We woke up in the port of vietnam today! The weather was AWESOME, to say the least. We ate breakfast outside on the deck and got ready for what was sure to be a busy busy day traveling from Vietnam to Cambodia with our semester at sea group of 65 people!! We all met in the union after watching a short cultural dance show of all these decoratively dressed Cambodian kids who danced very nicely. Trev and I were excited right off the bat because we saw tons of friends that were gonna be in our group for the trip, and then we got our itinerary which listed all the amazing places we were to visit. And let me tell you it was a great itinerary! In just today, we would see so much, fly to another part of Cambodia the next day, see more there, spend the night at the Borei Angkor Resort & Spa (can’t even explain to you the excitement level felt by everyone reading “resort and spa”), wake up for sunrise at Angkor Wat the next morning, spend the day touring all around there, and return to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) for the night. We had an amazing trip ahead of us that morning, and we were all in great spirits!

Our trip leader, Jenny, is our LLC (basically the RA of our hall on the ship) and she is soooo cool and brought her whole adorable toe-headed blonde family along (Andy the dad, Andrew the 8 year old boy, and Lizzie the 6 year old girl) The kids immediately became velcroed to us, and we had so much fun playing with them at all of the sites and swimming with them in the hotel pool.. Lizzie would tell me that I couldn’t sit with Trevor because he was her boyfriend, and then she would sit on the bus next to him, and Andrew would sit next to me, taunting me with his crazy faces, etc, etc, etc. they really are adorable so silly and so much fun. Anyways, so we relaxed in the airport for a while and then hopped on our short 25 minute flight to Cambodia. We met up in the Phnom Penh airport with our tourguide, Sokha (it means happy in khmer-the cambodian’s language) who was absolutely awesome. NOTE the coolest thing ever that happened in Cambodia is about to happen then, OUT OF NOWHERE, I look out of the bus window and see (are you ready for this?!) AN ELEPHANT just roaming the street. Coolest thing ever. I jumped up and everyone on the bus was so excited, Sokha was like “big deallllllll” and we were all typical tourists freaking out. Sokha was really nice, and we had a great bus of people (about 30 people on our bus), Sokha referred to this one really big guy as “happy Buddha”—meant in a good way, but its funny because there are two different kinds of buddhas- hungry Buddha, who is skinny, and happy Buddha who is really fat and happy like most of you think of Buddha! Anyways, we headed straight from the airport to the Cambodia National Museum, where there were tons of ancient artifacts and such and a beautiful courtyard with monks sitting all around. It was a beautiful site, then, we boarded a sunset cruise on an old painted wooden Cambodian boat on the Mekong River. We got to sit up on tall bar stools on the top level and watch as the sun set beautifully over this developing country with so much character. The boat was super local which was very fun, we even had to cross a bamboo plank to get onto it! And trev checked off another foreign local beer with Angkor Beer, made only in Cambodia. The city of Phnom Penh is much smaller than Saigon, and has soooo much character that is hard to put down in writing. There are mopeds everywhere and the people, are all so happy and, after the sunset cruise, we even saw a huge outdoor dance aerobics class thingy going on with about 50 cambodian people of all ages getting completely into it.. Needless to say we all joined in! Then we headed to a local restaurant for a nice dinner (I ate rice due to the abundance of peanuts in Vietnam/Cambodia/Thailand but trev tried lots of delicassies) then we went to a definite highlight of the trip, the Palm Tree Orphanage. This orphanage, founded actually by a Semester at Sea alumni, holds about 100 kids who have no living close relative or parent and no where to live. On our way there, we passed by some really cool streets with people out all over the streets, and we even passed by a cute little wedding going on, as well as tons of open areas with a tv in front and about 50 chairs set up in movie theater fashion, all this, keep in mind, is OUTSIDE! It’s a very charming culture, that, despite how poor it is, makes you feel so happy. We arrived at the orphanage-- It’s a very nice place with a big sport court, huge outdoor area, classrooms, even a little pottery studio and a music room. As soon as we walked in, all the kids were so happy to see us. You got grabbed instantaneously by a little girl or boy who was to be your kid for the night, I got two little girls, one, named Huet Nea (pronounced Whitney) who is 10 years old, and one, named Sraelin, who is only 5 years old. I gave them both little necklace scarves which we on S.A.S. had knitted for them.. they loved them. Huet Nea was very outgoing, spoke great English (they learn it every day in class), and told me about how she plays the cello and showed me her and sraelins paintings they had done in the classrooms. SraeLin was much quieter, and younger, but held my hand so tightly the whole night. It was a little like open house at a school, they got to show us all around. Then we sat down and I told them to teach me a game, so they grabbed some other little girls and sat in a circle, everyone grabbed pinkies and started chanting the words to the game, I began to get the gist and eventually knew how to play.. it was a lot like down-by-the-banks, but in khmer language..its funny cause theres little words that are English in the game- like a part where you take your hands apart and go “DISCO DISCO” and make disco moves.. and then someone yells “PLAY STOP” and you freeze and the first one to laugh loses and has to go in the middle! It was very entertaining, so I played for a while, as the group grew and grew until almost every Semester at Seaer and their kid were playing this giant game. Trevor, meanwhile, played with Yosae Met, a nine year old boy who loved trevor’s football and they played around for a long time outside (he gave the ball to him to keep). Also, they were selling bags and the money would go to the orphanage, so I bought Huet Nea a bag. SraeLin had a little brother in the orphanage as well, he was the cutest baby ever, but must have only been less than a year old… which leads me to think that they came to the orphanage very recently.. explaining why she was so quiet and sadder than the happy go lucky girls that would play all the games and such (even though she would smile, etc she still seemed sad) I even asked her at one point if it was fun there, only to get a completely blunt and disheartening “no”. I couldn’t help but think about when her parents must have died, and how scary it must be for her to have to take care of her baby brother without really knowing what is going on in the completely new home that is an orphanage. It was really hard to take, and as we left I felt like crying for all of them. HuetNea got my email and promised to email me every day, she kept saying in her adorable Cambodian accent “miss you miss you, love love” and Sraelin gave me a hug and I gave her my email too :( it was so sad, but a really great experience and I’m just so glad somebody opened up such a big, nice orphanage for these poor children.

