Vietnam

On January 16th, Sara, Katie, Andrew and I flew into Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Saigon was definitely the right place to start off a vacation. The pictures above are a perfect example of where Saigon is today: at a crossroads between troubled and ancient past and an increasingly modern future.

Bustling markets, tropical parks, and literally a billion motorbikes are what make up the once ravaged capital of southern Vietnam. Though remnants of the war still remain in the form of crushed sidewalks and occasional victims of agent orange begging for change, much of Saigon has been transformed into a modern-day metropolis. Buildings skyrocket out of the landscape, sometimes obtrusively as they dwarf everything else around them. And there is as much a focus on tourism as any other business in the city. It is a juxtaposition of old and new, forced to meet each other halfway. And it's quite charming.
Above: the new Saigon Opera House. Below: a beautiful tropical park near our hotel.
On our first day, we walked around the downtown area, found the biggest (and most touristy) market in town, and had drinks in a rooftop lounge overlooking the rest of the city. We had planned to merely start our trip here, but Saigon wouldn't let us leave without experiencing a good deal more.

On day two, we took bucket-seat bikes for two to China town (where I ate KFC). Andrew and Katie's driver hooked us into the ride by handing us a handwritten letter dated some time in 2000 from a very satisfied former customer from California. He handed it to us when we told him we were from America, as if maybe we somehow knew the mysterious letter's author.
Then we headed to the Saigon Institute for the Blind where a visually disabled masseuse gave me the worst massage of my life. But he was a super-nice guy, and the room was air conditioned, regardless of the fact that it looked like one of the rooms from the movie Hostel. Here is my masseuse:

We also sampled the local cuisine: (OK, I didn't really eat the monkey brains)

And traveled to Saigon's Notre Dame:

And the War Remnants Museum (also known as the "Museum of American War Crimes").

Inside the museum, where I dared not take pictures, were thousands of pictures of burned, mutilated bodies and agent orange victims from the past and present and hundreds of examples of Vietnam-era weapons from both sides. The focus of the museum was most certainly the hideous, grotesque, torturous war waged by the blood-hungry American capitalist pigs. Ironic, as Americans seemed to make up quite a large portion of their ticket sales, and Americans are actually treated quite well around the city.

WHEW! I'm tired just thinking about that day again. We also went back to the market, ate dinner and half coffee downtown, and got ANOTHER massage at a hotel to end our evening. The second massage was much improved over the first, and we ended our stay in Saigon feeling relaxed and ready for the road ahead.

Up the Mekong

The next morning, we hopped on a prearranged bus that took us to a Mekong Delta tour boat. It was a great deal (about 20 bucks a person) until the ticket seller ripped off Katie big time. Katie wanted to pay in Vietnamese currency, and since we hadn't quite gotten a handle on the exchange rate, we thought nothing of it when the woman asked for over 800,000. In the end, we all split the difference and the trip went on unscathed.

Our Mekong tour, which was made up of about 16 different modes of transportation, was supposed to wind up in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on the next day. In the meantime, we got a great taste of local Vietnamese life by visiting a coconut candy factory where the show you the process from coconut to finished candy in about 6 steps.

That night we stayed in a very run-down hotel because the hotel booked for the tour had no room for us. Everything was very well organized. The next morning, we were told by the hotel manager to explore the town we were in and come back to the hotel at 9:00 to join with our tour. We took the opportunity to have a photo shoot by the Mekong.Unfortunately, upon our return at 8:45, we were told that our tour group left over an hour ago and the hotel manager had us confused with another group of young tourists. We were put in a taxi that rushed us away to a private boat which sped us back up to our tour group, who we finally discovered eating pineapple in a floating market.

When we finally found them, the woman on the right, in the blue shirt, told us that the pineapple was so good that "it drips into your heart." I hope she doesn't mind that we took that phrase and ran with it for the next two weeks.

The floating market was one of my favorite parts of the entire trip. I still don't know if it was a place where actual Vietnamese people come to shop for food, or merely a bunch of people hired by tour agencies for river tours such as ours, but either way it was beautiful and fascinating.

After we were finished with the market, we hopped back into the boat, where the median age was about 65 (brought down significantly by the four of us). How many white heads can you count?

Below: ships in Vietnam all have eyes painted on the front, in order to scare away sea monsters.

