The Vietnam Singaporean

We woke up in the early morning to meet at the hostel lobby at 7:45, for a trip 2 hours away on the tour bus to the co chi tunnels.

From my knowledge, the co chi tunnels are a series of passageways dug underneath the ground for Vietnamese troops to stealthily navigate the area the tunnels ran through, away from the sight of the American soldiers during the Vietnam war. The tunnels were long and narrow stretching far and wide throughout the land.

According to the guides, the tunnel here is the smallest sized amongst the others. I barely managed to squeeze into it as friends persuaded me to do so.

There were many trenches and small huts for the soldiers and the Vietnamese to do their work during the war. Bunkers and long trenches for troops to stay hidden from enemy sights and also weapon workshops where Vietnamese work on metal to create tools for use in the war.

One of the exhibit that drew my attention was the many traps the Vietnamese used. The traps were innovative and smart: one example being the folding chair trap where when someone were to step into the trigger, a wooden structure with spikes would clamp.

This is a large trap where it can flip 360 degrees which causes the person to fall into deathly spikes.

Next we had the chance to enter into the genuine tunnels, however were widened 2 times its size for the convenience of tourists. Electrical lamps were added too. This is the entrance of the claustrophobic tunnels.

At the end of our tour through the tunnels, we were served tapioca and tea. Followed by a lunch of fish, eggs, pork and soup.

Our next destination was the war museum: another 2 hours bus trip. There were many accounts and photographs of the war. Mostly showing how brutal and torturous the war was. Weapons and war vehicles were on display in the museum. Seeing the saddened and disgusted faces displayed by people viewing the exhibits tell me that they were thinking the same thing as I was: war is terrible

We took a short bus trip to our final tour destination; which was the reunification palace. There wasn’t really many things to do here as rooms were either sealed off or prohibited to enter. Many rooms were scattered through out the many levels of the building, but nothing really special was going on.

As the afternoon comes to an end, we had an early dinner at Pizza Hut. Again, the meal was very cheap. A personal pizza, side-dish (soup, garlic bread or salad) and a glass of pepsi for around SGD$2. You really feel no pain in spending here.

After our core module lesson, we headed to the market to get us some bubble tea and dinner. We drank the bubble tea in the shop they had, the shop was pretty interesting actually. We had trouble talking to the shop assistants there but however managed to make them understand what we wanted.

Today we didn’t do many things here; we basically just completed our core module assignments: landscape drawing and perspective.

Today was the last Vietnamese language class we were going to have. We finished up the class with lessons on how to converse with waiters/servers in restaurants and also sang a Vietnamese song. I could see that my class really had fun in the class.

Many thanks to our teacher, for making our learning experience fun with games and laughter.

Today was a day for a tour to three markets in the city. The first stop was the Ben Thanh market, but before we explored the area we went to a restaurant called Pho 2000 for our lunch. The restaurant sells Pho, which was generally beef or chicken noodles in soup. You can then dip the meat pieces in fish sauce (another of vietnam’s iconic food item) and also mix in lime juice or mint leaves they have provided for you on a plate. It was my first time trying pho and it was really delicious: it is a must try when you come to Vietnam. The restaurant was named “Pho 2000” as 2000 was the year Bill Clinton ate at the restaurant during the 2000s.

After our fulling meal of noodles, our team strolled around the market. Thinking it was going to be like a nice stroll and browse afternoon for us, we were hassled by shop owners and assistants; most of the times asking us what we wanted and also pulling our hand. Some were really rude whilst we were just browsing while some treated us great service with a smile. My two friends bought Ao Dai, which is a traditional costume in Vietnam (looks like a cheong sam). I just bought two t-shirts.

The next market we had to visit was called the Binh Tay market. This market was different from the first as it was rather cramped and the items sold were really, really cheap. It might be a place where stocks of items are sold out to people in wholesale for them to sell them on their own in their stalls. As usual, the girls bought lots of accessories and bags whilst Muhammad and I just stood by watching over them (bored and sweating).

At night, we travelled back to another night market nearby the Ben Thanh market. As my team had two muslim students, they were not really able to experience the whole “eating sessions” we had during the trip as foods were mostly halal. Thus we decided to head to a halal restaurant for a change. Bao, our tour guide, brought 7 of us (Ms.Wan, my 5 group members and I) into a taxi as the restaurant was not far away.

As we arrived, the restaurant’s name was called “Halal @ Saigon” Saigon being the place’s name. We settled down and looked through the menu and saw some really appetizing pictures of the many foods they serve. After some consideration, I just chose a dish of fries and beef cubes with a side of eggs and crab meat. It was heavenly.

Today we had something called Green Sunday. It is whereby we were to carry these baskets and brooms and go around the site of the university to pick up the litter we could find on the streets.

After it was over, we headed to the market as a group to further explore the area as we were stopped by rain the previous time. We did not have taxis so like before, we walked the long distance there. It sure was exhausting. At some point of time the roads were really crowded and there was a jam of vehicles. We barely managed to pass through.

At night for dinner, my roommate, Muhammad, cooked up some shrimp egg porridge and fish for our group, which tasted really good.

YOURNAMEHERE Hi, my name is Yang Jiahe. bolditalicunderline~~strikeout~~

The Vietnam Boy
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