The Forbidden City

The Great Wall of China

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Hong Kong Park

Hong Kong

Vietnam

Can't believe that its March 24th already. Vietnam went by so quickly. The seas are really rocky right now. I just came from dinner and we had one good wave that caused drinks to hit the floor and people to drop their plates. But yeah, Vietnam was great.

The first day, I ended up being able to get on the city orientation tour with Kyle, Mike and Katie. As soon as we got off, there was a group of about 15 women dressed in traditional Vietnamese clothing holding a banner welcoming SAS to Ho Chi Min City. We all boarded the bus and our first stop was a Buddhist temple. On the way, I noticed that there was an abundance of scooters on the road. No real motorcycles, but for every car, there had to be at least 8 or 9 scooters on the road. The traffic was crazy here too. People would cut other people off left and right, but others didn’t seem to get pissed at this. Being in a bus was great though, no one tried to cut us off and we basically got to go whenever we wanted to.

The Buddhist temple was nothing special compared to the one in Singapore. I saw similar statues and people burning incense as an offering. After the temple, we had lunch at a very nice restaurant. Here, a coke cost 49000 dong, which is only about 2.50 American. I think the exact rate was 20,856 dong to the dollar, something ridiculous. We ended up eating some chicken soup, fish, rice, and shrimp. The food was very well prepared.

After lunch, we went to see a water puppet show across town. The stage was a pond of water at the foot of a building. In the building were people that would control the puppets. There were dragons, humans, geese, and what looked like a turtle, all of which did tricks on top of the water. For the finale, a dragon puppet spit fire from his mouth, which was pretty cool. The whole show only lasted around 10 minutes. After that, the people controlling the puppets came out from the back and bowed while we applauded.

After the show, we were taken to the former president’s palace, which was now the reunification palace. We were shown the various rooms where important representatives would meet as well as the bomb the shelter. After that, we were taken to Notre Dame church where we saw a service being held. It wasn’t really anything special, or anything I didn’t see before.

That night, Mike, Kyle and I decided we wanted to grab some Vietnamese food so we looked on wikitravel for a good place and we all decided to go to Allez Boo. As soon as we left the harbor, we were being bothered by people to get motorcycle rides. We ended up getting a taxi because we weren’t sure how safe the bikes would be. Once we pulled up to Allez Boo, the meter read 940, so we paid the driver 940000 dong. As soon as we all stepped out, the driver sped away and we realized that we almost paid 50 dollars for a taxi ride that less than 5 minutes long. We were pissed for the next few hours because it didn’t register with any of us how much we actually paid because the currency system was so inflated compared to the states.

At Allez Boo, I ended up getting steamed rice with crab meat, absolutely great. We all had a few drinks along with dinner and the total bill came to around $56, which was wasn’t exactly the kind of deal we had hoped to get. After Allez Boo, we walked for a few blocks and stumbled onto a place where the food was much cheaper. Here, the same dish was a fifth of the price compared to Allez Boo. We decided to sit down and have some french fries and garlic bread before we headed back to ship.

The next morning, Kyle and I got up early in order to get to the bus station for an early bus to My Tho, a city about 2 hours south of Saigon. The taxi ended taking us to a market, but still close to another bus station. We were sure that we paid him only $5 this time too. Once there we bought tickets from the station for 30000 dong each and got on our bus. We had to get off in order to transfer at another bus station. A few stops later, the whole bus seemed to tell us to get off for My Tho, like everyone knew where we wanted to go. I guess being American had its advantages some times. Once off, we were ushered onto a minibus where the man quickly demanded 500000 from both of us. This time, I knew that it was way too much, but Kyle said the he saw the man in front of us pay the same amount. I still didn’t think that $25 for a 2 hour ride was anywhere near reasonable, but Kyle had paid, so I did the same. The man walked right off the bus. After we discussed it, we tried to get our money when we realized that we made a big mistake. When Kyle stpped off the bus in order to make it clear to the man what we wanted, the driver started to pull away, so he had no choice but to get back on. Again, we got ripped off for around $20. These people were out to take advantage of any white person, and from then on, Kyle and I made sure not to do anything before we established a price.

Once we arrived in My Tho, we took separate bikes to a hotel in the middle of a small village. Here, we met Nikko, a man 36 years old who had moved from Finland to Vietnam around 10 months ago. He spoke English but it wasn’t the best. The price of the room at the hotel, which was $8, also included a free bike rental. So for the next four hours, Kyle and I biked around the village, going back into neighborhoods and seeing the Mekong Delta. At around 4, we decided to head back to the hotel, but we were a little lost. Luckily, Kyle had brought the business card of the hotel. We asked about ten people before we finally arrived back at the hotel.

