Same Same but Different

That's a popular expression in Vietnam and it does a good job of explaining the country. In many ways, it is the same as Thailand. It has a tropical atmosphere and the people are very friendly. However, it's also different. In Thailand you are always haggling with people. You get into a taxi and have to haggle over the price. You go to a club and you haggle over the cover fee. You walk down the street and you haggle over everything. Vietnam does not have this same experience. Taxis are always metered (though we did have our first taxi scam when we used a taxi with a rigged meter), club prices are not necessarily set, but at least more set, and you don't have to haggle quite as much at the markets. Though we may have haggled less because the Viet Dong is a terrible currency and so everything is incredibly cheap. I got to enjoy being a millionaire for the first time in my life. Too bad it was short lived.

The most interesting part of the trip, and the reason I wanted to go, was seeing the Cu Chi Tunnels and the war museum. We went to the museum first and it made me wonder how Germans feel going to any sort of Holocaust museum. The museum had very graphic pictures of people who had been injured during bombies and children who were born disfigured. The thing that I thought was most interesting was that instead of having other people say how terrible the deeds of the US were, they used our own words against us. They had all kinds of quotes hanging up from politicians and other protestors during the era. They even quoted the Declaration of Independence to show us as being hypocritical. I've never spent a whole lot of time studying the Vietnam War during school, but now I want to do more reading about it. One thing that is curious is that China occupied Vietnam for 1000 years, France was there for 100, then we were there for 20. It seems all of the resentment that is left is towards the US.

The Cu Chi tunnels were also interesting. The tunnels were built starting during France's occupation, but became much more utilized during the War with America. There was a portion dug just for tourists (because we're too big for what they actually used), and I crawled the 20 or so feet through it. It was pitch black and incredibly scary. The tunnels twists and turns and it is very hard to tell if you are going in the correct direction. Overall, the site was a little too touristy for me to have any desire to go back. One other interesting thing was that there was a video at the beginning of the area. The tour guide we were with, who was not associated with the tunnels, told us we should not watch it since we are Americans. I wish we had seen it, but oh well.

Sorry I didn't post this sooner. My plan was to post it over the weekend, but if you haven't heard, my weekend was very eventful.