Travel reflections

I am in VIETNAM! I'm currently sitting in my hotel room with wireless internet, which is so surprising and wonderful. The last few days have been an absolute (but incredible nonetheless) blur. My travel began on Friday when I flew from Greensboro to Dallas to Salt Lake City to visit my grandparents for the evening. It was such a perfect way to begin my long days of travel ahead. Note to self: always stop at the grandparents' before traveling internationally. I started off my 2 day travel around the globe fully stocked with multiple sandwiches, snacks, and an overall rested feeling. I even got to go for a morning run and endure the altitude of Salt Lake before my flight to LA on Saturday.

On Saturday, I flew from Salt Lake to LA. When I arrived in LA, I had many hours to spare before my flight to Hong Kong, but I ended up meeting up with others in my program, a few people in the SIT Mekong Delta program, and also an SIT program in China. Even at these initial stages of this experience, these other students all seemed so interesting, engaged, and most notably well-traveled. It was really impressive to hear about all the places these fellow 20 and 21 year olds have already traveled. It certainly eased some anxieties and made me feel more excited and energized. After a long 13 hour flight to Hong Kong (which I thankfully slept for most of), we landed and made our way through customs. Hong Kong's airport was really incredible – the airport is sort of carved out of the mountains and there is water on either side of the terminal. I'll skip to my arrival in Vietnam, which has been extremely exciting (and equally exhausting!).

Landing in Vietnam was like landing onto a colorful quilt. I never thought a developing country like Vietnam could be so colorful. Buildings with purple, blue, pink, and yellow rooftops were visibly crammed next to one another. Lacking any symmetry or uniformity, these buildings appeared to be crammed together, leaving what seemed to be absolutely no space between one another. Because of the vibrant colors of each rooftop, however, even this jammed-urban feel was really beautiful. It was also striking to make note of the vast farmland that surrounded the urban center of HCMC. Once on land, it was hard to avoid noticing the smell of this country, which is not particularly pleasant. I really do think that developing countries in the world have a uniform, distinct smell. I can't quite diagnose or describe this smell, even when I consciously try to. I think you all must come visit Vietnam to experience it yourselves (from what I can tell so far, it is so worth the trek halfway around the globe).

After making it through customs just fine after even more inspection of all the prescription medicines I brought with men, everyone's luggage made it successfully. It must have been all the finger-crossing that went on in baggage claim. Exhausted and simultaneously excited, we walked outside. Now let me explain exactly what that means. That means walking outside into the type of heat that causes you begin to sweat immediately…heat that makes your mind feel like it can't even function properly (mind you this was at 10AM). We met our academic director, who I have come to realize is just GREAT, and then piled into cabs to make our way to the guesthouse. When you all do make your way to Vietnam sometime in your life, which you should, you must prepare yourself for a taxi ride like this. Cars are the minority here in HCMC. They are outnumbered completely by the insane number of mopeds that literally SWARM the streets. When I say swarm, I mean the exaggerated meaning of "swarm." These mopeds weave their way in and out of the cars, while the cars honk incessantly to "warn" the mopeds that they are nearby. This honking, however, results in a non-stop honking sound on the streets of HCMC, as if a horn is continuously being sounded. Wow is all I have to say. Oh, and also, no one wears seatbelts. Seatbelts can't even be found in the backseats of cabs. It is interesting though that there is a relatively new law within the last few months about helmets for those driving on mopeds. It is now a law to wear helmets – as a result, the women ride these mopeds sporting what intend to be fashionable helmets. Some are pink with white brims, some have Disney stickers all over them. It is really quite the fashion statement, I have to admit. The craziest part of it all is that everyone wears helmets except the infants and toddlers who also ride these mopeds. Literally children of two years of age ride around HCMC on mopeds WITHOUT helmets. I can't even begin to understand this trend.

Since I could go on for hours about the rest of my day if I don't give myself a limit, I will give you just a brief summary. Once we arrived and showered, we went out for our first real Vietnamese meal, which entailed steamed morning glories (a common veggie here), snake head fish in a fish sauce soup, crispy tofu, a strange looking beef concoction, chicken wings, and white rice of course. It was actually delicious, minus the red meat which I have yet to decide if I want to eat here. I loved learning from my academic director about each of these foods and the different table manners relating to chop stick use and order of consumption that accompany them. We then walked to the Independence Palace, which is now museum-like and located on a pristine boulevard. During the Vietnam War, however, this palace was the location of several bombings and a symbol of the crumbling government in South Vietnam. It is truly incredible to visit a piece of history like this, and reminds you how even countries that seem at the verge of collapsing can recover and be rebuilt. We also exchanged some money, bought some postcards and stamps, and visited a very European like coffee shop, which had the most delicious coffee. The café was mostly outdoors with some roof covering and was very middle-eastern feeling in ambiance actually. It turns out that Vietnam is the world's second largest exporter of coffee, and with the French influence on Vietnam in general, this café in general makes a lot of sense. After a short rest and some more walking around the streets of HCMC being stared at by every passerby, it was time for a light dinner. After dinner walking back to the guesthouse, a terrible thing occurred which really reminded everyone that despite this city's exciting and modern energy, it is a city like any city, that has its bad people in it. When I tell this story, keep in mind that when you cross the street, this entails literally bolting out into 8+ lanes of moped traffic (without pedestrian "walk" signs of course) and basically just hoping the mopeds ride around you, versus hitting you. When my academic director crossed, a moped appeared like it was going to hit her, coming extremely close. As it passed by, the driver snatched her entire purse and rode off. She started screaming and running after him through the dozen lanes of traffic in both directions and proceeded to hop on a random moped with a random driver to chase after him in panic. She did not get her bag back of course. (I can't imagine what important documents she had in there, let alone her personal items since she's leading this program). It is really awful – I felt terrible for her, especially because she had to keep her composure since she is leading our group, although you could tell she was panicked and on the verge of tears. This is the reality of this country. I think it is best not to wear a purse at all and just stick to the money belt. I'm not going to lie and say that I'm not extremely anxious to walk on the streets…

I can't describe well enough the contrasts that seem to describe this country. You walk along the street beside peddlers carrying a bamboo pole with a bucket at the end filled with produce they are hauling, yet you also see similar peddlers squatting along the road and texting on their I-phones. It seems so developing and backwards in terms of everything from sanitation to its helmet wearing on mopeds, yet there are still Gucci and Burberry stores, ten story malls, and an abundance of technology. I am anxious to see if and how these contrasts apply to the more rural settings that we will soon experience. My academic director seems like she will provide us with a very well-rounded understanding of Vietnam. She is making sure we get to places without tourists so we can really experience Vietnam as any resident of this country would. (She also is an avid runner, so I already have a running date set with her and another girl on my program tomorrow morning before the brutal heat of the day sets in)! Other than the really unfortunate purse-snatching, this experience has been only incredible so far. I am loving the people in my group, my academic director, the country, and just an overall difference in culture and way of living. Tomorrow is Independence Day, so I'm sure that will be exciting as well. Hoping my academic director's purse-snatching got that out of my groups' system for the entire trip, but as I can tell already, life here and the expectations of it are just so completely different from anything I am accustomed to. Mom and Dad, don't worry, I'll be wearing that handy money belt you bought me from here on out…