I had a wonderful experience in Vietnam. There were a lot of incidences of people getting stuck in cabs being forced to pay more than they should have. Everett and I tried to never take any of the cabs that were waiting outside entrances. We simply walked a couple blocks and would hail a marked taxi.
There was a larger language barrier in this country compared to others. English is now mandatory in school systems but it seems that the younger generation really doesn’t understand us when we are speaking. We were in a high tourism area so the majority of the waitresses and sales people had a simple knowledge of English vocabulary related to their trade but as soon as we asked for directions, they were unable to answer. When Everett and I were out of the downtown area near the boats, English was negligible because they could not even understand “bathroom”. We had learned a couple of the important words in Vietnamese but it is difficult to get the correct pronunciation because it is a tonal language.
The majority of the Vietnamese people travel by motorbikes or mopeds. We saw people on motorbikes dressed for work, including women wearing high heel shoes. The dynamics of the traffic here are very interesting. Everett and I discussed the benefits of motorbikes vs. cars at length one day. Essentially, because the bikes take up less space, each length of road can hold more riders so there is no such thing as getting caught in traffic. They make it fairly easy to get to one place to another. Also, there is less of a problem with parking. In New Haven, CT every other area is being made into a parking lot to accommodate the amount of cars needing to park in the city.
Every single rider in Vietnam wears a helmet and a mask to cover their mouth from pollution and the sun. Nobody is speeding or weaving around cars either so they are less prone to get into accidents. There is also an art to crossing streets in Nam which I am proud to say I have mastered. The oncoming traffic will never stop for pedestrians but because the majority of the vehicles are motorcycles, it is really easy for them to weave around you.
The currency in Vietnam is the Dong and $1 US = 20,000 VND. It was really fun and difficult to do the math in our heads. Because everything was just so cheap, there was no reason to not buy it. I had a couple 50 cent or 2 dollar taxi rides, $5 Meals, 50 cent beer, and seasons of TV shows for 11 dollars. The entire knock off lines of perfumes and handbags are almost perfect. We easily spent three hours in the market shopping and marveling at the prices. Getting used to “back to normal” prices will be one of the hardest things about going home!
Because we were in such a touristy area and Asian cultures don’t put white people on a pedestal as much as African culture, it was easy for us to travel without being targeted as a dollar sign. It was nice to not stand out for once. There also were no negative feelings portrayed to the Americans even with the history of hostility.
We did visit some war sights and museums and the portrayal of the Americans was very twisted and one sided. It was fascinating to look at the propaganda against us when we were so used to seeing the war from the other side. When I learned about the war is history class, there were a lot of political motivations, tactics and other influences. For the Vietnamese, they’re only motivation was to protect their home and people.
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