Vietnam/Cambodia with MOMMY

Mommy and I reunited in Vietnam early in the morning. I woke up to watch us pull into the Mekong River and watch the sun rise. Around 8:30am they let the parents board the ship, and I gave Mom the grand tour of the ship, introduced her to a few friends and packed for Cambodia. We spent the day in Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) shopping around, checking out the area. The city of Saigon is crazy busy, fast paced. There are hundreds and thousands of motorcycles everywhere—obviously I wanted to ride one so badly, but Mommy wouldn’t let me :( for my own good. Motorcycle traffic polluted the streets and made it entirely impossible to cross the street confidently. We went to a tailor shop and had a dress made, a cute red cocktail dress that I plan on wearing in Japan like a high-rollin princess. Even though the tailor and I had MAJOR communication problems, the dress came out exactly as I had imagined. At one point I was very unlucky in Vietnam, and so were my friends. I broke my camera the first night in Vietnam. Throughout the trip, two other of my friends broke their cameras too. Good thing parents brought their own cameras so we took some pictures. Mom has all the good ones!

I also made mom wear a pointy rice hat around the city. We rested in the hotel room for a while (because I was coming off of a high fever between Thailand and Vietnam). She went for a swim, I took a long, solid nap. We also had lunch at the local fast food chain called Pho24. Pho is what they call the rice noodle soup they eat for EVERY meal. It was delicious for fast food. Then we got ready for dinner and we met up with Annie, Ashley from Fairfield, and Jason for dinner. We went to Vietnamese House restaurant and ate authentic food and drank local drinks. This was my favorite meal in Vietnam—the food exceeded my expectations. We had things such as pumpkin leaves stuffed with shrimp, and weird dumpling green things. Then we went to the Rex Hotel—another famous bar. We had drinks on the rooftop and even went for a horse ride! JK. After Rex, we all went to a club called Apocalypse Now. We danced for a little while and called it a night. Mommy is obviously the best mother in the world, but my friends and I had a great time with her during our first night in Vietnam.

The next day we were off to Cambodia for a few days. This Cambodia trip was action packed. In my suitcase were about 8 different outfits, but I only ended up wearing 3 because we never had an opportunity to relax or change or REST WHATSOEVER. We went to Pnenom Penh and Siem Reap.

In Pnenom Penh we visited a Grand Palace-esque temple village. Same Buddhist influenced architecture made in 17th century. Then we visited a national museum where we saw a superfluous amount of Buddha Heads and statues. Unfortunately on our way out of the museum there was a construction accident so there was a huge crowd surrounding a fellow who broke his shoulder.

We also saw monks! They were cute! The one that spoke English told me how old they were, and when they became monks. They inspired me to buy artwork of monks too in the Russian Market.

We also visited an orphanage founded by Semester at Sea Alumni. We had to cross a high-way to get there…scariest thing in the world. The children were adorable and greeted us half way down the street to their orphanage. A little girl named Leapd clung onto me for the entire time. She had a pretty pearl necklace, and she looked to be about 8 years old. The children are uneducated, and sometimes ages are unknown, so that is my estimation. Mom had a couple little boys and girls that loved her too and clung onto her. It’s hard to not bring one back on the bus…We drew pictures, played games, AND THEN there was a blackout in the town! I could feel some of the parents and students getting panicky, but I thought it was great. The kids got so excited, the stars were so beautiful, and it made the night so much more interesting. We brought them stickers, crayons, markers, coloring books, etc…it was also one of the nicest orphanages I’ve ever seen. They had electricity, running water, toilets, bathtubs, and good care by former SAS-ers.

Other sights we visited in Cambodia included the Genocide Memorials. I remember learning about the genocide that took place during the mid to late 1970’s subsequent to the Vietnam War. In school, there was very little emphasis on the impact it left in Cambodia. At one of these ruins we could see the bones in the ground still, stepping over the remains of bones and clothes of the victims. It was surreal, and extremely moving.

Day 2, We flew to Siem Reap to see the Angkor Wat—which is equivalent in terms of popular attractions to the Taj Mahal of India, or the Grand Palace of Thailand. It was built during the 12th century and “lost” and restored. That night the kids (minus parents this night) went to Pub Street where we met some tourists, went clubbing/to bars. The bar most well known there is called “Angkor What?” and they give out t-shirts with their specialty bucket drinks. Two hours after we got back that night, we woke up for the “non-Sunrise” at the Angkor Wat. The sun never actually came out, so we were disappointed that we basically pulled all-nighters to wake up so early. This day was rough for me—I fell asleep on every bus ride, regardless of how long we were traveling. Then we visited other temple ruins from the 12th century. One is where the movie Tomb Raider was filmed. Huge tree roots grew over these ruins and in between them. The ruins were really cool and are recognizable from a National Geographic magazine issue a few years ago. The next ruins sight was even more innate than the Angkor Wat. I climbed up one of them, and once I got to the top I asked my friend if he saw another way down…and he didn’t so I was stranded on the top and had to go back the way I came. This was scary because the ruins are so worn and shaky, the conditions were challenging. Afterwards we flew back to Vietnam.

The last day in Vietnam we went to the Mekong Delta. We took small wooden boats through the palm tree canals. It was hard for me to imagine in that heat, soldiers dressed in their gear going down the same canals 35 years ago sitting in the same boats. We tried local coconut wine shots, tea with tamarine and local honey, and ate an authentic River meal. Mom and I didn’t like these shots, but we were laughing at our guide who took shots with every table! The entertainment of the day award goes to Smith and his father. They bought a $40 cobra, and two locals chopped the head of the cobra off (which I couldn’t look at, but the sound of it was enough to make me shriek and get nauseous) then they poured the blood into some rice wine, and tore the beating heart out of the snake and ate it. Smith’s father ate the gall bladder, and Smith drank the blood mixture. I pretty much lost my appetite for lunch and did not eat. But lunch was local Elephant fish from the Mekong River—besides, you couldn’t pay me to eat anything coming from the Mekong water.

Then it was time for Mommy to leave as soon as we got back to the hotel. We said goodbye (so sad) and I went about in Saigon. We had such a great time in Vietnam together. It was fun meeting the other parents too. I am lucky that my mom was able to come visit me half-way across the world!

I will be in China in two days!!!
xoxo