Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

A week of short-term traveling finally caught up to me and I was a bit depressed and overwhelmed. Without my routine of cooking, working out, meditating, etc., I felt lost and directionless, especially since I'm still working through my graduate school/career plans.

Our dorm room. We even had it to ourselves on the last night!

I talked to Carlos about it and we decided to make an effort to meet more people and do more things that make me slightly uncomfortable and grow. After being in private rooms for the last few weeks, we booked 3 nighta in a 4-bed dorm at a hostel. I was nervous since I like my own space but it was great! We went out to eat a few times with one of our roommates, Philipp from Austria, who studied architecture and is trying to figure out what to do next. He loved the vegan food at Sen Quan Chay restaurant where we've eaten almost every meal. We also met Chris, a teacher from Ireland, who is here for 5 weeks on holiday and was actually on the bus with us from Phnom Penh. The staff at the hostel were very helpful and friendly when trying to locate places like "the cell phone unlocking street" and explaining the rules of football (soccer to us Americans).

There are huge markets with real and counterfeit items from factories here in Vietnam. The most profitable industry seems to be backpacks and bags like North Face, Deuter, and Kipling at a 75% discount. I bought a purse for $5 and planned to send it back home (along with my electric razor whose adapter fried in the outlet, hiking shoes and socks since I don't wear them) but small boxes can only be shipped by air and cost $40. Carlos bought 9 bags to send home and sell online. It was the biggest box they had and it only cost $80 to ship to New York but will take upwards of 3 months to arrive. I also bought a couple more t-shirts as tank tops seem to be too revealing and I get stares from the locals.

The Binh Tay Market was the cheaper option but also had more aggressive sellers. The women would grab my arm and pull me over to their stall. We stopped to look at some fake Adidas shirts and the woman linked arms with me while she pitched her products so I couldn't walk away. When Carlos tried to say no by joking with them, they lightly smacked him in the arm with a shirt. Starting at $25 for 2 shirts, the woman begged and pleaded with me by the end to buy two for $15 because she desperately needed the money. I tried the too small shirt on, she told me it looked perfect and I was beautiful. I felt guilty for walking away but it's all part of the game. The Saigon Square market was a lot more upscale. It was air conditioned, didn't have food and therefore didn't smell of shrimp, and the sellers only talked to you if you made eye contact with them.

We found out that there are Chinese Buddhist vegetarian days on the 1st and 15th of every lunar month which fell on July 3rd. Sen Quan Chay was packed! We had to share a table with other guests. There was a special menu to help manage traffic but I still wasn't able to get the bread filled with mock meat and veggies that I've been trying to order from them for the past week :( I'm not sure what time they are available as I've tried to order them at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, ha. The last few times when I've asked, they just gave me little squares of bread instead.

The cute waiter from Quan Chay who was probably wondering why I wanted a picture with him

Our last destination here was the Vietnam War Remnants Museum. I'm glad that we watched an explanation video on YouTube before going as it was hard to understand what was going on from the exhibits which were photographs with vague captions. My high school history class was too long ago to be of any use and I'm pretty sure they glossed over this war anyway. Photographs of bomb and Agent Orange victims were so gruesome and gut-wrenching that I had to walk out of the room at one point; a mother and daughter were burnt to body-shaped crisps and babies were born without eyes, legs, or arms and other features were misshapen. Vietnamese quality of life is still affected today as many children of those exposed to the toxins are severely impaired and food is still harvested from infected areas. Every time we walk past a disabled person on the street, I wonder if it's caused by something we so carelessly did in order to stop the "spread of communism."

Best smoothie place here and only costs about $0.80.