We were then shuttled to a rice noodle factory where we saw people making the noodles the same way they have for centuries. It made me feel good to be there because it was the first place we'd been where there was nothing to buy, and I knew that it was an authentic small business.

We ended our day in another market, where we found out that our guide had absolutely no idea that we were supposed to be headed to Cambodia. After a few phone calls and a little extra cash, he had us on a bus to Chau Doc, where we were hoping to finally cross into Cambodia a day late.

The next day on the way to Chau Doc, our bus accidentally took down a low-hanging banner. The bus driver and tour guide were a bit upset, but we on the bus were just amused. Once we finally got going again we made our first pit-stop at a crocodile farm, where we were reminded of some simple facts of life, such as:

After that short pit-stop, we were headed again to the border crossing. We got into town quite late, and only had enough daylight to go to a temple on the town's single, solitary mountain. From the west patio of the temple, we were able to see our goal in the distance. The mountains you see in this far off, left-hand side of this picture are Cambodia, the town below is part of Chau Doc:Chau Doc is little more than a border town, with not much tourism to speak of. But what we did find there was something that is essential on every vacation: travel buddies. The bus from our Mekong Delta tour to Chau Doc was filled with a whole new group, and we hit it off with them spectacularly that evening.

From left to right is Creepy Guy from Vietnam, Ana from Japan, Sara, Me, Katie, Nills from the Netherlands, Andrew, and Charlotte and Jay from England. (I can't remember the Vietnamese guy's name, but he kept trying to hit on Ana the entire time.)

They were a wonderful group, and after dinner we went on a mission to find Chau Doc's only open bar. And we succeeded in our mission. Katie and Sara especially enjoyed themselves.After keeping the bar open for several hours later than the bar staff probably wanted to, we all strolled (stumbled?) back to our hotel, and pounded on the front gate for the sleeping clerk to let us in. It was a night I will not soon forget.

Above, from left to right: Sara, Charlotte, Jay, Andrew, Katie, Nills, Ana.

Vietnam was almost lost on us. We had few plans there, and didn't know what we wanted to see, but we found a nation brimming with spirit and life, and some new friends to share the experience with. And though we left Jay, Charlotte, Ana and Nills in Vietnam that last night, Sara and I were lucky to be able to go on to Cambodia with the two best travel friends of all.

Come back in a few days for tales from Cambodia!

Scenes from Saigon

Over the next two weeks, while Sara and I are on vacation with our friends Andrew and Katie in southeast Asia, I'll only be posting small updates of our travels. Usually it will only be a picture or two. When we're back, I'll post updates on the entire trip. Today--we're in Saigon:
The view from our hotel.A barge on the Saigon River.
Dinner!

Tomorrow: the Mekong Delta.

Hanguk Wedding Day

After jealously listening to many of our friends discuss their trips to Korean Wedding ceremonies, Sara and I were finally invited to one in October. My friend and co-teacher Kim Missuc married her long-time boyfriend on Saturday, October 24th. At first, we were worried that we wouldn't be able to make the wedding for a number of factors. We both had to get up at 7 to teach an English camp from 9:00-12:00 on the Saturday of the wedding, and had to be back Andong by 5 for a triple birthday party featuring Alice, Katie, and Andrew. To add to those troubles, the wedding was to held in a small town called Bonghwa about an hour north of Andong and Sara and I are transportationless.

But of course Koreans would never let things like that stand in the way, and Missuc had lined up a bus from Andong to Bonghwa to send in her friends and family who didn't feel like making the trek on their own. So after literally running to a taxi and speeding home, Sara and I changed our clothes from English camp garb to wedding fare in approximately .73 seconds. We then hopped in another cab to make sure we got to City Hall (the pickup point) by 11:30, when the bus was scheduled to leave. We got there at 11:29, and knew that the day would be OK.

The bus was not quite as "Koreans Gone Wild" as I had imagined a wedding bus to be, but we were handed free snacks, including beer, on the way. It was obvious that Sara and I were quite the spectacle, as people craned their necks and whispered to their seat-mates upon spying our pasty white skin. This led to extreme anxiety for me, as the last thing I wanted to do was take attention away from my friend on her wedding day.