We headed back to a nice hotel in Phnom Penh for the night, the rooming was done alphabetically with one other person and Trevor and I were both lucky because we both ended up in rooms with friends (trev’s roomie for the trip, jimmy andronaly, is a campo-grad football kicker/chapman soccer player from moraga, and mine was ali, a really nice girl from New York).

We woke up early at 5:45 and went downstairs to have a delicious hotel buffet breakfast with everyone.. the best part were their delicious waffles mmmm mmm, it is always so good to get a good ol’ American breakfast for these long big days traveling… Then we headed out of the hotel for what was to be a very tough morning.. our first stop was the Cambodian Genocide museum, followed by the Killing Fields. Cambodia has a very recent history of a brutal and immoral genocide led by a dictator named Pulpot. It is arguably even worse than the holocaust, as Pulpot killed 1/3 of the population in his attempts at socialism and creating an “equal” society (somehow, to him, this meant killing everyone educated in any way and thus making the society equal in making everyone dumber). Our sweet tour guide, Sokha, is 39 years old and was only 6 years old when his parents and older brother were killed by Pulpot and his regime. Pulpot was a communist leader who was insanely cruel and the stories are brutal. Pulpot would kill anyone educated, and then he would have to kill their entire family because if their family lived, they would live to hate Pulpot, and thus would not be a good member of the society. I can’t write most of the brutality in the stories Sokha told us down because to think of them again would be too much. it is terrible, let’s leave it at that. Walking through the genocide museum, which is essentially a concentration camp where they were tortured before taken to the killing fields, was very tough.. I looked at a lot of things but Trevor would have to walk in first and tell me which rooms I just shouldn’t go in… they had rooms filled with the faces of everyone that had been killed.. men, women, children, babies.. it was disastrous. And to think that all this was happening in 1989! That is so recent, yet I had no idea about it before coming there. We went from there to the killing fields, which is where people were trucked and dumped into mass graves as they were brutally murdered (they weren’t just simply shot, let’s leave it at that) there is a huge 17 story building in the middle of the fields and graves that is filled for 17 stories with skulls. I didn’t look at that up close, although I could see it in the corner of my eye and felt chills rushing up my spine. There are so many bodies buried below that ground. There is even a square of the walkway roped off, where just recently they had to close it off because you were starting to walk on bones, as the dirt was wearing down. Eeeeeeeek.

It is so terrible to believe that something like this could happen to a country. We are so unbelievably lucky to live in America and, not only that, but to not have had to deal with wars on our homefront, or even deal with a war draft in our lifetime, having to see such brutality that was experienced in Cambodia and also Vietnam. They lost an entire generation of people.

It was a very heavy morning, and I am so so glad we got to learn all about the genocide, and from someone who had learned it so first hand, having to lose his parents and brother so young, left with his two younger siblings, who had to walk from Cambodia to Thailand fearing for their lives the entire way (they ended up as refugees in Thailand for years until the war ended and it was safe to return). It really goes to show the terror of the dark side of humanity and what can happen when things go terribly wrong in a regime. It just irks me that this was so recent, as I feel so naïve in our amazing country where we have so many freedoms and happiness in every day life. We don’t have to live with the sights that these people have seen, or that veterans from the Vietnam war have seen. We are so lucky to be in the USA and I really hope we never deal with all that has gone on in Southeast Asia so recently.

