Vietnam-Cambodia

2/10

It's like going back in time. Everyone working in the fields, using their hands or hand tools. I see wheelbarrows and pedal bikes carrying long metal rods from one place to another. People are barefoot and shirtless all while being in the middle of a city. The ditches are lined with happy, green trees but are littered with trash all around the trunks. There are so. Many. Motorbikes. They have 6 million motor bikes in just Ho Chi Minh City. The majority of the buildings are run down and barely standing but then randomly there's a big fancy house or a new looking store full of top technology. All along the highway there are rest areas with just a roof and a bunch of hammocks for bikers to take a break in. There's chickens and dogs and cats. There's unknown fruit that I still couldn't tell you the name of. People are wearing rice hats and face masks and clothes that cover every inch of their skin even though it's 90 degrees and humid. There's a high risk of dengue, malaria, and Zika all carried by mosquitos. It's about 4pm so there's kids walking, riding bikes, or riding on the back of a bike all going home from school. There are young boys stacking brick by brick to build a shelter. Some homes just have blankets as walls, however, you can see new structures going up all over the place that reflects how quickly some of Vietnam is growing. The average standard of living is only $6,000 US dollars. There are new buildings, but it also reflects the worldwide growing wage gap between the rich and poor. There's standing water everywhere due to being on the delta. And I swear about every 3 minutes there's an almost traffic collision. The land is really flat but it's so full of trees that you don't really notice it. There's a mom on a little motorbike with 3 small children packed on.(I learned over this trip, that you can easily fit 4 full grown people) There are cows next to the highway, in the middle of the city. It's so surreal, unexpected, and interesting, yet so amazing. For 4 hours of the first day we were on a bus getting to Can Tho and going to our hotel. The hotel was right downtown next to the river. My roommate, Natalie, and I were on the 9th floor and had an amazing view of the city. A big shoutout to Nat for occasionally helping us all around her home country of 12 years. We had a delicious first Vietnamese dinner filled with shrimp, chicken, beef, stuffed pumpkin flowers, soup, and coconut ice cream. After dinner we browsed around the night markets and found some wonderful bargains. My first day in Vietnam was a successful one. 

2/11

Wake up call: 5am

I am in Vietnam. I am at a floating market. I am on a river. I am on a boat.  I am on a boat at a floating market on a river in Vietnam. This is how people live everyday. They sit on their boats trying to sell pineapples and watermelon. There are children and dogs...they practically live in these little boats on the river. We explored the floating market for awhile before going to a rice noodle shop to see how the noodles are made. It's an interesting process with sheets of liquid rice laying in the sun for 4 hours and then going through a shredder. It's hard to explain but hopefully some pictures can help me. After the shop, we went to an orchard that was full of guavas, papayas, dragonfruit, water apples, durian, pineapples, a fruit that tasted like Juicy Fruit gum, and some other fruit that I probably couldn't pronounce the name of. By this time it was almost 8am so we headed back to the hotel for breakfast. Our days were kinda long sometimes...our next stop was the Can Tho Museum and then off to Chau Doc to spend the night. The children are entertained by such simple things. A two year old boy using a stick to draw around on cement...a group of kids swinging around balloons on the end of a stick. I guess I'm the one entertained by just watching them. Our next stop was the Tra Su Forest. Absolutely amazing. I loved it. All 20 of us took a motorboat out on the water surrounded with all types of green. The pictures do a better job at explaining so check those out :) we then broke up into groups of 3 on little boats controlled by one person with an oar. Ahhh all I can say is that I loved it. I never wanted to leave. But sooner than wanted, we were back on our way to Chau Doc. We stopped at a Buddhist pagoda full of people everywhere praying and burning incense. It got hot fast but was cool to see. We then found out that we were in Chau Doc for the first full moon of the New Year=lots of festivals and traditions. The streets were filled with people so we couldn't take the bus through. We grabbed our backpacks and started the trek through the crowd. We dodged fires burning on each side of the street, motorbikes flying by us with horns blaring, and vendors trying to sell us things. Up ahead you could see something that looked like a parade float complete with several men dressed in costumes. But it wasn't a typical parade...people were throwing up their bottles of water and babies to be blessed by a guy who I presume to be someone of some importance. It was quite the sight. Children were crying and screaming while their parents shoved their way up to a man who rubbed their heads with his hands. Finally, we were on the other side to meet a van that would take us up to our resort on the side of the mountain. It was a beautiful and peaceful place to spend the night after a long but wonderful day. 

