Goodnight Saigon

Sarah here. Similar to India, I found Vietnam to be a place of great contradiction. On one hand Vietnam was a beautiful country with modern cities, parks, and lots of young people! On the other hand Vietnam is still a developing nation with a fierce strength and sadness. Vietnam has had to fight for survival and independence, and you can see that in the people. This beautiful place seems haunted with the wars of the past thousand years. In Thailand the happiness poured out of people, and they smiled with their entire face. In India people laughed and their eyes even smiled. This was not the case in Vietnam. People were cordial and welcoming, but the space was not filled with smiles and laughter.

Initially we left the ship and thought we might be in Paris! The French Colonial influence radiates in Ho Chi Minh city! We had lunch at a French café looking out at a park and Cathedral. After many days at sea or in busy cities, I am appreciative of the parks! We were so happy to see trees and grass! I smile as I write this, thinking how different the park would have looked had it been in India or South Africa! We visited the Reunification Palace on our first day, which is where the first communist tanks in Saigon crashed on the morning of April 30th, 1975 the day Saigon surrendered. The tanks are still there! The Palace had the most beautiful grounds and we enjoyed walking around there, even though it was over 100 degrees! That night we met friends for yummy Vietnamese food.

Our second day took us to the Mekong Delta. We visited the Cao Dai Temple (which has Buddhist, Confucius, Taoist, Hindi, Muslim, and Catholic representation); walked through a fish market; tasted banana wine, rice wine and fruit; toured a coconut candy making factory, had lunch on the island and took several boat rides! Nate tasted wine that was infused with the beating heart of a cobra. The Mekong Delta was a location for many battles during the American War, and before that battles with the French… and before that battles with China!


We took a small 4 person boat through the jungles, I wondered about all the things that had happened in those trees. Then I realized that I knew some of the things that had happened in that jungle and it was more than I could fathom. As we toured the river on our larger boat I stared up at the beautiful sky. Weeks of smog and overcast weather have made me see the blue sky with new eyes. I was in awe. As I looked up I thought about other Americans who had floated down this river and looked up at the sky, maybe they had been in awe as well? I don’t know why I thought these things, you just do in a place like Vietnam.


Our third day we explored Ho Chi Minh city, walked around, ate the most wonderful food and people watched. We went to the markets and met up with friends along the way. It is easy to see why so many Americans and Europeans have moved to Ho Chi Minh city.

Day 4 began with the War Remnants Museum. This Museum documents the atrocities of the war, mostly the atrocities that Americans committed. It was an overwhelming experience. We were staring at the most gruesome photos of the war and then in a split second we were pulled out of the museum because it was closing for lunch. We hurriedly walked outside and I instantly shut down, we were swarmed with men selling coconuts or tours and 100s of motorbikes were driving by me on the sidewalk and street. It was sensory overload while I was still processing all of the photos of “War Atrocities”…. “War Atrocities” which is a nice way of saying photos of mangled bodies and the like! I wanted to sit down in the street where I was, but I made myself cross the street away from all of the people selling things. Then I leaned again the wall and tried to breathe before I could even speak to Nate… We decided that we clearly were not ready to eat lunch after that experience. We opted to get out of the heat and went to see “Watchmen” an American movie. Little did I know that the movie had a few scenes about the Vietnam War/American War, but it did help to calm us down a bit. We went to dinner after that and then came back to the ship because I was on duty.

Our final day in Vietnam started early as we led a trip to the Hy Vong School for the Deaf. We interacted with the students who ranged from age 3-18. All of the students had some hearing loss, most were deaf and had various levels of communication. At one point I was coloring with a 5 year old boy when I realized that I was under fire! Suddenly a 10 year old boy, with crazy blue eyes (see the photo below) began throwing crayons at me, so I hid behind one of my students and gathered ammunition! It was quite fun and the kids were so sweet. After a few hours there we headed out! We brought 24 of the children to the zoo with us, each Semester at Sea student was assigned paired with a child for the afternoon. Nate will tell you more about this in his section! After the zoo we headed back out into the city for last minute errands- buying shampoo and snacks!


As I have stated many times in this blog… Vietnam was beautiful. Vietnam does seem to be a place of change, having moved towards modern communism with some freedom in the economy. It was educational and more than I could have ever imagined.