Anyways, enough of the sad stuff.

We went from there to the Royal Palace and Silver Pagodas, beautiful temples that are right in the center of Phnom Penh, then we got some lunch, where the first thing they set down was some good ol’ boiled peanuts, so trev and I got right up and decided to walk and shop around the town instead. We were in the center of the city, with so much hustle and bustle with all the mopeds, and we went over to the big grand market bazaar where I got some awesome jewelry and trev found a really cool little wood carved turtle that has a compass too, its very cool (only a dollar haha, gotta love Cambodia). Oh and trev got nice cufflinks and a tie clip. Then we headed over to the supermarket where we got 50 cent little chocolate ice cream cups which were soooo yummy and some kiwis as well! We met back up on the bus with everyone and we headed to the airport for our next short flight over to Siem Reap, which is where Angkor Wat is. The second we started walking out to our tiny propeller plane, I knew we were in for a Cambodian adventure. Our group of semester at sea students literally took up the entire plane and I could see the newspaper headlines now “propeller plane of 60 American students crashes down in Cambodia”. I was so scared. It wiggled in the air soooo much and shook and turned like we were playing a game of jello. Luckily, we arrived safely into Siem Reap, where we were picked up by our tour guide T and taken straight to our beautiful resort the Borei Angkor. It was perfect, a gorgeous huge pool that of course all of us hopped the first second we could.. it felt wonderful in the hot weather.. also a bunch of people went straight to the desk to sign up for spa services (when an hour massage costs 25$ at a nice resort, you jump at the opportunity) but unfortunately they weren’t ready for us all and didn’t have anymore availability when trev and I tried to book some massages. Oh well, we saved the 50$ which was much better spent later in Vietnam when we went a little crazy shopping wise (Read on..) We went from the pool to dinner at another local restaurant which we ended up leaving with 4 friends on a Tuk Tuk (a rickshaw/cart thingy where a guy on a moped pulls a little carriage where you sit with 4 people) through the town and back to the hotel for more swimming and happy hour at the pub there.. the pub was really nice and had comfy couches that we all lounged on… and then trev and I got dinner (since I couldn’t eat at the Cambodian place) and we got good ol American burger, fries and trev got a club sandwich.. which were only 5$ even at our hotel.. awesome.

Today was an amazing day. One of the best ever.

We woke up at 4:30 sharp to get to Angkor Wat before sunrise. Trevor was barely awake, and I could barely contain my excitement. It was pitch black when we got there which made for an exciting walk through all the stone with flashlights… then we went to the end of a beautiful reflecting pool that lies on the left side of the front of the main beautiful towers of Angkor Wat, and we got seats and watched as the sun serenely and slowly rose and lit the beautiful scene into the awe-inspiring masterpiece it is. There were tons of tourists there for the sunrise, and justly so. It is truly the most magnificent thing I’ve ever seen, and sunrise really is the time to see it. I truly recommend this amazing site to everyone, being there I couldn’t help but think how much the world is missing out on if they never see it. I feel that way a lot with everywhere we go, but with such a wonder of the world as Angkor Wat, I really think that all of you need to go there, I can wholeheartedly say I am a more fulfilled person from this beautiful spot and my entire experience in Cambodia and Vietnam.

