Sorry for everyone who
enjoys reading this blog that there hasn’t been an update for quite some time.
As announced before, the first week of March brought the first round of exams
for Simon at INSEAD and also Ana needed to tackle more of the exams in order to
obtain her local licensing. Thus, the first week of March involved a lot of
study time and in Simon’s case, it brought 5 exams within 55 hours – a combined
16 hours of exams. However, what usually happens if things are very condensed:
Once they are over, you feel quickly very relieved. Thus, Simon hurried home,
picked up two prepared carry-on suitcases, picked up Ana at her office and they
took a cab to the airport. After having traveled just to the nearby areas of Singapore, they were awaiting the first real
get-away trip to Vietnam.
At this stage, they
would like to share a super quick update on Vietnam, just for the uninformed
reader to better understand this travel destination. If you are a Master of
Vietnamese culture, you can skip this part J: Vietnam is probably know in the
west primarily because of the Vietnam War. However, this proud Southeast-Asian
country has a long history, more than 90 M inhabitants (having surpassed the German
population around the year 2000) and it had a very strong economic growth in
the past 15 years, relying on the Chinese development model. After the end of
the Vietnam War, Vietnam
was (re-)united under the victorious communists that implemented a rigorous
one-party state, a dictatorship “Soviet Style”.
When the Iron Curtain fell and
most traditional trading partners of Vietnam disappeared, the Vietnamese
political leadership thought that it may need to change the way it ruled the country
in order to stay in power. Thus, similar to China,
Vietnam
opened up its market, liberalized its economy and fuel by low wages,
industrious people and fertile land, it managed to gain an increasing share of
international trade. Today, it is a capitalist one-party authoritarian rule
that doesn’t have much to do with Communism other than the name of the ruling
party. Having said that, the people of Vietnam are hungry to improve their
economic well-being, they are motivated, friendly, many speak English (and
French) and you can feel how the country is opening up. Ho Chi Minh City (the
former Saigon, I will call it this way) is located in the South of Vietnam and
as in many geographies, the people in the South are also considered to be the
“more relaxed” people, being more open-minded and embracing the opportunities
of the new economic freedom. Saigon has more
than 7 Million inhabitants, having grown tremendously, and almost as many
motorbikes / scooters. It is located about 100 km North of the Mekong
Delta, the “rice bowl” of Vietnam
where one of Asia’s largest rivers discharges in the South
China Sea.
Well, now the
interested reader knows almost everything that matters about Ana and Simon’s
travel destination. Since it was the weekend of the break between two periods
at INSEAD, they were not the only ones who had the idea to go on this trip –
about 20 international students were on the same flight, more joining in Saigon on Thursday. After a short 2 hour flight, they
arrived at the international airport and had to deal with the complicating
immigration process. They needed to pay an additional USD 45 for their visa –
quite ironic that one can pay almost everything in dollars while the Vietnamese
tried almost everything to kick Americans out of Vietnam. But that’s another story.
One of Simon’s classmates (Kim-Chi) is half-Vietnamese and had relatives in Saigon who greeted us at the airport. Kim-Chi’s aunt was
very worried that the group would overpay because they were so many foreigners
so she negotiated the taxi fare (which turned out to be only 1 USD per person
on the “local” price) and then showed us a dinner place on a local night market
where the odd-collection of individuals from all around the world were quite an
attraction. Vietnamese food is super amazing – very fresh, with a lot of
vegetables and highly recommendable.
The first full day, a
group of about 16 people did a city tour of Saigon
in the morning. Saigon is the largest city in Vietnam and was the former
administrative center of French colonial rule (they were there until 1954) and
thus, they left a few impressive buildings. Ana, Simon and the gang started at
the “Notre-Dame Cathedral”, visited the belle-epoque style post office (with
the ubiquitous picture of Ho Chi Minh or as he is called by the Vietnamese:
Uncle Ho) and took a tour of the “reunification palace”. This building was the
seat of the South Vietnamese president and the picture of a North Vietnamese
tank passing through the gate in 1975 is one of these pictures that made world
history. Afterwards, they went to a museum that remembered the war and all the
cruel things that happened in Vietnam.
Pretty shocking (as with any war museum) but it also had a bunch of old
American equipment – amazing what the US shipped over here to fight a
war.
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| Notre Dame Cathedral |
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| Independence Palace |
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| American Tank |
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| American fighter plane |
Afterwards, they went
to have lunch to a typical Vietnamese restaurant and enjoyed some delicious “Bún
bò Huế” – the Vietnamese beef soup with long rice noodles (vermicelli) and a
number of fresh vegetables. This is sooo delicious, Simon ate it 4 times in
three days! It was also fun to eat with chop sticks and a spoon.
After lunch, Ana and
Simon and the group took a bus to the Cu Chi Tunnels. This is an area that was
controlled by the Vietcong (the communist South Vietnamese supporters of the
North during the Vietnam war). As they were operating in the hinterland of
Saigon (just some 50 km
away), they were in constant fear of American searches and thus created a
network of tunnels that allowed them to move great distances undiscovered and
sometimes even live their for days. It was very impressive to see the small
openings in which the Vietnamese managed to escape. Also, it reminded us that
the Vietnam war is not that long ago and it has left some large scars in the
landscape. If you are interested to read more about it, check out the Wikipedia
article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cu_Chi_Tunnels).
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| The first and only "Viet Cong" with blue eyes |
Upon return, some
people decided to take a nap but Ana and Simon went to a massage place to get
their tight muscles relaxed. One hour for 10 USD. Nothing wrong with that! For
dinner, they met the rest of the INSEAD students and partners and went to a
restaurant where they ended up taking over the largest eating room. So much
fun, again delicious food and a crowd of 30 young and international people.
Afterwards, they went out to go clubbing in Saigon
and enjoyed partying for the first time in a while.
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| Dinner with 30 people from >10 countries |
On Friday, after two
awesome days with a fun crew, Ana and Simon started their expedition to the
Mekong Delta to have some quality time for themselves. A minibus came to pick
them up and drove them out of Saigon. After 2
½ hours, they arrived at a small town in the Mekong Delta from where they took
a boat to the lodge. After the time in buzzling Saigon,
they enjoyed the peaceful environment at the Mekong
Lodge. It had it all: An absolutely unique setting along the banks of the Mekong River,
a sustainable business model (employing locals from nearby villages and
sourcing all food locally), very well-taken care off bungalows, interesting excursions
and superb food. It really reminded them of a Garden Eden and was a perfect
retreat. They also did bike and boat tours of the surrounding areas, including
some market visits and local fruit tasting. Ana and Simon also managed to catch
up on their sleep, well desired after exams and a tough working work.
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| On our way to the Mekong Lodge |
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| Our little private pool |
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| Sunset over the Mekong River |
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| Floating market |
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| Our bungalow viewed from the Mekong River |
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| The land market |
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| Bye bye Mekong Delta |
From the Mekong Lodge, they got back to the
airport and flew directly to Singapore.
What an awesome change of scenery. It clearly made them keen for experiencing
more in the region. The next trips are booked already. But more to come!
Many greetings and best regards from the
former British Crown Colony in Southeast Asia.
Ana and Simon
