Ho Chi Minh City or Saigon?

Is it Ho Chi Minh City or is it Saigon? If you're in an airport or looking at a street sign, it's Ho Chi Minh City...if you're talking to anyone, looking in a brochure or pretty much anything else, it's still Saigon. Either way, that's where we spent our first three nights in Vietnam.
The very first thing we noticed was that traffic here is reminiscent of Bali, with motorbikes dominating the roads.
I'm not sure whether the traffic was lighter than Bali or if we're just getting used to it, but crossing the streets in Vietnam didn't seem nearly as daunting as in Indonesia.
Our first full day in Vietnam we took a three-hour bus ride to the Mekong River where we boarded a thatched-roofed boat.

We drifted through a floating market...

And made our first stop at a honeybee farm where we sampled some honey tea and Royal Jelly (jelly created by the worker bees for the queen bee that enables her to live almost four times as long as the other bees).
We then walked around the corner to a rice factory where we saw workers create rice paper...

Delicious coconut-rice candy...

Rice cakes...

And even rice wine!

The boat then took us across the river past rice paddies and fish farms to a small village where we enjoyed a traditional Vietnamese lunch. After the meal, we returned to the river to discover that our boat was gone! In its place were a bunch of women in row boats waiting to escort us to our next stop.

Our lady even gave us conical hats!

The hats came in handy because it was HOT! I have no idea how she got four of us 500 meters down the river in that heat...in long sleeves and long pants no less! She did it though, and dropped us back at our boat, which then transported us back to a market on the mainland.

The smell was pungent and the fare was often unsightly...

Let's just say that these snakes and eels were much easier on the nose and eyes than a lot of the other stuff!
That night we each enjoyed a bowl of pho (soup) at a restaurant near our hotel in the Pham Ngu Lau area of the city.
Kelly wasn't feeling well for our second full day in Vietnam, so I trudged on solo! In the morning I took a bus to the Cu Chi Tunnels, an elaborate network of tunnels, three levels in depth and spanning over 200 kilometers! The tunnels were used extensively in what we refer to as the Vietnam War (it obviously is not referred to as such here: I've most frequently heard the "Vietnamese-American War" and the "War of American Aggression"). The intricacies of the tunnels were fascinating. From the entrances...

(this is about six inches wider than usual, by the way)...

To the air holes...

The booby traps...

To the holes for smoke to escape from the kitchens.

For the sake of tourists (read "fat Americans"), they created entrances with stairs and enlarged/fortified the tunnels.

That afternoon, Kelly (sort of) and I went to the War Remnants Museum. Between the museum and the tunnels, it was very interesting to see a very different perspective of the war. On the whole, Ho Chi Minh City...or Saigon...was a very interesting, fast-paced place, but now it's off to the land of Ho Chi Minh himself: Hanoi!

Location:Ho Chi Minh City...or Saigon

Curious?

Ever wonder what it's like trying to pack for a 4 month adventure? I just came across these photos and thought I'd show you!

Three hours before leaving for the airport on February 20th...

Three minutes before leaving for the airport....

I'm scared to see what the aftermath is going to look like when I get home (considering most of that mess is shoved in my closet or in the chest at the end of the bed)!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Home

Philippines, Part 2

The past three months of travel have been very indulgent for Nelly and I. We do what we want, when we want, where we want, how we want. We lay on beaches and drink ice cold beer. However, the past 2 days have been the antithesis to our current travel behavior. Earlier this year Matt's mom's church in Piedmont had donated money to an organization in the Philippines, Help International Ministries, that was helping their community rebuild after a devastating flood. The organization is primarily run by a family of missionaries from Montana that have lived in the Antipolo Area (25km outside of Manila) for the past 24 years and they run a birthing center and a baby home (orphanage) up the hill from the community that was devastated. We stayed with them and got to witness firsthand how much their work has and continues to change the lives of so many.
The first day we were there we got a tour of the birthing center which is basically a prenatal and birthing clinic in an old home. When we arrived a baby had just been born and another was born the previous night. Along with that excitement there were around 30 pregnant women in the backyard attending 1 of 9 clinics offered, ranging from breastfeeding to child care. We then went next door to the baby home and saw the children there (some of whom are surrendered at the birthing clinic and some come from social services) and were given our task for the next two days...painting the gate. After we went to the store to buy the paint we began scraping the old paint off with the help of 2 of the missionaries' children, Auden and Bernadette (she was adopted by them from the baby home).

Those are all of the baby diapers drying on clothes lines.

And then we got to painting!

