Travels to Ho Chi Minh City
I have been traveling for as long as I can remember; I caught the travel bug at a very young age. My parents always thought that the best way to learn was through traveling and experiencing history first hand. My mom as a kid traveled some, but mostly to the Bahamas and to Asia in college. My dad on the other hand didn’t fly on an airplane until he was in college and ever since then he hasn’t stopped. His job involves a lot of travel to many countries. When my sister and I were in elementary school it was so easy to just tag along to his trips. Our first overseas adventure was to Japan. It was so different from what I was used to as a little first grader. Of course, I didn’t appreciate the food and I have this memory of my mom taking my sister and I to Hard Rock Cafe in Tokyo to get french fries, this was probably the first and last time my mom ever bought us fries. But as the years went on I looked forward to trying the new foods and learning about all of the different cultures. Just 2 years later we went on a curse to the Mediterranean and we immersed ourselves in the culture and soaked up as much history as we could, the difference this time is this is my turning point for loving the food. This story begins 12 years later.
We landed in Vietnam’s capital on December 20th 2017 after a 20+ hour flight. This was my family’s big trip for the year; from the time that I could remember my family and I always did a big trip at least once a year but this was the first one to Asia in almost 8 years. It was the same year my sister was graduating from college so we knew it would be our last hurrah before she had an adult job. I was the one that had chosen Vietnam; a few years prior when we had gone to Peru we used a tour company called Gate 1 Travel so it was my job to find a place for us to go that we would all enjoy. My family is very opinionated so this was a difficult task and we didn’t start planning until early November. I was on the phone with my parents who live in Michigan trying to find the perfect trip. We settled on a 20 day trip to Vietnam where we would travel from Ho Chi Minh City to Hoi An then to Hue to Halong Bay and Hanoi where we would fly home. We knew it was going to be an action packed trip because my parents love to sign up for every excursion possible.
After a 30 minute or so drive from the airport we arrived at our hotel during the afternoon. It was located in downtown Ho Chi Minh, previously known as Saigon until 1976. Our first stop was the hotel spa. My mom, sister and I love adventure but we also love a trip to the spa. Because of the exchange rate, everything in Vietnam is very cheap so you could get an hour massage in a 4 star hotel for around $30. We knew we would be taking full advantage of this. As expected, it was a much needed relaxation after spending more than 20 hours on a flight. Once it became night time we had our first of many experiences with the street of Vietnam. We had dinner down the street from our hotel in the beautiful, jungle like courtyard where we had our first traditional Vietnamese meals.
The next morning we rose early for out first excursion; we hurried to the bus to get front row because my family is prone to car sickness and we knew it was going to be an hour long drive to the Chu Chi Tunnels. Unfortunately, the bus had assigned seats and given that my last name is Wood, we were put in the last row and I was very annoyed by the situation. But I have experienced the curse of having a last name at the end of the alphabet my entire life so I got over it.
When we arrived at the tunnel we were guided to the forest where we learned about the Vietnam war and the tactics they had to use to protect themselves. We say the tunnels they built and many of their booby traps they would set to catch the “enemy”. My mom and I got the great idea to follow the group through one of the underground tunnels; big mistake. There was a bit of a traffic jam in the tunnel where there were probably 20 tourists crawling through this tunnel that could’t be more than 3 feet tall and 3 feet wide. My mom started to get a panicky voice which made me become panicked and that’s when I discovered that I am in fact claustrophobic.
We then went on to see how rice paper was made and learned about this alcohol that has lizards in it; surprisingly my mom took a sip, that is something you would have to pay me a million dollars to do. According to History Channel , The Chu Chi Tunnels were used by Viet Cong to create an underground network to spread supplies and provide protection from surprise attacks. These tunnels were also used to lay booby traps. In January of 1966 8,00 American and Australian troops attempted to attack the Cu Chi area, their attempt wasn’t very successful because the Communist army hid underground in these tunnels.
It is believed that 45,000 Vietnamese died while working in these tunnels. After the fall of Saigon in 1975, the government decided to preserve Chu Chi as a war memorial.
On the drive back we drove through the small villages and were able to see how people really live day to day. When we got back to the hotel and crashed after a long day crawling through tunnels and learning about the gruesome guerrilla warfare used during the war. The next day we would be flying to Hoi An, the city I was most looking forward to.
