Vietnam Overview

Hello Hello!

Tomorrow we leave Vietnam to Singapore, so here is a quick outline of my feelings and reactions to our experience here... I must say that Vietnam (or at least the places we have visited here) is definately NOT the relaxing nor the sight seeing vacation hot-spot; however, the experience has been quite interesting... I guess it has already been established that the place is so polluted!!! My first reaction was to find it way too hectic... we were scared to cross the street at first but it's amazing h0w we can get used to, and fall into place, in just a few days... now, we've leant, we just have to throw ourselves on the street and walk slowly, and simply let all the scooters, bikes and cars makes their way around us... (by the way, there is literally no traffic lights here, anywhere you go, you just see a constant flow of "things" coming right at you so, and unless you do like the locals (and step out on the streets anyways) there is no crossing the street...

Well, enough on the crowededness of Vietnam... I, personally, really enjoyed many of our activities here... Visitng the War Remnants Museum was really interesting, I leanrt a lot about the Vietnam War and was actually quite moved by some of the things I saw, especially, the pictures of so many children that were handicapped because of all the toxic dumped in this place during the war (and it makes it even more real when you walk down the streets and see a large number of people on the mid-thirties handicapped - not a coincidence if you ask me). It blows my mind to think that an apparent attempt to stop Communism from spreading in South East Asia turns into something like this... to top it all off we visit a section in the museum that shows the different ways that people were tortured... like I said, I really cannot comprehend this, but I woun't get into politics now...

Another interesting part of the experience was the two day visit to the Mekong Delta, where we got to go on the floating markets, see how rice paper and rice noodles are produced, and coconut candy (yummy!!!)... We also got to go further away from the city and see life on the outskirts of city (not a very pleasant bus ride, but very culturally enriching) and I must also say that I find it refreshing and it even gives me some sort of hope to see how people in places like this can live such satified lives with such little "things"... ( I truly think sometimes they are better off than us in a sense... :o) We stayed overnight with a local family and although we didn't get to talk to them much, just walking around the little village gave us some perspective on how they live, which needless to say, is very different from ours. Also, we realized every Vietnamese knows how say "hello" and "I love you"in Enlgish...

Also, loved all the markets, trying all these new and funky fruits and the street food of course! (don't tell my doctor I said this...). Food here is amazing and things are truly very cheap!

I think I'm blabing on too much... but in a nutshell I've enjoyed learning about a new place and seeing some things I had never seen before...

Until next time...

Paula ;o)*