After a nap, we wandered to the main part of the hotel and had elephant ear fish for dinner, which was a native fish to Mekong Delta. We stayed and talked with Nikko, the hotel owner, a lonely student about our age from Japan, and a younger couple from the UK that was staying at the hotel too. It was about 10 before we headed to bed. We woke up at around 9, said goodbye to everyone at the hotel, and got motorbikes back to the bus station. Our plan was to travel a further two hours south to Vihn Long, but because we got ripped off neither of us felt like dishing out more money to have the same thing potentially happen again. Once we got back to the ship, we got changed, ate, and then went to the war museum.

The war was refered to as the American War to the Vietnamese. After leaving the museum, I felt like a dick for what we did to these people. The pictures and accounts both Americans and Vietnamese people made me feel so terrible for America’s actions. After leaving, Kyle and I walked around and decided to eat on the ship and then go out to the night market. Mike had left for Cambodia earlier that day and wasn’t going to return until after on ship time, so it was just me and Kyle for the rest of the time. The night market was amazing. If you wanted something, they had it. Ffake DVDs, shirts, dress shirts, tailors, shoes, food, fake watches, backpacks, everything. I ended up getting a north face backpack for Abby for $6.25. Kyle told me that they normally go for around $100 back home, so I thought I made out pretty well. There were plenty of other deals like that, but because the bus back to the ship ended at 10:30, we left early.

The next day, Kyle and I spent all day wandering around the city. We weren’t really looking for anything specific, but just walking to take in the atmosphere. That night we hit the night market and had a good time bargaining with people, but we didn’t buy too many things. After getting back at 10:30, I decided to go out to a club called Lush. The club wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, but I refused to buy a beer for 75000 dong when I knew I could get one a block down on the street for 10000. We left at about midnight and went to Apocalypse Now, which was another night club. I was with Janie and her friend and we decided to walk because it wasn’t too far away. On the way, Janie almost had her back purse stolen right off her shoulder by a man on a scooter. The scooter had driven up onto the sidewalk and the next thing I knew, I heard Janie hit the ground. At first I thought she had been hit, but she was just holding onto her purse when the man had grabbed onto it. It turns out she got drgged for about 5 feet before the guy on the scooter let go. Thankfully, she only had a few scrapes and she didn’t lose anything. It was something that they warned us about, but something that I never expected to happen. Apparently, there were three or four other similar events that happened that night as well.

The next morning, Kyle and I decided to head to this local place spend the rest of our dong. We heard about it from one of the younger doctors on the UVA medical staff that had joined us in India. When we got there, the place was full of Vietnamese and everyone stared at us as we walked in. Before we sat down for a minute, the waiter brought as a bowl of moist peanuts and a 2-liter jug of beer. After a while, locals started coming up to us and trying to talk with us. They were all very friendly and just wanted to practice their English. A little later on, people started singing and dancing around the place, probably because they were drunk. at around 3, Kyle and I headed to the market where we tried to spend the rest of our dong that we didn’t spend earlier. I tried to get a fake rolex for 100000 dong, but no one would go that low, so I settled for a T-shirt instead. We got back on the bus at around 5:15 and got back on the ship at 5:30. Vietnam was a great time.

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Singapore

Singapore was awesome. Not so much a culture shock as India was, but its very modern. It kind of reminded me of a cleaner, less crowded New York. The skyline was beautiful, hopefully we get to see it lite up on the way out.

Today I had an FDP with Kyle. We first went to a mosque where we had to take off our shoes. The guide who was going to be with us until 1:00 seemed kind of cool. He talked really fast and laughed for only short periods of time. After the mosque we went to a church, and then a roman catholic church. I got plenty of pictures on the way. Brittany was with us on the trip too, she kept changing her lenses every few minutes.

After the two Christian sites, we went to a Buddhist temple. This was probably the coolest religious site that we hit on the tour. It got me really psyched for China. The temple itself had many statues to different Gods. I also saw a statue of Guan Yu, who I thought only existed in the dynasty warriors video game. Apparently, the whole game is based on the three kingdoms era of China. After the Buddhist temple, we went to a Hindu temple. I was kind of half paying attention to what the guide was saying because we had just come from India.

When Kyle and I got back, we met up with Carolyn, who had gone to the zoo. Carolyn said that that was one of the two things I should do, but I didn’t get to. Mike said that the zoo was pretty amazing and that the animals weren’t in cages at all. He brought this girl Cassie back from the tour and she wanted to hang around with us. After Kyle got done with talking to his bank about withdrawing money, we all left for the MRT, or subway. The subway was extremely clean, probably because there were fines imposed if someone littered, ate, or carried flammable items in the subway. We took the purple line until we hit Chinatown. There, we got to eat at some awesome place. And of course, we ate with chopsticks. Kyle and I split barbecued pork, and prawns and crab meat over rice. Mike and Cassie split some chicken and some vegetarian dish because Cassie is vegetarian.

