We are quickly approaching the end of our trip, and we have arrived in our third and final country – the marvelous Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh city to be exact, where perhaps the greatest food to grace our earth originates: Pho. Before we ventured to this lovely city, we spent our last week in Cambodia. The week started of with some casual aerobic dancing in a park near the river which runs through Battambang. Although we were surrounded by nothing but women in their forties and fifties, we felt rght at home thrusting our hips and working up a sweat.
The next morning we broke up into two different groups. One group spent the morning teaching the local children English, while the other group worked very hard at repairing the road which lead into PTD. In the afternoon we switched roles. But instead of repairing the road we hung up mushrooms instead. This routine carried on through the next day. That night we decided to have a dance party, with the staff and a few of the locals. Even though we somewhat frightened them with our loud music and spastic crazed movements, I firmly believed they enjoyed it.
Sadly it was time for us to leave Battambang and head for the capital Phnom Penh. This bus ride went much smoother than the last one we took. None of us needed to rush off the bus, sprinting towards a local screaming bathroom. Once in the capital, we immediately went and got our Vietnam visas. For all of us the next day was one of the hardest of the trip. The day was spent at S-21 and the Killing Fields. These places were very new to many of us. But we all walked away from these eerie locations with a better understanding of Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge, and where we stand on the matter of the Cambodian Genocide. Our stay in Phnom Penh was a short insightful experience. So it was time to move on to Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh city.
Our first night we got acclimated by enjoying a nice bowl of Pho as a group. Yesterday, our day began with a trip to the War Remnants Museum. Like the Killing fields and S-21, this museum envoked a great deal of emotions in all of us. It offered us a completely new view of the Vietnam war, and our nation’s effects on this country. Displaying things like the effects left behind from the use of agent orange. It was something that was quite hard to swallow, but I feel we all walked away from the museum with a greater understanding and a greater empathy for the people of Vietnam. The rest of our day was spent completing a scavenger hunt that our leaders so graciously arranged for us.
That’s all for now,
Much love from Scott and all of the Seasia group.