GOOOOD Morning Vietnam!!!

March 27^th, Day 65

This morning we awoke to an oddly tilted ship. The Explorer seemed to be listing slightly to one side. Fortunately this wasn’t because of water pouring into the lower decks through a gash in the hull but rather due to the maneuvering of the ship necessary to navigate the very shallow waters we were now traversing. Glancing out the window the banks of the Saigon River pierced through the early morning fog while small boats maneuvered by their rice hat wearing captains floated to and fro. I couldn’t help but think “GOOOOOOD MORNING VIETNAM!!!!” A gold star emblazoned upon a background of crimson red flies from the mast of our ship creating a very surreal feeling as one realizes that we are visiting a country that has for my entire life been a concept in a history class. It is easy to think of Vietnam and see it only as a battlefield, losing sight of the very remarkable culture and society of the people who live there. In just my first few moments looking out that window my curiosity was peaked. The first structures I saw were wood shack looking buildings. Before long we passed a think bundle of power cables that stretched over the river leading off to the slightly larger buildings of industry in the distance. Who were these people? What would I be in store for in the short hours later we would be at the dock?

Very shortly after we pulled alongside our mooring at the dock, a dozen or so Vietnamese women in rice hats came to the dock bearing a sign welcoming Semester at Sea to Vietnam and waving to the occasional student who would poke their head out the upper decks. I felt sorry that they seemed to be expecting us to come flooding off the ship any minute, when in reality our ship had not yet begun the clearing process or conducted our diplomatic briefing and I knew we would not be off the ship for at least another hour. Fortunately this port was also the place where a lot of people’s parents came to meet them and the welcoming committee was kept company by a small throng of parents who began assembling just outside the gangway. The clearing process happened rather quickly and before long I was making my way to the buses for my first experience in Vietnam, the Cu Chi Tunnels.

As we drove out of the port area my first impression of Vietnam was the large number of people on motorcycles and scooters and a noticeable lack of cars or other vehicles that normally separate the cycles and scooters from buses and semi-trucks. Apparently this is due to the fact that the government of Vietnam places a 250% or so sales tax on cars, making them a luxury only the relatively rich can afford. This scene repeated itself for several kilometers until I arrived at the entrance to the Cu Chi Tunnels.

The Cu Chi Tunnels are a well preserved example of the networks of tunnels created by the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War. The tunnels were dug deep enough to withstand the weight of tanks driving over them and even to survive bombings. It was a bit of an odd experience to have the tunnels and aspects of the war explained to us by someone from a country that had defeated us in what they call the American War. Especially when we were able to see and have explained to us the traps that the Vietnamese used to set for American troops and there were placards and displays that referred to the Americans as the enemy. There were also large craters in the ground left over from bombs dropped by B-52s.

After a while we were led to a large section of the tunnels where our group was permitted to crawl through the tunnels. I’m not sure exactly how long it was but it felt like quite a distance and it made me a bit claustrophobic to go through a tunnel that long where I could not stand up. Clearly the average Vietnamese soldier was smaller in stature than I! At the end of the tunnels there was a firing range where people could pay to shoot a Vietnam era weapon and so the gunshots from this range echoed throughout the area as we were touring giving but a small hint of what that area would’ve sounded like 35 years ago. Overall it was a very interesting and sobering experience!