Day 7

This was our day off of site visits and classes so we went to Vung Tau. How did we get from Saigon to Vung Tau you ask, we took a catamaran on the Saigon River. The trip was a little over an hour so not too bad of a journey. When we got there we stopped for iced tea and water at a little restaurant across from the dock.

After a quick stop we took the bus to a mountain where on the top of the mountain was a huge statue of Jesus. So instead of just admiring the statue from afar we walked up the many stairs to the top in the heat of the day. I’m pretty sure the back and shoulders got burnt there because by the time we reached the top, we all looked like we had just gotten out of the water. But being up there was totally worth the hike. Benches lined the paths that had cities engraved in the bench. I found many benches from W. Chester, Pennsylvania. So it felt like a little piece of my hometown in Viet Nam. We then climbed back down the mountain so we could head to lunch at the same little restaurant we were just at.

When we arrived at the place for lunch, we opted to eat outside because the breeze felt much better than being indoors. We had lots of plates filled with Vietnamese cuisine. I wasn’t quite sure what I was eating but I ate it anyways. Lunch was a nice break from the intense heat of the day.

After lunch we finally went to the beach. Let me just say it was not what I was expecting. The water was littered with pollution so swimming was in moderation. At one point a net wrapped around my leg. So instead of spending all my time in the water I laid out on the sand and under the huge tent we rented. After two hours or so, the sun started to get to all of us. We drank a lot of water to get from getting dehydrated and put on a lot of sunscreen. We were able to shower before heading back to the catamaran. The ride back took a lot longer than the ride there. A coconut leaf I guess you would call it got stuck in the motor so we had to pull over at a dock and wait for divers to pull it out. By this time we all just wanted to get back to Ho Chi Minh and eat dinner.

We finally arrived back to the City and headed to the hotel for a little before heading to dinner. We walked to this place named the Barbecue Garden because it was only 5 blocks away and we are so glad we went there. We were able to eat as a large group. This place is were you got raw meat and barbecued it with the grill that is in the center of the table. It was a very nice restaurant and very delicious. I didn’t order anything I had to grill because I wasn’t that hungry so instead I got clams. They were delicious and on top of my plate of clams I got this rice cake that was to die for. Dinner was fantastic but one thing that was weird was that we had to pay for the napkins they placed in front of us without us even asking. That is a lot different than anything I have seen in the States. After dinner I walked straight back to the hotel then off to bed for the night.