When we arrived, we followed the crowd (all we could do, really) into a sort-of run down building. But on the fourth floor was a rather cute and modern wedding hall.We must have looked lost and fore lorn, because a delicate older woman in a hanbok grabbed us and led us the line where we would turn in our envelope filled with 30,000 won, the standard wedding gift here. We were then ushered into a small room where Missuc sat, glowingly beautiful, in front of a bank of photographers.

Except something was different. She wasn't the quirky, silly, talkative girl I teach with. She was a bride, suddenly elegant and proper. And when she waved us in to say hello and take a picture, we were immediately mobbed with a dozen people taking pictures of Missuc and her foreign friends. I handed my camera to the professional photographer there, but this was the best picture he could take with my point-and-shoot:

When we were finally able to leave the barrage of flashes and whispers, we nestled quietly into the back of the wedding hall to await the ceremony. As there weren't enough chairs for everyone, we took it upon ourselves to stand. When Sara and I turned around, we realized that 10 members of what looked like special ops were standing behind us.

We never really got a clear explanation for why they were there, but we figured it had something to do with Missuc's hubby's army days. The ceremony started soon after.To the dismay of many people, I'm sure, I am not going to go into great detail about the ceremony itself. For one, it was almost identical in many ways to an American wedding, except that many of the elements that would be held during the reception at home are done during the ceremony here. The bouquet was thrown, speeches given, and mothers honored, all during the 30 minute ceremony. In case you're wondering, they did NOT kiss during this ceremony, but I don't know if that's standard in Korea or not.

I will go into detail about the end of the ceremony, which was both hilarious and interesting. On their way out, Missuc and her new husband were stopped by each pair of guards they passed.Each pair chanted a command at them that they had to complete before they could move on. It started small, with hugs and kisses on the forehead. But my favorite was when both the bride and groom had to take one of the groom's shoes and head to the opposite family to beg for money. The person who gathered more money was the winner. I'm not sure who won, but I would bet it was Missuc. That girl's got charisma.

After this, there were about 20 minutes of pictures of all sorts, several of which Sara and I were invited to participate in.If I can get my hands on one of the professional pictures, I will surely post it.

After this was, of course, the buffet lunch. We headed upstairs to find a GIANT hall filled with tables, food, soju, beer, and hungry guests.Sara and I each filled a plate and headed to a corner where we wouldn't be as obviously noticed. Unlike American weddings, there was no dancing, no DJ, and no hoopla during this portion of the afternoon. It was simple lunch, and then the wedding was officially over. The wedding started at 1, and by 3 o'clock Sara and I were gearing up to head back home.

Afraid we would not make it back to Andong in time for our birthday party, we decided to buy a ticket for the intercity bus, rather than wait for Missuc's wedding bus to leave. Much to our dismay, I got a call from Missuc about 10 minutes after we bought our tickets (and 40 minutes before the bus left) that her private bus was leaving soon, and we were invited on it. Since we had already bought our tickets we decided to just go on the intercity bus. We walked around the town of Bonghwa for a few minutes (which was all it took to see most of this tiny villa in the countryside), then headed back to the bus terminal.

We immediately spied our bus (with Andong written on the front) and boarded, even though it wasn't leaving for about 15 minutes. I showed our tickets to the driver, who waved us back, and then immediately started backing out.

Oh.

Shit.

Yep--you guessed it--wrong bus. About 10 minutes in, a nice woman asked us where we were going and we told her Andong. She smiled politely and told us that we were not going to Andong. After a brief panic attack, we learned that we were headed to Chunyang, a town even smaller than Bonghwa and another 30 minutes north. Sara and I briefly butted heads as she was feeling sick and I was pissed off, but then made a joke or two and made the best of a bad (or at least inconvenient) situation. We walked around and discovered a surprisingly charming little town nestled in the Korean hillside.The next bus to Andong didn't leave for almost two hours, so we had no choice but to look around a bit.In addition to a peaceful setting in the mountains, Chunyang also had an oddly placed, brand new walking bridge complete with artsy tree sculptures.It also had a market that went on for days, considering the size of the town.And once we had gotten our fill of Chunyang, we headed back to the bus terminal, had a quick photo shoot with some middle school girls, and headed back onto the same bus that had led us astray in the first place to go back to Andong once-and-for-all. We pulled into Andong with just enough time to run to meet our friends for their party. And as a long day stretched into a long night, Sara and I partied hardy with our friends--all while dressed in a full suit and dress.

