Vietnam & Cambodia

The morning that our ship pulled into the Saigon River to Ho Chi Minh City we woke up amid a sea of students scrambling to get all of their paperwork to get off the ship as well as parents who had come to Vietnam to meet their children on the ship. From the area our ship docked in there was a shuttle that ran from the ship to the middle of Ho Chi Minh City where most of the shopping and sights are located. It took around 30 minutes for the bus to get from the dock to the city, but if you took a motorcycle it would only take around 10 minutes. Almost everyone in Vietnam rides a motor cycle, and no one abides by any sort of traffic laws. When crossing the street we couldn’t just stand there and wait for the traffic to eventually stop. What everyone does is simply walk out into the traffic and trust that the motorcycles are going to drive around you, and once you start walking you can't stop because they judge your walking speed and steer around it. The first thing we did once we reached the city was to go find a place to get some cheap suits made. We walked around the market for a while and after bargaining with different tailors we settled on a store on the main street, which looked like they would do the best job. The rest of the afternoon we spent walking around the city, visiting different stores and spending our $1 bills on shirts and DVDs. Everywhere we went in Vietnam they accepted American currency and most restaurants and stores had all their prices listed in American dollars. That evening we rode the bus back to the ship and then Andrew and I went to dinner with a group of girls at a sushi place.
The next day Andrew and I teamed up with Andrew from Kansas and we got a taxi ride outside of the city to the Cu Chi tunnels. It was a very interesting presentation that the Vietnamese had there. First we are put in a room where we watch a video about the Vietnam War, which is much different in their eyes than ours. Most of the video was about communist war hero's that ousted the evil American troops. Then they took us to different areas where they had props set up of how the Vietnamese soldiers lived in the tunnels and we were able to crawl through the tunnels and explore on our own. Then we went to an area where we were able to shoot Ak-47's, M-30's, and M-60's, which needless to say was the highlight of the tunnel experience. Later that afternoon when we arrived back in Ho Chi Minh City we walked around and bought some more DVDs before dropping it all back of the ship. Later that evening after eating Vietnamese cuisine in the city we decided to get a cab ride to a bowling ally I had read about in a book on the ship. Our cab driver didn't speak any English and he took us 20 minutes away to a bowling ally outside of the main part of town which wasn't what we had in mind. When we walked in every eye stared at us, but we were not deterred and ended up playing 2 games. After bowling we got a cab back to the ship because the next morning we had to wake up for our trip to Cambodia.
Our trip started at 10 a.m. with the infamous Semester At Sea trip breakfast of a hard boiled egg, chicken wing, and sandwich. Sixty students piled into 2 separate buses and set off for the airport for our flight to Phnom Pen. Getting through security was easy and the flight was only 45 minutes. Days before we arrived in Vietnam the Semester At Sea staff reminded us over and over not to forget a passport sized photo when going to Cambodia or you wouldn't be able to get a Cambodian visa. Well as luck would have it I forgot my passport photo in my room. Andrew had an extra copy of his photo, so for a while on the plane I debated weather I should try to use his photo or not once we arrived in Cambodia. Luckily I remembered that I had a copy of my passport in my luggage, so I
ripped out my picture and used that when we arrived. In the airport in Cambodia I decided that I would pull out some cash from the ATM because all we had was American currency and I didn't know if it was accepted in Cambodia. At the ATM I realized that the only currency I could pull out was American. In fact Cambodians choose to use American dollars over their own currency, so even most ATM's in Cambodia give out American currency. This is because most money that Cambodia has received since they have become a democracy has come in American dollars, and because their own currency is so weak.
That afternoon we went to different Hindu and Buddhist temples as well as some museums. When the evening came we went on a riverboat cruise on the Mekong River to watch the sunset. After the river cruise we went to an orphanage, but before hand we stopped by a supermarket to buy candy and gifts for the kids once we arrived. I bought Hershey’s kisses and a bucket of little packets of some sort of fruit jello which none of the orphans liked. I talked to the different orphans but one that had the most impression on me was an 18 year old who was brought in off the streets when he was 14. He was so excited to talk to us, and he asked me many questions about my family, school, and the ship we were on. He especially enjoyed practicing his English because he wanted to become a tour guide. After the orphanage we went to eat at a Cambodian restaurant and then finally to our hotel for a much needed shower and rest.
The next morning Andrew and I and two others decided not to go with the group but to split off and do our own thing. We had read about a place in Cambodia called Thunder Ranch where if the price was right you could shoot rocket launchers and rpgs. We asked around the hotel and found a took-took driver who said he knew what we were talking about and he could take us there, so the four of us jumped in with him to see if it was true. First before we went we had the driver take us by the killing fields where the Khmer regime killed millions of Cambodians that did not agree with their political ideals.
After walking around we got back in the took-took and headed with our driver to what we hoped would be Thunder Ranch. Where he took us wasn't Thunder Ranch, but was a spot for tourist on a Royal Cambodian Air force base. When we arrived they gave us a menu, but it wasn't food on the menu, it was weapons. One of the best menu's I've ever seen myself. I scanned all the way down on the back to the rocket launchers, and inquired about them. In order to shoot them we had to drive an hour away into the mountains to fire it at the side of a mountain, and we only had two hours time until we needed to be at the airport to meet the rest of the group so we didn't have time. But what we did have time for was to shoot Uzis, Tommy Guns, and throw hand grenades. After thoroughly enjoying ourselves we bought a few t-shirts and left to go to the airport. On our way back we saw a sign for a raceway and we asked if we could go race and our driver turned around and took us there. At the racetrack we raced go-karts that went up to 60 km per hour, and after going the the F-1 race in Malaysia I got really into it and had a great time. Oh yeah and I won.
Before the Airport we stopped at a pizza shop and I ordered us a large supreme pizza with a crust stuffed with sausage and cheese, something I had never seen before and just had to try. At the airport we met up with the rest of our group and got on a plane to Angkor. Once we arrived we went straight to Angkor Wat, which is a huge Hindu temple complex over 1000 years old. We walked around the temple snapping pictures everywhere for 2 1/2 hours until sunset. After sunset we went to a restaurant with an excellent international buffet and a stage where dancers performed the traditional Cambodian dance. Once we left and got to the hotel I went straight to sleep without even taking a shower. That next morning Andrew woke up at 4:30 to go see Angkor Wat at sunrise but I kept sleeping because I wasn't feeling too well. At 8 I woke up and joined everyone else on the bus to go visit some more temples at Angkor Thom. This is where Laura Croft: Tomb Raider was filmed and it was a lot of fun to explore because we were able to scramble up the ruins of the temples all the way to the top. We drove to different temples (they seemed endless) until the late evening and finally to the airport for our flight to Vietnam and back to the ship.