Final Moments by Sangam Munsiff

On our second weekend, we took a day trip to the Mekong Delta. A sprawling maze of rivers, canals and swamps in southern Vietnam, the Delta is famous for it’s floating markets, fruit gardens, and rice paddies. We thought it would be a nice contrast to the bustling city streets of Hi Chi Minh City. We booked bus tickets to Cần Thơ, the largest city in the Mekong Delta region, and booked a hotel room as well. The busses in Vietnam are sleeper busses, so we passed out real quick.

Once we got to Cần Thơ, we had to book a tour. To our surprise, the hotel did not have any tours so we started walking around to figure something out. We wandered past a couple booking agencies that had closed for the night and eventually found another hotel. We asked if we could book a tour through them and they were happy to help. We booked a guided tour through a couple floating markets, a fruit garden, a local restaurant, and a rice noodles factory. In order to go to the floating markets, the tour had to start at 5 am….We wrapped up the night with some Korean fried chicken at Don Chicken.

Saturday morning rolled around and with we rolled out of bed, a little drowsy but excited for the day. We met our tour guides, Phi and Phat, and our group split into two separate boats, each commanded by its own driver. The first floating market we drove to was huge and we learned it was the largest market in Vietnam. The entire market was produce that farmera brought from their farms. The market was a “wholesale” market—venders would buy goods from the floating market to sell at their shops on land.

A floating market on the Mekong Delta.

Next, we went to a smaller, local floating market; this one was not as busy and had no tourists. We ate jackfruit, rambutan, dragon fruit and bananas for breakfast and a couple people got noodles and balut and had them on the boat. Then, we got off the boat and walked through a village. We stopped by a farm and our tour guide asked if we could come see the farm. The farmers happily let us in—they seemed excited and proud to show off their hard work and delicious fruits. The fruit they were growing was local to the region and didn’t have an English name. It had a lychee-like texture and its flavor was a mix between lychee and lemon. They offered us a couple bunches of fruit and we happily accepted.

An example of some of the fruit we tried, this one is called Baccaurea!

After that we walked through a fruit garden and ate at a local restaurant there. We also bought fresh coconuts to hydrate for the boat ride back. Between the markets and the farms, it was clear that the Vietnamese people are very proud of the work they do and the goods they sell. Everywhere we went, we were treated with kindness and respect, even though it was clear that we were tourists. On our way back, we stopped at a rice noodle factory and saw their noodle making process. We started our journey back and relaxed as the waves rocked us to sleep.

Making noodles!

Channing, the tour guide, Robin (our Australian friend) and Sangam all rode in a boat together.

Celia, Nick and Amalia rode together in a second boat.

Reflection on our Work by Channing Wan

What an experience. We just wrapped up our last day of volunteering at our placement today. It’s been a lot of hard work, but looking back It has been a phenomenal experience.

The Vietnam VA has spent the last two weeks working in a kitchen in Ho Chi Minh City serving food to people that would not be able to afford it otherwise. The meals are sold for 2,000 Vietnamese Dong (8 cents) per meal. Our work was tiring but incredibly rewarding.  You might ask why the food costs anything at all? In Vietnamese culture, there is an expectation (or I suppose common understanding) that nothing is free. Even the poorest of people recognize this and refuse to accept anything, even something as fundamental as a meal, without giving something in return.

Growing up as a Chinese American, I feel as if I have had a deeper connection to the work we’ve been doing. On our first day of work I found myself sitting on a stool chopping fish to pieces on the floor. Guts everywhere. Objectively it was pretty gross — this is something I’ve never done in America. But as I was sitting there obliterating these poor fish, I felt a connection to the way my grandparents lived in China. I’m barely 2 generations removed from living in conditions like this, making food like this. It was a surreal experience. 

Working alongside local residents was a really cool opportunity. We were able to learn a lot about Vietnamese culture and food from people that have spent their lives there. By the end of our time at our placement, we had built some strong relationships with the people that worked at the kitchen. When it was time to say farewell, lots of gifts and hugs were exchanged. If/when I return to Vietnam, they will most definitely be hit up.

Preparing trays in the kitchen.

Celia and Amalia washing dishes during mealtime at the food kitchen.

Weekend in Phu Quoc By Celia Osman

After an amazing first week in Ho Chi Minh City, we decided to take advantage of the weekend to travel and exploring a different part of Vietnam. After a little research and discussion we agreed on Phu Quoc, a Vietnamese island off of the western coasts of Vietnam and Thailand.

We flew from Ho Chi Minh to Phu Quoc on Friday (8/16) evening, accompanied by several other volunteers we had befriended earlier in the week, from places like Italy, France, Morocco and Australia. We found the island to be home to beautiful beaches and amazing views, minus much of the fanfare and overly manicured feel often found in such places. 

On Saturday morning we took taxis to the beach where we spent most of the day. We took lots of photos, swam and tanned…although I guess “sunburned” would be a more accurate word. Our resident athletes (Nick and Channing) also went for a long beach run, an excuse to imitate Baywatch, in my opinion :). 

Group picture at Sao Beach on Phu Quoc Island.

We played games in the hotel room on Saturday evening, pushing all the hotel room beds together into a megabed to maximize bonding, of course. 

On Sunday we got up a little early and took a bus to the Pineapple Island Cable Car, the longest three-cable, sea-crossing, continuous cable car in the world. It takes visitors from the coast of Phu Quoc to Pineapple Island, the site of a beach and some restaurants as well as a resort in progress. The cable car gave us incredible views of Phu Quoc, several small surrounding islands and villages, as well of the ocean. 