Visiting the Capital of the Silla Kingdom

Long before there was Korea there were three different kingdoms in the region that the North and South Koreans now call home: The Goguryeo to the north, the Baekje to the southwest, and the Silla (pronounced she-lah), which existed from 57 BC - 935 AD, in the middle. Lucky for us, the capital of the Silla, Gyeongju, is a thriving city about 2 hours away from Andong. Even luckier, Sara and I were sent there for a conference on co-teaching last weekend. And I will never turn down a some-expenses-paid vacation.

The conference was fun, but nothing special. It was very similar to orientation in many ways, except that I was able to be there with my co-teacher, which was more fun than helpful. It's good to teach with someone you can call your friend, and not just a colleague. For more details on the conference itself, see Sara's blog (anythingbutsquid.blogspot.com). The conference itself lasted a mere day and a half until Friday afternoon, so Sara and I, along with our good friend Katie, decided to stay in Gyeongju for the remainder of the weekend.

Everything in Korea is old, but Gyeongju is really old. And it's obvious. But it certainly hasn't escaped modernization. For example, outside of our conference hotel room was a view of the stunning Gyeongju Tower, an observation tower in the middle of the Gyeongju Cultural Expo Center.

Though we didn't get to go up in it this time around, it was still cool to see.

While downtown Gyeongju looks basically like every other city in Korea, the one thing that is stunningly unique about this place is the mounds. Oh boy do they have mounds.And mounds.Mounds and mounds of mounds.

What are these oddly shaped hills you say? They are the tombs of literally hundreds of Silla Kingdom kings, queens, and dignitaries. And they were EVERYWHERE. You could not turn a corner in Gyeongju without stumbling head over heals into a giant heap of tombs. Some are more culturally important than others, but they are all equally impressive. What's more, it was all me, Sara, and our friend Katie (pictured above) could do to not run up them and roll down like giddy 4th graders.

Aside from the mounds of kings, there were also mounds with trees.Mounds you could go in.
And mounds you couldn't.
The ones above are the tombs of the founder and first king of the Silla Kingdom as well as the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th kings of the Silla Kingdom. No word on where the 4th king ended up, but in Korea, if they don't talk about it, it can't be pretty.

After Sara, Katie and I were finished investigating all of the tombs, our friend Andrew showed up and we all rented bikes, a popular way to travel around Gyeongju.Our first stop was to Gyeongju's national museum, which was small and unimpressive, but entrance was free so I can't complain. The buildings were certainly cool.
It was also fully equipped for the handicapped, old, and WEAK. I was pretty tired from all that biking. Does that count?After that we stopped off at Anapji pond, which is a man made pond formerly used as a leisure spot by the Silla royalty. Like nearly every important, historical, and beautiful building in Korea, most of the buildings there were destroyed long ago by numerous invasions by the Japanese.
After a long day of biking, we sampled one of the other fine things Gyeongju has going for it.You can sit at home and talk about how you could live without McDonald's all you want, but spend 7 months of your life without a hint of authentic western food, let alone a decent cheeseburger, and then we'll talk. I had McDonald's 3 times in the span of two days, and I don't regret it one bit. My only regret is that we didn't get to visit the Gyeongju KFC.

On our last day in town, Andrew, Katie, Sara and I decided to trek out to the must-not-miss Bulkuksa Temple and Seokguram. The former is considered the No. 1 historical and scenic site in Korea by the Korean government. It was certainly beautiful and scenic, but it was also marred by more tourists than I've seen anywhere in Korea.
The temple wasn't terribly different from many others I've seen before, including in Andong, but it was nestled nicely into a mountain, away from the hustle and bustle of the city. And while there were a lot of people (including screaming children) it was still a peaceful and beautiful place to spend the afternoon.
It was especially nice to see it in the fall, since all of the leaves in Korea are now bursting into full color.
Our last stop, Seokguram, is a very old Buddhist grotto which contains an enormous statue of Buddha built into the mountain. Built in the 8th century, it has stood the test of time and now stands as a great monument to Buddhist culture in Korea and around the world. Since we aren't allowed to take pictures of the actual Buddha, I am borrowing this picture from Wikipedia to give you a good view.

Upon leaving the grotto, visitors are met with a spectacular view of the East Sea (Sea of Japan), which was a great site to see right before leaving Gyeongju. It is a good reminder for me that I need to return to this beautiful city.