Halfway through the meal, it started to pour rain, which wouldn’t help because it already felt like it was 100% humidity. After the rain let up, the four of us went to orchard street which was where all the high end stores were. I saw two rolex stores within 5 minutes of each other. I also had the best ice ream sandwich that I had ever had. If fact it was so good, I had two. The man took a brick of ice cream, and sandwiched it between two real wafers, none of that pre packaged stuff. After I tried to find a shirt that said Singapore on it and failed, we all went to the marina bay front. It took us forever to find a crosswalk. We were all too afraid that we would get a fine for jaywalking so we walked back and forth along the street until we finally found one. There, Kyle and I split off from Mike and Cassie because they wanted to go to the skypark but Kyle and I wanted to get some local food and try a Singapore Sling.

Kyle and I got a kia taxi cab to where we had been before where we got our drinks, which were really good. I wasn’t sure how strong it was, but I couldn’t taste the alcohol. It reminded me of a coke with cherry grenadine, but it had kind of a fruit kick and with less carbonation. After leaving the bar, we walked around and tried to find a place to eat. In the process of doing that, we were harassed by two prostitutes our age. They saw us coming, stood up and started calling us baby and honey and then touched us as we walked by. It was really strange, they looked like they were younger than us. We found a place to eat. I got a roasted chicken cutlet, amazing yet again, and we split an order of dumplings. The whole meal came out to be 15 singapore dollars, which was a pretty good deal for the amount of food that we got.

We then took the MRT back to the ship. Im currently sitting on the back of the 6th deck looking at pier and forklifts driving back and forth. T here is a huge ship called the Super Star Virgo that’s ported next to us. It kind of reminds me of Freedom of the Seas. Singapore overall was a great time. I expected a less modern and less clean city, but it was by far a first class place.

Singapore skyline

"Just try to blend India"

India was definitely my favorite country so far. The highlight was the Taj, but I still saw some pretty awesome places and got to interact with a bunch of people.

The first day in India was enlightening. As soon as "The Voice" came over the speaker and said that we docked, I already knew it. The odor of sulfur and eggs seemed to find its way through the ventilation system and into my cabin. Wasn’t exactly the first thing I expected from India. After waking up, I went up to the observation deck to get a better look. Once I walked outside, the smell was pretty strong. We were in an industrial port, the gate was about half a mile away, and we were not allowed to walk to it. Right off of the ship there was a dock filled with around 300 Ford cars, looking like they had just arrived, whether it was from a manufacturing plant in India or the US, I wasn’t sure. I decided to go back to sleep after passing face-to-face immigration.

At about 12, I went to the fifth deck to get food. They had closed off the sixth and seventh deck due to the potential problem with bugs and pollution. I also noticed that they covered the fifth deck floor with wrap and stairs with cardboard in order to prevent people from tracking in dirt. After I got food with Mike and Ashley, I had an FDP with my international business professor. Once we all got on the bus from the gangway, we had to go through the gate. Here, we had to stop the bus and an officer had to come on and check our passports. After that, we drove a little over an hour to a place outside of Chennai where we got to see a local village. We were taken inside the school, the place where they sewed clothes, and the medical clinic. Luckily, they were all the same building, each just separated by a wall.

We spent about twenty minutes interacting with the kids. Ashley was having a ball but Mike and I weren’t the biggest fans of small children. After going through that, we got see where the town had its dump and how they used their waste to fertilize plants. It was about dinner time when we left the village. We got back to the ship around 6. I ate with Mike, Kyle, and Jess and since they hadn’t booked anything for China, they were looking to find an internet café in order to make some plans together. So I decided to tag along with them just for something to do.

We got to ride in a rickshaw on the way to the internet café. Oh, I forgot to mention the lack of sanity that people have while behind the wheel. Street signs and traffic lights, yeah people ignore them flat out. If theres a possible way for someone to pass you, they will, not to mention the constant honking every three seconds, no exaggeration. I think people in India believe to signal that they're passing, they honk. But then again, I guess they need to since they ignore the marks on the road. The whole driving experience was maximized by driving in a small contraption with 3 wheels and absolutely no protection. It was a thrill, in the bad kind of way.

After getting back from the internet café, I debated until 1 in the morning whether I should sleep before my trip to Agra left at 4. I decided to take a nap and then sleep on the plane. Because airport security was very tight, we were not allowed to carry on liquids so for the 44 of us, there was a small bag that we had to squeeze all of our liquids into. Once they figured out that we couldn’t manage, we realized we needed to have second bag to check. I took a risk bringing on my camera battery, cell phone battery, and laptop battery. ISE suggested that all external batteries be checked, but I thought that was BS so I kept my stuff and I made through security fine.

