HCM--motorbikes, karaoke and dragon fruit

After a lot of time spent on planes/in airports, I finally arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (HCM) on Monday of this week. Even with the 11 hour time difference (Vietnam is ahead) I wasn’t too wiped and spent the afternoon with our academic director exploring the city. Our first introduction to the city was in our taxi ride from the airport to our hotel. Taking a taxi in NYC is nothing compared to here. Horns beep constantly as cars weave through the hundreds of motorbikes that clog the streets. I think I spent most of the ride gasping at how close our cab came to flattening a motorbike. Driving a taxi almost seems nothing to crossing the street. Knowing how to cross the street in HCM is essential to survival. Stay on the curb. Look left, look right. Look left and right again. Step off the curb. Stay in a straight line with other pedestrians. Stay aware of what’s around and never ever walk backwards. As our academic director explained, by continuing to walk forward the motorbikes are able to dodge around behind you, which means a step backward could result in disaster. Traffic lights serve little purpose and the motorbikes hardly ever all pay attention to traffic patterns. We found that one of the best ways to cross the street is to have another person serve as a blocker (just like in football) and just follow in their shadow.

Dinner that first night was probably the most entertaining part of the day. We went to a restaurant that serves hot pot dinners alongside karaoke. After trying some spring rolls and fried tofu (which was surprisingly sweet) a cover was removed from the center of the table revealing a hot plate. Just as the name suggests a pot is put on the plate into which a variety of seafood and vegetables go, including pumpkin flowers and a couple different kinds of mushrooms. What I didn’t realize was that there were whole chiles in the pot as well. So impressed with my chopstick abilities I didn’t realize that I had put an entire chile into my mouth. Already having a low tolerance for spicy foods you can only imagine how I reacted to the chile--so not fun. Luckily there was no serious damage, I just couldn’t feel my mouth or lips for the rest of the meal haha. But don’t worry, that didn’t keep me from hitting up the karaoke stage where I joined two other girls from my group to sing a Vietnamese techno version of Beat It. If you’ve had the privilege of hearing my singing voice before you know that it was a performance to remember.  

There are seven other people doing this program and interestingly, five of us considered ourselves vegetarians prior to our trip, however within our first 24 hours of being here all broke that. our second afternoon here we went to a really nice restaurant for lunch where we not only had free range chicken, but also ate a pig's ear cartilage. that wasn't exactly on purpose. Tien (our program assistant for the program) claimed that the dish was vegetarian, however I'm not quite sure the american vegetarians would agree. the food here though has been so interesting. That morning we also tried a bunch of different fruits for breakfast, including dragon fruit and other things that look ridiculous with spikes and tough outer skins that you cut away to get to the surprisingly sweet fruit inside. we also took a trip to the Reunification Palace that afternoon (where South Vietnam’s government was based and whose architecture has a strange resemblance to the Noyes dorm at Vassar) and spent time exploring the Ben Thanh market where everything from knockoff North Face backpacks to dried fish is sold.

Today we met up with another SIT group based in Vietnam to visit the international medical clinic in Vietnam as well as meet with someone from the U.S. Consulate. These few days in HCM have been an orientation for us, so tomorrow morning we leave for Can Tho where the program will be based for the next couple months. There we’ll stay at a guest house and eventually move in with our homestay families. We’ll also start our Vietnamese lessons on Friday, which I’m actually pretty excited for. While many people speak some english in HCM it’s been difficult to really feel any sort of independence or true cultural awareness when you can’t even pronounce (let alone understand) items on a menu. Of course this was expected and learning the language isn’t going to be easy, but it’s definitely going to be a challenging and entertaining learning experience.

P.S. photos are coming soon, just waiting until my internet is consistent enough to upload them!