time here in Korea. Lee and I had a paper, rock, scissors match to see who would have to write first and...I lost, so I'm writing first. :/ Here goes..I hope you all enjoy!

WELCOME TO VIETNAM

After a short 5 hour flight, we arrived in Ho Chi Minh City. What were the first things we noticed? Besides the heat and 100% humidity, one of the first things we noticed was the huge disproportionate ratio between men and women. In the airport and out in the town, there was a noticeable lack of number of young women around. Everywhere you looked, there seemed to be nothing but men. Another was the sheer number of motorbikes on the road and the lack of proper timed crosswalks. Buildings in Vietnam were also very unique. All of the buildings that we kept seeing were very narrow and very few seemed to have more than 5 floors. Despite the fact that the buildings were quite narrow, we were both really impressed with the way the Vietnamese maximized space.

We were able to find our hotel pretty painlessly. After we settled in to the hotel, we decided that we'd have a bit of a wander around the city. Our hotel was in an area that was central to a few site-seeing stops including the famous binh than market, a couple of art museums, a large Catholic church (Vietnam has one of the largest Catholic populations in the world), and a few communist memorials. We decided that we'd take the short walk to the Binh than market first. I swear that short walk felt like one of the longest walks in my life. Travelling in Vietnam or rather walking around in Vietnam especially Ho chi minh city can sometimes feel like a fight to survive. There are so many motorbikes and very few cars. The problem is that people park their motorbikes on walking paths (so you're forced to walk on the street), and there are no lights at all at any crosswalks. So the rule here is walk fast...very fast when you see a gap and don't stop moving or you WILL get hit by a bike.


Here's a clip we recorded of just what it felt like to walk around in Ho Chi Minh:

We bravely managed to get to Ben thanh market where we had an interesting chance to experience arm-tugging and haggling to its extreme. The market also had an area where they served food. I think most people would have been a bit shocked to eat inside the food area, but I thought it was amazing. Lee and I picked a random corner shop, grabbed stools and ordered rice paper summer rolls like pros. The food was amazing and we loved every minute of soaking up Vietnam.

Ben Thanh Market

After the market, we played a bit more human frogger to get to the art museum a few streets over. It's always interesting to see the different types of art that are displayed in different countries. In Korea, we've seen a ridiculous amount of Celadon pottery in various museums (as a result Lee will now instantaneously walk out of a room if it contains even one pot). In China, we saw stack upon stack of water-color paintings. Lacquered wood paintings seemed to be the Celadon pot and water-colored paintings of Vietnam. There were many different scenes that had been painted onto wood, but the most common seemed to be of workers in rice fields or fishermen. The first floor of the museum held various paintings of faces that didn't really appeal to Lee or me mainly because of the fact that each face looked as if it had come straight out of a horror film.

We were a bit scared to walk around at night with all the motorbikes so we went back to our hotel. Since the hotel offered amazing deals in their spa, we decided to get a Vietnamese massage. We enjoyed a nice 2 hour foot and body massage, manicure and pedicure (which Lee loved by the way although he'll deny it to this day ;) ), and fruit plate for roughly $25. I think that is to date the cheapest that we have ever paid to be pampered.

The next day we took a bus to Mui Ne. We spent about 5 hours traveling to our Resort. I'm so glad I looked out the window around the 5 hour mark to see the sign for our resort. If I hadn't, we would have missed our stop and who knows where we might have ended up. It seems that in Vietnam, the bus doesn't really stop at designated stops or at any particular stop. Instead you're supposed to stand up and flag down the driver when you want to get off.

Our room was beautiful and had a small terrace with chairs and a view of both a garden and the beach. We were a bit worried about the weather forecast, but the weather was lovely all the same. We definitely took advantage of the pool quite a bit.

Here are a few pictures of the resort, our room and the surrounding beach area:

The view from our room

Our favorite reading spots

The Amaryllis resort was quite isolated so we ate most of our meals either at the main resort restaurant or at the beach bar.

Summer Rolls

The weather took a bit of a turn for the worst during the first couple of days we were at the resort. The rain came down quite heavily, and the wind blew strongly as well. It reminded me of hurricane weather back home. It was interesting to see how the resort workers dealt with the weather. Every time it started to rain they pulled down these thin bamboo blinds that were supposed to block out the rain in the open hallways. They worked surprisingly well. We spent a couple of hours in their cafe reading with the doors open enjoying the cool breeze without getting wet. The other times when it rained heavily, we stayed in the room watching episodes of the dog whisperer.

On one of the days when the weather let up a bit, we decided to venture out to Mui Ne city. The taxi driver dropped us off at Mui Ne Market. The driver said he would wait for us (I guess he knew that we wouldn't be staying very long). We didn't want to take any pictures of the market mainly because it just felt wrong in a way to take pictures of people in poverty. There were many people selling bits and pieces of what they could, great slabs of raw meat and fish covered in flies, and others lounging against the walls. The smells also were a bit more than either of us could handle so we decided to head back. As we were driving back, we saw families living on the side of the road in very small, open sheet-metal boxes. It was hard for both of us to imagine life in a metal box with the rain and hot humid weather.

Overall though, the first half of our trip to Vietnam was relaxing and very nice. Lee's going to talk about the second half of the trip.