My Favorite Cultural Weekend in Ho Chi Minh and Phnom Penh

I spent 4 days in Ho Chi Minh and Phnom Penh this weekend with two friends from my dorm. I went into the weekend with plans of visiting museums and learning about the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia that I never really knew about. I recently made a goal of reading a memoir or nonfiction book about every country that I visit. So, in preparation for this weekend I read First They Killed My Father which is about the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, and am currently reading The Girl in the Picture, which is about the war in Vietnam. I still had a lot of questions though, and this weekend was an educational one that answered many of them, and more. Although it was one of my favorite weekends, it wasn't an easy one. The Cu Chi Tunnels, War Remnants Museum, Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, and the Killing Fields left me with a great deal to process. Both wars occurred so recently that you can see it in the faces of any native over the age of 40. They were directly affected and both countries are still recovering and sadly will be for a long time.

After nearly missing our flight to Ho Chi Minh, thanks to awful Bangkok traffic, we made it to Vietnam! Through it's not as bad as in Hanoi, as soon as we walked out of the airport we noticed the honking. It's annoying, unnecessary, and relentless. Ho Chi Minh is cleaner and calmer, with the exception of the motor bikes and the chaos that they cause on the roads, than other cities in Southeast Asia that I've visited. Crossing the street was always an interesting experience though. The are millions of motor bikes in Ho Chi Minh. More than I've ever seen before. They don't follow road laws, which include driving on the correct side of the road and following the few stop lights. So, when crossing the street you just have to check and make sure a car isn't coming and slowly cross the street without changing pace. The motor bikes just weave around you, honking. It scared me every time. Vietnamese currency, Dong, was something that we struggled with the whole weekend. Their currency has three extra and unnecessary zeros on the end that confused the hell out of us every time we paid. The 10,000 and 100,000 dong bills look too similar. It's likely that I accidentally paid with a 100,000 dong bill instead of a 10,000 dong bill on multiple occasions.

The first night we ate at a popular Vietnamese noodle shop and had Pho, which is a very traditional Vietnamese dish with thick noodles, as well as delicious bread. Everywhere in Vietnam the bread seemed to be exceptional. Bread like that can't be found in Thailand and I miss it! We stayed at Townhouse 50, a nice hostel with comfortable breads, helpful staff, and a yummy breakfast that's included. The walking tour and backpacking street are all in walking distance as well. I noticed in Vietnam that everyone seemed to have jobs, and many were seemingly unnecessary ones. People had the job of opening doors, and there were security guards in the city every 20 feet it seemed. They sat in a little plastic chair on the sidewalk usually eating, reading a paper, or chatting. At night people came out to clean the streets. I don't recall seeing homeless people either.

Friday, we got up early to visit the Cu Chi tunnels which are a couple of hours from Ho Chi Minh. We first stopped at a warehouse/shop run by staff affected by Agent Orange worked. They painted various creations and profits went to support the employees. At the tunnels we learned about the guerrilla warfare techniques used during the Vietnamese War in the 1970s which were gruesome. Crawling 200 meters through the tunnels was more difficult that I thought it would be. It was small, dark, and so hot. I can't imagine how the Vietnamese lived in those tunnels and crawled through with guns and gear on.

The War Remnants Museum was educational and eye-opening. America really made some bad choices that affected millions of Vietnamese people. The chemical Agent Orange is horrific and will haunt those affected by it for generations. The pictures alone made me cringe. An absurd number of bombs were dropped by the Americans and that war killed many more innocent civilians than military.

Markets in Vietnam are even worse than those in Thailand when it comes to aggressive sellers. In Thailand, the sellers just call to you, "Come look. Buy my things. Special price for you." You can walk by slowly and glance, make a split-second decision if those items are worth listening to the seller try to talk you into to buying things, and act accordingly. In Vietnam, however, they will grab your arm and pull you over to their shop. You can't even look or you're in for the hard sell. It was a different market than others I've been to though because it had everything from clothes, to coffee and fruit, to seafood. Ho Chi Minh is close to the ocean and had huge fish, crabs, etc. for sale. It was neat to walk through, though not so pleasant to smell.

Parts of Ho Chi Minh show French influence and I stood on one square imaging that I was in France. We sent letters at a large, French-looking post office. I glued the letter closed with some gloop and had to lick the stamps.

That evening for dinner we met up with two Dutch girls that I had met in Halong Bay a month before and happened to also be in Ho Chi Minh. Coincidentally, while wandering around Ho Chi Minh we also stumbled across a celebration that was a Dutch town set up in the middle of the city for a week celebrating an anniversary of Dutch and Vietnamese trading. It was a nice, unexpected surprise. Too bad we arrived a little late to try to Dutch snacks, but we did slip in some photos. During one of our pictures, we had asked a Vietnamese man to take a picture of our group and while he took the photo  about four other cameras were whipped out and taking our group's photo.

Sunday morning I headed to Phnom Penh on an early bus. It lasted about 6 hours and one of my friends and I were the only westerners, meaning at the border it took us a lot longer to get through due to visas. The bus left us and we had to catch up on a motor bike that fit the driver, me, and my friend on the back. At the time we didn't know exactly what was going on though, just they wanted us to get on the motor bike. We probably didn't hesitate enough to ask questions about the whole situation, but luckily it worked out.

We caught up on some sleep after arriving in Phnom Penh and met up with our GlobaLinks advisor, who happened to be in Cambodia at the same time, for dinner. Monday was a difficult one that involved an early morning. At the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (AKA S-21) we took a tour guided by a Cambodian that was 13 at the time that the war began. She was directly affected and shared her story making it all even more real. The two remaining survivors of the thousands that went through the prison were also at the museum that day and we got to meet them and picked up their books for some "light" reading.

Our tuk-tuk driver that paid $23 for the day, then took us 40 minutes outside of the city to the Killing Fields. With an audio set I learned about a genocide in Cambodia that took the lives of millions, up to around 30% of their population, a mere 40 years ago.

It's devastating, but something that must be passed on and the lives of those that died, remembered.

Cambodia is clearly poorer than Vietnam and Thailand. It has less infrastructure, lots of rice fields, and no one seems to have much wealth. However, Cambodia is one of my favorite countries. Cambodian smiles are my favorite, and the children are beautiful. When they smile, their whole face lights up. I loved the tuk-tuk ride outside of the city because it really summed up and showed life in Cambodia. Some children were in uniforms going to and from school and waving and smiling as we passed, there were shops that were shanties selling fruit and cheap flip-flops, rough roads, motor bikes, and rice fields. 

This weekend was one of my favorites. I learned a great deal. It will be a weekend that will stick with me long after I leave Southeast Asia. The cultures, history, and people will be remembered. Cambodia and Vietnam don't cater to tourists in the way that Thailand does. Their cultures are more their own and I like that. The last meal we ate before flying home was after the killing fields when we went to meet our tuk-tuk driver. He was at a traditional Cambodian restaurant where a lot of the drivers hang out as they wait for their customers. He was gambling playing card games and asked us if we wanted to eat there. We decided to try it out and ate a traditional Cambodian meal of Khmer Curry and Lok Lak (shown below).

Surrounded by all male Cambodian tuk-tuk drivers, watching card games, and eating traditional Cambodian food, I was really immersed in their culture and I love that I got to experience that.