After a full day of working in the sun Matt took all of us, including some of the neighbor children, out to dinner at their favorite restaurant, Balaw Balaw. Before stopping for dinner we drove to a lookout point so that we could get a better view of the city.
Nelly and Berndatte...I love her!
The restaurant is also a gallery of the owner (now deceased) who is a national artist. Before eating we wandered around and saw the higantes. Read about them here.
At the restaurant we had delicious traditional filipino food (sorry, I can't remember the names of what we ate!) This dish is yellow rice surrounded by fish, chicken, pork, squid, crab, shrimp, salty eggs, mussels, okra, eggplant and another local green. We finished the dinner of with leche flan and Halo-Halo. Halo diet when I get home!
The next morning we were out of the door at 7:00am so that we could go and see the work that the community had done to rebuild from the flood. We took a jeepney and a trike to get there. It really rounded out our Philippines experience! Each jeepney owner paints his however he likes. We saw lots of bald eagles and american flags airbrushed on.

Do you think our trike driver was a bit young? And I am betting on the fact that he was born in the birthing center.

The money that the Nelson's church donated helped to rebuild the walkways along the creek, rebuild the foundation and install the hand rails and street lights.
After we were done seeing what amazing work they had done, we walked back up the hill to finish our fence!
Look how pretty it turned out! It will eventually have the handprints of the little kids in the home painted on it, however we ran out of time so another group coming in a few weeks will finish it for us.
We then went inside and played with the kids who range in age from about 4 months to 5 years. I may have shed a tear when a one year old came and sat on my lap and nuzzled her head in my chest for 15 minutes. Or when after kids were scared of Nelly, a nine month old crawled onto his lap and just stared at him like he was the best thing on earth. And I definitely may have shed a tear as we flew away last night. To say the least, the Philippines stole a little piece of my heart and without a doubt I know that I will return.

As an aside: Help International Ministries is doing amazing work and I was in awe and humbled by how they have dedicated their lives to the community. Please check out their website or facebook page to see for yourselves. http://www.helpintl.org/. If you have a few extra dollars to donate, those little babies and expectant mothers would greatly benefit!



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Antipolo

Philippines, Part 1

To say that I have fallen in love with the Philippines would be a major understatement. I posted on Facebook the other day that I never want to leave! In my opinion Boracay has the best overall beach that we have visited. The pictures will have to do the talking because words to describe how perfect it is escape me. But not only is the scenery beautiful, the people are so friendly as well. They are so nice and welcoming and love having us here.
Day 1: We left our friends in Singapore and took a flight to Manila where we stayed the night. We didn't see much of the city as it took us awhile to get to our hotel, so we just went out for dinner and called it a night early.

Day 2: After being dropped off at the wrong airport, we eventually made our way to our correct spot and boarded this turbo prop plane. It shook a lot and I tried not to let myself think about the last time it had been serviced! They had to weigh us with our carry on bags so they knew where to seat us in the plane to keep the weight balanced.
After we landed we took a small boat to the island of Boracay and then took a tricycle (a motorbike with a sidecar large enough for us and our luggage) to our hotel in the hills. We decided not to stay right on the beach (don't ask) and the views we had from our room were amazing. This is from our balcony on night one.
After hanging out at our pool when we checked in, we grabbed a drink by the pool that night and then headed to d'mall, the heart of the beach area, and had dinner right on the beach. For under $20 I might add!
If your hotel does not have a shuttle to d'mall, there are no taxis so you have to take a tricycle. From the beach to our hotel it cost us around 100 pesos which is roughly $2.50.
Day 3: Our first night there we met a Filipino family that was vacationing at our hotel for the weekend and they really took a liking to us. When they left the next morning they wanted to take a picture with "the foreigners".
We then headed back down to the beach and walked the length of it. It is not too long so it took us an hour or so. But I could have done it all day.
The Philippines is predominately Catholic, so it did not seem out of the place to find this shrine to the Virgin Mary on a rock in the middle of the beach. Finding the culture displayed in so many different ways is what I am loving about traveling.
We spent the rest of the day at the beach and then watched the most unbelievable sunset.
Day 4: More of this....
And this....
Day 5: More of this...

Lots of this...

And this....
Followed by drinks at the Hobbit House, a restaurant staffed only by little people.
Day 6: We woke up to this view from our hotel and then sadly headed to the airport for our flight back to Manila where we will be spending a few days.
Notes of interest: it really made me sad to think that Bali could be this beautiful but isn't. For anyone that has any desire to go to Bali, please reconsider and come to the Philippines!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Boracay