2/12

Wake up call: 5:45

We met the sun on a boat headed for the Cambodian border. A couple immigration buildings on the side of the river to go through, and before we knew it, we were were in Phnom Penh for lunch. Cambodia is a lot more touristy than I expected and we hardly stuck out in the crowds. Tourism is a big part of the economy and contributes to the growth of the country since the Khmer Rouge time. The Khmer Rouge regime lasted from 1975-1979. It was led by Pol Pot. During this time, almost 3 million people died in 3 years, 8 months, and 20 days. The population went from around 8 million to around 5 million. The majority died in prisons or killing fields just because they were educated. If the Khmer Rouge found out that you were a teacher, lawyer, doctor, or anything along those lines, you would be killed. There was even a time that people wearing glasses would be executed without interrogation because the glasses were a sign of intelligence. The families were given 2 bowls of water porridge per day so a lot of people died due to starvation. There was also a large majority of children that died because their parents were killed so they either starved, got diseases, or were killed so that they wouldn't have the opportunity to get revenge on the Khmer Rouge for the death of their parents. There were 196 prisons across Cambodia during this time, but we visited the most important one. The prison held interrogations for high officials and important people. In the time of the Khmer Rouge, 12,273 people died from that prison alone. 11 people survived. One survivor, Bou Meng, was actually there at the prison so we got to meet him, ask him some questions, and buy his book about his time there. For those of you who don't know, I'm doing a project for my social change class and in each port I ask at least one person what they have hope for in the world. Bou said, "There are a lot of people from the Khmer Rouge that have been to the courts and have been sentenced. I want more people to be sentenced and be caught. My entire family was killed here and it makes me happy to know more people are being sentenced and brought to justice." I was shocked that he could even deal with being at that prison after what happened but he said he wants people to know what happened. Also, for anyone who wants to tell me what they have hope for, I'm spending 5 days on a ship and I'd love to get an email from you! madison.fischer.sp17@semesteratsea.org

Our next stop was the killing field. A total of almost 20,000 people died in this killing field alone. There were 343 more around the country. It's not something that I can easily explain...the land is filled with bones still sticking out of the ground. There's a memorial in the middle that's full of 8,000 skulls. People that were killed because they were educated. Children that were killed because the Khmer Rouge didn't want them seeking revenge for their parents' death. Almost 3 million people were killed during the Khmer Rouge regime and this is the first time I've learned about it. It blows my mind. It's one of the few times in my life that I could not speak the entire time I was there. 

2/13

Wake up call: 7am

Off to a village near Siem Reap! We worked with a NGO called HUSK that helps people living in poverty by building houses, doing house repairs, planting things, and teaching English. We spent the morning binding palm leaves to a bamboo panel with little wires to build walls for a woman and her child's house. Again, I think the pictures can help to explain this a little better... we toured the village and it really made me think about life in a whole new perspective. It makes me feel like I can't justify complaining about anything in my life. There's so many things we all take for granted, such as clean water. The whole time we spent in Vietnam/Cambodia, we had to be sure we got factory sealed water bottles so we wouldn't get sick from the water. That's just one of many things. Most of these people live off less than $1.50/day. It's crazy. We got a quick lunch before heading out to explore Angkor Wat. We bicycled for about 2 miles and wandered the area for several hours to finish it off with a gorgeous sunset. Fun fact: they have wild monkeys. They aren't huge monkeys but wow they are something else. We were told to not touch them, but of course we wanted to get some pictures. So when we saw a little group of them, we strolled over, but then we realized there were probably 50 monkeys and they all started walking toward us. We backed off but kept up taking pictures. We have a video of one of our professors actually being chased by one, a little 5 year old boy being jumped on and bitten by one, a monkey coming to the camera and licking it, 2 monkeys jumping on Josh's back and fighting, and those were just the highlights. I also witnessed a monkey grabbing a bag out of a little kid's hand and eating the food out of the inside. We left Angkor Wat and went into Siem Reap to scope out the night market, pub street, and Belrimo's Pizza for delicious pizza and beer. A guy named Kevin sang for us and played guitar with all of us joining in several times. 

2/14 

Wake up call: 5am

Last day. Wow. Didn't we just get here?! I'm sitting on a plane flying back to Ho Chi Minh City which is actually still called Saigon by most of the locals. We woke up to ride a tuk tuk(a motorbike pulling a little carriage) for a stunning sunset over Angkor Wat. After breakfast, we got to see Angkor Thom which includes the Temple of Bayon, Elephant's Terrace, and Leper King's Terrace. This trip was an absolutely incredible, eye-opening, jaw-dropping, unique, beautiful, life-changing experience. I couldn't have asked for anything more. I love you Vietnam and Cambodia...until next time <3 

On another note, congratulations to two of my favorite people in the world on their first child. I am officially an aunt to one of the most adorable little boys ever(I'm not biased) Welcome to your life, Bryar James. I haven't met you, but my heart has <3