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#31 Big_Poppa

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Posted 24 July 2010 - 08:22 PM

Hope you had a great time - and came home with 2 less purple hearts than my dad did during his last visit !!
:)
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#32 Jacki O.

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Posted 06 August 2010 - 04:23 PM

all right ya'll here's my write up about my trip. I know you were all eagerly awaiting this!
Gonna post my trip write ups in several posts.


Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City

the city is amazing. Much more cleaner and modern than i thought it was going to be. traffic is insane. very few street lights, no lane lines really, everyone rides motorbikes and they never stop. Crossing the streets in Saigon was a life-flashing-before-your-eyes type of experience. initially my sister and i used other vietnamese people who were attempting to cross the street as shields. we'd wait at the curb until someone came along brave enough to step out into traffic and we'd stay close and follow them across the street.

Eventually we learned that if you step slowly out into oncoming traffic and walk slowly across the street, they will just drive around you. They also will drive on the sidewalks if the road is too full so you have to constantly be aware of motorbikes in Saigon. It's large buses, hundreds of motorbikes, people on foot, and people on bicycles all on the road with no street lights or rules to follow. it was insane. One of our tour guides actually told us that when crossing the street in Saigon "never hesitate or take a step back, always move forward"

Show no fear when crossing the streets in Saigon and you will make it across.

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It's a big city so the people aren't overly nice but they aren't mean either. Our first hotel was out in the suburbs of Saigon and when we walked on the street people stopped and stared, like they've never seen a white person before. Some people said hello and were friendly. others just amazed. We actually had a few people ask for photographs with us (and several people secretly tried to photograph us with their phones). that was weird.

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cool park in Saigon

the homes and store fronts were very clean. every morning you saw people out sweeping the streets and sidewalks.

The currency in Vietnam is called the "Dong" which of course i could not get over. I was constantly telling my travel companions and anyone who would listen that i had "dong to blow"
20,000 dong = 1 USD so i would take out 2 million dong from an ATM and pretend like i was a fucking baller.

Everything was cheap there! Beer was 14,000 dong, meals were 60,000 dong. I bought a lot of funny, useless shit. Our hotels were like $7 a night. Saigon is loud, big, in your face but very beautiful and cool.

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check out those power lines!

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an alley where our second hotel was located in the Pham Ngu Lao district of Saigon

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dusk in Saigon
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#33 Jacki O.

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Posted 06 August 2010 - 04:31 PM

Cu Chi Tunnels
Pronounced like "coochie" these tunnels were made during the french and american occupation of Vietnam and were several stories deep, contained hospitals, living quarters, a movie theater, kitchens, and traps. 16,000 people lived in the tunnels for many years, coming up only at night for 2 hours. The American military built a base right over some of the tunnels and it took them awhile to figure out why they were getting shot at at night right in their tents. We hired a local tour for $4 each to take us to the tunnels. Our group consisted of some English solicitors (lawyers) who had just passed their law finals and an irish couple. When we first got there they made us watch a movie on the tunnels. The movie was from like 1970 and showed the viet cong fighting the americans from the tunnels. They narrator would say "this is so and so, she won a medal for killing 14 Americans. This is so-and-so, he is an american-killer hero." That was a little shocking.


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getting into a hiding tunnel hole American-Style

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They showed us the traps that the viet cong used to catch american soldiers. There was the classic "Tiger Pit" trap and some other painful looking ones. There was one where you stepped on it, fell through and spikes flipped up and pinned you in your armpits. There was another one where you opened a door and spikes on a chain fell down and swung into you. our guide called it the "no more baby" trap and laughed. We were like "uh"

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tiger pit

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showing us how they FACED us

They also had an American tank that had been bombed out that they encouraged us to climb on and take pictures with. There was a group of japanese tourist there taking photos with the tank and having a blast.
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#34 Jacki O.

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Posted 06 August 2010 - 04:35 PM

Then we went in the tunnels. They had been made wider for fat western tourists to go through but they were very claustrophobic and scary. Right before the Americans left after the war, they figured out the tunnels and bombed the shit out of them. There were still huge bomb craters all around the tunnels and some tunnels we went through had been recreated for tourists. Apparently 16,000 people lived in the tunnels but after the american bombings, only 6,000 actually survived after the war.

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one tunnel entrance

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left over American bomb shells

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photobomb!

after the tour of the tunnels you were led to a gift shop where you could shoot Russian and Chinese assault rifles that were supplied to the Viet Cong during the war.
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#35 Jacki O.