The incredible view from the cable car.

The view of an island village from the cable car.

We explored Pineapple Island for awhile, using a “shade-finding” method. It was ridiculously hot, not to mention 3/5 of us had gotten pretty toasted the day before at the beach, so our walking patterns were dictated by where the most shade was available. Don’t worry, moms, we still put on sunscreen. 

Always representing UofM!

After our walk we filled up at an all you can eat buffet on the island before taking the cable car back to Phu Quoc. We had a few extra hours to spare before we had to get back to the airport, so we camped out at a cafe and channeled any residual homesickness into a few games of euchre. 

Phu Quoc was the perfect place to visit during our first weekend. It was relaxing without being boring and allowed us to spend quality time together while also getting to see some really incredible scenery. 10/10 would recommend.

Culture Week by Amalia Siavelis

While waiting for the others to arrive on Monday, I participated in the one-day orientation. This was an awesome opportunity to meet the other volunteers—mainly university students like us from Europe, Australia, and other parts of the U.S. The day was filled with a fun, long classroom lesson on social/cultural aspects of typical Vietnamese day-to-day life: how to greet someone, proper dining etiquette, and even how to cross the street (without getting hit by a moped), followed by a language lesson!!

The others finally arrived around dinner time, and we all had the chance to introduce ourselves to all the volunteers at “Family Dinner”. We enjoyed our first Vietnamese meal together 🙂 At dinner, we decided to participate in the following two days of “culture week”, which was an organized opportunity to see multiple important spots in the city with a coordinator and some other volunteers.  It was a difficult decision to give up 2 days at our volunteer placement, however we felt that getting to be taken to these places so conveniently by a local tour guide would positively impact the start of our experience here, as well as better prepare us to immerse in the culture of our placement. It also cheered up the group after 4 long flights 🙂

Day 1 of Culture week we visited the Emperor’s Jade Pagoda, the Reunification Palace, The Post office, Cathedral, a Lacquer painting workshop, and the Vietnam war museum. At the workshop, we were able to see how these beautiful works of art took months to make as the artists meticulously placed tiny pieces of seashell and eggshell onto the painting. At the war museum, we learned a lot through old journalist images and accounts of life during the war. On day 1 We also enjoyed our first Banh Mi and Vietnamese iced coffees!

Day One of Culture Week!

The Notre Dame Cathedral Basilica of Ho Chi Minh.

An example of the art we saw at the Lacquer Painting workshop.

Day 2 included a cooking lesson, where we learned to make spring and summer rolls using traditional rice papers and wraps! After we got to enjoy our creations!! This was followed by bracelet making to give as gifts to an orphanage. We then went to a “wet market”— pegged as wet due to the wet ground resulting from the seafood tanks and meat washing.

Our delicious creations from the cooking class.

The next day we began volunteer work at our placement, a food kitchen in the center of Ho Chi Minh City.

Overall, the week consisted of making new friendships with other volunteers that would last the remainder of the two weeks, as well as important learnings and experiences!

The Arrival by Nick Paris

What a long journey we had to take to get to Vietnam! We originally had our VA trip planned for Sri Lanka, to where we had already bought flights. But, due to unfortunate circumstances, Sri Lanka became an unsafe destination, and we chose to maneuver our volunteer experience to Ho Chi Minh City. This means that for four of us, we had to tack on two additional flights to get from Colombo to Saigon (HCM). Our fifth member Amalia booked through another airline and was able to switch her flights around for a minimal fee, allowing her to arrive in HCM a day before us. 

For me, I left Washington, DC, where I was interning this summer, on Saturday morning. My first flight took me to Dubai, where I was able to meet up with Sangam, Celia, and Channing. Celia and Channing had a long layover in Dubai and took advantage of it by going to see the Dubai mall and Burj Khalifa. (I’m so jealous!)

The Burj Khalifa, which Channing and Celia went to see during their layover in Dubai.

We all then flew together from Dubai to Colombo, Sri Lanka, where we had to wait for our third connection in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. While waiting in Colombo, we bonded by playing the card game “Exploding Kittens” and talking about our summers. 

 Due to some bad weather, our plane attempted and backed out on landing 3 times in Kuala Lumpur. While seeing beautiful lightning in the clouds around us, we descended instead to a nearby airport to wait out the rainstorm before we took off again to land in KL. This delay meant that we had to catch a later flight to Ho Chi Minh, and thus had a 6 hour layover in KL.

Given this long period of time, Channing got in touch with his parents, who moved to Kuala Lumpur 4 months ago, and asked them to pick us up. We then spent the rest of our layover grabbing lunch with Channing’s family and getting to see their apartment. Malaysia is an absolutely beautiful country; I would definitely come back here. The coolest part of our layover in KL was trying a bunch of asian fruits that Channing’s parents bought us at a fruit stand near their apartment! We all got to try durian, mangosteen, lychee, and fruits we know like pineapple and melon.

Trying various fruits in Malaysia.

Leaving Malaysia for our final flight to HCM. We missed Amalia, who was waiting for us in HCM during this time.

The final flight to HCM went great, despite being extremely tired. After finally touching down in Vietnam, we took a short Grab (their version of Uber) to our accommodation. The noisy, crowded, yet somehow organized and full-of-life streets of Ho Chi Minh City we drove through were a pleasant welcome to our next two weeks.