We flew into New Delhi and once we got there, we hopped right on a tour bus to go and see where Gandhi was cremated. That was another thing I noticed. Gandhi seemed to be everywhere. He was on every form of paper currency and I must have seen four or five statues of him. The place where he was cremated was surrounded by gardens and there was a flame burning near what looked like a marble table. We had to take off our shoes in order to walk around the interior of the gardens. After seeing that, we got to eat lunch at a place that had the best vanilla ice cream I have ever had. Luckily, that’s where we were getting our boxed lunch for the train to Agra. After getting lunch we got to go site seeing around New Delhi.

There really wasn’t anything too interesting to see until two days later when we would get a whole tour of the city. At 5:00, we headed for the train station and once we got through security, we were notified that our train was delayed two and a half hours, so the guide decided that taking the bus on a 5 hour drive would be quicker, so that’s what we did. I slept for most of the ride but along the way there were multiple weddings. You could tell they were weddings because they were huge parties with what looked like Christmas lights, blasting music, and people dancing. Apparently March is a popular month for people to get married. Once we got to the hotel, I tried to get the internet working but it cost money. The hotel was five stars by Indian standards and pretty good by my standards. I ended up watching Robocop 3 until around two and fell asleep right after.

We got a 5:45 wakeup call in order to be at the Taj Mahal for sunrise. The hotel was luckily only about a mile away. We arrived at the east gate at around 6:15, just as the sun was coming up. Once I walked in, I was in awe. It looked exactly like every picture that I had seen of it, almost like I was standing in front a backdrop. Immediately people around me started taking pictures, as did I. I think I must have taken 100 pictures of the same thing. After we walked around and got plenty of pictures, we had to take off our shoes in order to go inside to see Sha Jahan and his wife’s tomb. The outside far surpassed the inside, but the inside was still pretty amazing.

We headed back to the hotel at around 8:30 and got breakfast which was surprisingly good. They had pancakes, eggs, bacon, french toast, and a chef that would make any omelet that you wanted. After breakfast, we got to go on the tour of the city. We got to see Agra Fort and a palace made of red sandstone. I had a kid about my age guide me around and tell me about everything. I was with him for about ten minutes and at the end, he asked me for a tip. I said I didn’t have anything, so he asked me for my watch, but I said no.

Everywhere I went, people seemed to think I was rich because I was white. We headed back to the Taj at about 5:00 in order to catch it at sunset. It was much more crowded then the morning. It was kind of depressing to leave one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, but then I remembered that I’d be seeing the Great Wall in a few weeks, so I felt better about that. After the Taj, we headed to the train station for our express train back to New Delhi. Once there, we checked into our hotel and I finally broke down and bought two hours of internet, which I spent skyping.

The next day, we got to wake up at 8:30 which was so much better than the morning before. Breakfast again was great. The hotel was very Americanized, just like the last. We got taken on a whole tour of the city. During the tour, we visited two temples. One of which, we had to cover our heads with a turban or scarf like cloth and take off our shoes and socks in order to enter. The shrine inside was gold and there were three men singing and playing drums while people were kneeling down and kissing the floor. It was pretty cool to see. the second shrine was very similar to the first, but this time, I got a lea of flowers and a red dot on my forehead between my eyes. I could break off a flower and lay it in front of the statue of the god that I wanted to make an offering to, so I did. I wasn’t sure which god meant what, but I didn’t have any flowers when we left the temple.

We then went to a bazaar in order to shop. We had two hours to buy things, but my friend Lee and I decided to go to a local bar to get some drinks and try to figure out the game of cricket. It was kind of strange because the sign said that we needed to be 25 to drink, but we weren’t carded or even looked at twice. In fact, the man who looked like a security guard sitting outside opened the door for us to let us in. Lee and I ended up splitting a pitcher of beer and my first ever pitcher of mojitos. We left for the airport at around 6 for our 9:15 flight. The New Delhi airport was very nice, and they had a Subway! I went straight for it and realized that there was a vegetarian line and a non vegetarian line, quite interesting. It was quite what I expected, but it was still nice to have something that reminded me of home. We ended up getting back to the ship at around 1:00 in the morning and I was so nice to finally see my bed.

The next day was kind of a relaxed day. I slept in until 11 and met up with Erica and Nate for lunch and we went to a hookah bar/ internet café. This was my first hookah bar I had ever been to. I wasn’t really a fan of it, but the wifi was free so I didn’t complain. We spent most of the afternoon there and I just took the rest of the night easy on the ship. On Friday, I met up with Erica, Jack and a few other people and we all went to the train station to catch a train to Mambalam, where we tried to spend some extra rupees. Erica was on my Agra trip and she kept making noise about getting a pair of Indian pants. She ended up getting four pairs for around twenty dollars American. There really wasn’t too much else that happened on Friday. Leaving India was kind of depressing though. Like I said, India is definitely my favorite country so far.

Fort Agra

Taj mahal