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Posted 06 August 2010 - 04:45 PM

The Mekong Delta
2 days into our trip we arranged for a private bicycling trip through the Mekong Delta. The Mekong Delta is like the New Orleans of Vietnam. 3 of the country's major rivers empty out into the sea in the Mekong Delta so the land is very fertile and rich. This area produces almost all of the country's agricultural products.

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getting coconuts the old-fashioned way

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yes. this is what i wore on the bike trip.


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our bike trip including biking through My Tho and Ben Tre and their surrounding farm lands.

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typical mekong delta house
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#36 Jacki O.

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Posted 06 August 2010 - 04:50 PM

We stopped at a coconut candy factory (someone's house really) and saw them making the candy. The house owner was very friendly and let us try some of her banana wine that she was fermenting under her kitchen sink. it was very strong but good.

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they use the coconut shells for the fire! recycling!


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that's my fat ass

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riding through rice paddies

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our biking guide asked us to call him "Kitty Cat"

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#37 Jacki O.

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Posted 06 August 2010 - 04:54 PM

We continued on our bikes to a small port and then got on a small boat and boated up the river to an inlet on the delta.

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fishing

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toilet boat

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#38 Jacki O.

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Posted 06 August 2010 - 04:58 PM

we boated up an inlet on the delta to a farmer's house. At his house we took naps on hammocks overlooking the river and then he prepared us an amazing lunch. it was an amazing trip and though one of the most expensive guided trips we paid for, probably also the best.

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the farmer's house for lunch
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#39 MikeyWretch

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Posted 06 August 2010 - 05:02 PM

AWESOME! I would have dressed like Rambo the whole time!

Really great photos Jack!

These posts are worth 1000 dong!
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#40 Jacki O.

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Posted 06 August 2010 - 05:03 PM

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eating Rambutan
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#41 Jacki O.

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Posted 06 August 2010 - 05:06 PM

After the Mekong Delta we took an overnight bus to Rach Gia on the southwest coast of Vietnam. The overnight bus was 6 hours and took us from Saigon all through southwest vietnam to the coast. at one point i woke up around 3am and our bus on was on a ferry crossing a river.

At Rach Gia we boarded The SuperDong III ferry for a 2 hour boat ride to the tropical island of Phu Quoc.

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I'm on the SuperDong motherfucker don't you ever forget
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#42 Jacki O.

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Posted 06 August 2010 - 05:14 PM

The island of Phu Quoc is so beautiful and amazing but is being built up to be a major tourist island with lots of resorts. I'm so glad i got to go there before it becomes the Cancun of Vietnam because it was so relaxed and low-key and beautiful, with miles and miles of undeveloped beaches and wildlife that were breathtaking.

We rented a beachside cabana complete with satellite tv and a mini fridge for 4 days and 3 nights, our total cost for staying there? $42.

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My bed
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view of the beach from our cabin

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they gave us fruit baskets everynight!

our beach:
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halfway thru!

will post more tomorrow!
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#43 fatguyaz

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Posted 06 August 2010 - 09:09 PM

you had me at "superdong"
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#44 Jacki O.

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Posted 09 August 2010 - 11:10 AM

The first day there we hung out on the beach and swam and relaxed after our uncomfortable overnight bus trip.

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i built a sandcastle
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The 2nd day we hired some locals to drive us around the island on their motorbikes and give us tours of their favorite beaches. that day was amazing. our guides were wonderful and nice, the showed us some amazing beaches and took us to a great restaurant on a secluded beach on the northern tip of the island (where they pointed out Cambodia, just across the bay). They took us through the national forest park on the northside of the island, a beautiful jungle forest preserve that we hiked into a bit. I saw a giant hawk. the air smelled so good.

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#45 Jacki O.

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Posted 09 August 2010 - 11:16 AM

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after our motorbike tour, we were tired and sore so we went back to our beach cabana and had hour long messages on the beach for $3.

$3 fucking dollars. it was amazing.


The next day we signed up for a snorkeling trip through "Johnny's Tours" Johnny was a guy we had met on the beach on our first day in Phu Quoc. He was walking the beach hawking his tour packages (night squid fishing!) and he seemed cool so we signed up for his day-long snorkeling trip.

We got picked up in a rickety old van, that then went on to pick up 2 australian girls and an english couple. We stopped at a pearl hatchery farm and then headed to a large commercial port where we boarded our boat. Out in the water, our guide gave us fishing reels and taught us traditional island fishing, Jamie, one of the girls traveling in my group (there were 3 other american girls with me on this trip) caught the first fish. The english dude caught the second.

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