day 11

Thursday, May 17th

(once again, sorry for the delay)

Today we went on a day trip! We visited the Củ Chi tunnels, and also a Cao Đài temple in Tây Ninh. We got on the bus bright and early (7 am .... earliest wake up yet!) and then drove for about an hour and a half to get to Củ Chi. To prepare for the buggy weather in the jungle we all put on sunscreen and bug spray.... and were scared when Dr. Berman told us that the bug spray attracts deadly snakes! Fortunately I didn't see any snakes today, and I only got one bug bite. Once we arrived at Củ Chi, we went climbed down steps to a hut-like enclosure where we watched a video about the tunnels. We heard about the history from the Vietnamese perspective, which is naturally quite different from the American perspective. Though the video showed many horrors the Vietnamese experienced, the guide showed us many bamboo traps which fatally impaled American soldiers. We also got the chance to crawl through a tunnel (I managed to just walk through while standing somewhat bent over, though most other people had to crawl) and lower ourselves into a sneak entrance for another one. It was dark and freaked me out a little because creepy crawly things scare me like none other. Luckily, the one we crawled through was lit.

After we were done at Củ Chi, we got back on the bus and drove for about another hour and a half to Tây Ninh. The temple was very beautiful and ornate, and we had to take our shoes off to go inside. We entered just as a worship service was starting, which was very different from any that I have ever been to. It also seemed as though we were not allowed to walk directly in front of the building while worship was occurring, and I'm not quite sure why.

Later, we had lunch at a street vendor on the way back to Ho Chi Minh. I had roasted pork and rice, which was pretty good, though apparently the sweet and sour pork was very good and I wish I had tried some. On the drive home, we saw some rice paddies, which was new to us since you don't see much of that near the city.

Once we got back, our UEF friends took us back to the Bến Thành Market. There is so much to buy there, though I didn't get very much. There is a lot of fake designer stuff there, and though I resisted the urge to get most things, I went halves on a deal for sunglasses (two for $5 USD) so I now am the proud owner of a pair of fake Ray Bans! Next our friends took us to a Vietnamese t-shirt shop, which has t-shirts with slogans in Vietnamese. At the time, I didn't get any - but now I wish I had! Then, half of the group went to the Adidas store, and the rest of us just hung out near the t-shirt shop. Ngân very kindly treated us to a drink which she said was sugar cane, which was delicious. To me, it tasted like lemonade, but somewhat sweeter.

Then, we went to dinner. We went to a European-style restaurant, where the specialty is "beef-steak". I got the beef steak in pepper sauce (which was delicious) as well as spaghetti on the side. For dessert, we had some crème brûlée, which I have never had before. It wasn't quite what I had expected (though then again, I never knew what it was to begin with) but it was very good nonetheless! Amazingly, dinner came out to under $100,000 VND (less than $5 USD) per person, and all the Pitt kids treated our UEF friends because of how wonderfully welcoming they have been to us throughout the trip, hanging out with us every night and taking us to many cool places which we would have never discovered without them.

After saying goodnight to our Vietnamese friends, we finished the night by going to Lush one last time. There weren't very many people there - we practically had the place to ourselves! Once again it was lots of fun, and I will definitely miss going out with Team Yolo when I get home.