What a gorgeous morning, and that was just the beginning. We returned back to the hotel for yet another glorious hotel buffet breakfast, and then, once fueled up, returned back to the Temples of Angkor for more amazing sightseeing. Basically Angkor means “City” in Khmer, and the temples of Angkor are the ruins of the amazing city. Angkor wat is translated to “temple city”. It is said to have been the largest preindustrial city in the world, with an elaborate infrastructure that expanded up to a thousand square kilometers around the entire thing. It was, in its prime, about the size of los angeles. Angkor was the “seat” of the Khmer Empire, which flourished from the 9th to the 11th century. The principal temple for the city of Angkor was Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat was built in the 1100’s by King Survayarman II, it is said that he lept on to his enemy’s ‘war elephant’ (haha.. awesome) and slayed him just as the mythical bird god Garuda slayed a snake. The ruins are gorgeous, they are so intact it is absolutely amazing. The first stop after breakfast was Ta Prohm. Many of you may have seen pictures of the famous trees surrounding Ta Prohm. The trees and their roots have grown into the temples creating a breathtaking scene of these almost-millenium old ruins. To keep calling these ruins is doing them injustice, they are so unbelievably preserved and beautifully structured it is hard to believe how ancient they really are. This was actually the scene for the filming of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie! (for all the tabloid followers, she liked Cambodia so much that she returned and adopted her child here). Ta Prohm was beautiful and we walked around and through all the stones (I seriously sometimes thought we would get one dropped on our heads, but they miraculously stay in their jenga-like place. The trees are beautiful, their roots just spreading all over the temples, its beautiful, I think there is a picture down below :) From there we went back to Angkor Wat to explore again in the full daylight, except this time we went around to the back and on the beautiful tree-lined path to the temples, there was not one but about 20 MONKEYS!!!! They were sooooo cute and we took lots of pictures… even saw two mommy’s nursing their babies on their chest. And then we saw a monkey drink a water bottle, and a couple eat some bananas.. we got sooo close it was so fun!!!! They were just wild, chillin at Angkor Wat! Then we walked and climbed through all of it, admiring the amazing ancient architecture. By the way, at every angle when you’re going into these places, you are swarmed by kids trying to sell you little knick knacks like postcards, bracelets, etc etc. Our tourguide, however, told us to never buy from them because those are kids who’s parents chose not to send them to school and instead thought they would make more money at Angkor Wat so these kids live their entire lives illiterate and only knowing enough English to say “one dollar, two for one dollar, five for one dollar” or “lady, you want to buy” etc etc. its crazy how they all swarm at you, its almost funny, they are all such avid sellers, but we would buy from the markets instead. We headed from Angkor Wat back to the hotel for a yummy buffet lunch and an air condition break (this was by far the hottest day, as we were walking all around and sweating profusely in the 95 degree humid weather) I changed into a new purple tank top (see pictures) that I bought for 2 dollars at the market, it has Angkor Wat on the front of it!!! Trev bought a beautiful Cambodian flag for his collection (he’s been getting flags in each port, and Cambodia has a beautiful flag with Angkor wat in the middle of it) and we bought some other cool things as well (can’t tell you, might be gifts for you!) Then we headed to Angkor Thom (translated as Large City) which was more gorgeous stone ruins and the coolest part of these were all the faces in the stone (legends of the hidden temple anyone—just like the main tiki thingy in that show) the faces were beautiful and represented all the gods, and I also just loved the carvings in the stone (look at the picture of me with the elephant trunk) they were so cool.. We were all getting very sloth like at this point with the weather and the long morning/day we had been having, so it was a perfect time to head back to the airport for our 3rd flight in 3 days (it felt like a week I swear, we did sooo much) from Siem Reap to Ho Chi Minh City on a big plane (thank goodness!).. At the airport, trev disheartingly realized he had lost his flag (the only time ever that trevor actually lost something and not me!) we were really sad, so we’re on a search for a Cambodia flag—don’t know where we’ll find that one, but maybe theres some sort of country flag store!..anyways I sat next to trev on this plane ride and as he slept like a stone straight from Angkor Wat, I journaled away about all of our adventures. We got back to the ship around 8pm and although everyone was so exhausted from a long day, we wanted to make the most of our time in Saigon… so, after freshening up (oh my god did I need that shower) we headed out with a big group for a night on the town… However, our group wanted to take mopeds but we hadn’t been to the city and thus didn’t wanna hop on the back of a moped with noooo idea where the heck we were going.. all we knew was we were all meeting at a “saloon” and apparently everyone thought that would be good enough to get us all there.. So trev, ali and I took a taxi and ended up at the Saloon—we were the only ones who actually got there though! It was soooo funny, all the waiters and waitresses were dressed up country style with cowboy boots and hats… it was a crazy place and awesome because it was the locals’ ‘american bar’.. they even served us popcorn!! And they had live performances of all American music… soooo funny to see Vietnamese singer/dancers singing American music that they know all the words to but have no idea what they’re singing about! It was very fun, and, after realizing it was pretty hopeless looking for our friends in the big city, we wandered around. It ended up being really fun because we were in a very local part of town.. everyone was drinking and eating out on the streets (this was a Monday night, and everyone was out) it was very cool, and I can’t even explain the mayhem that is the traffic at night.. there are mopeds EVERYWHERE and if you think there are rules of the road in Vietnam you’re crazy.. there are barely any traffic lights, and TONS of mopeds and cars and buses.. but mostly mopeds.. we had never experienced anything like that before. Crossing the street started out as the scariest experience ever, then turned to exhilarating, and then we got to be pros at it (you literally just have to walk and make sure people go around you, or you won’t be crossing the street!!) Trevor said it best when he said “what do you think people do for fun here? I bet they’re like ooo lets go cross streets it’ll be awesome!” and it’s so true- it’s a real adventure all on its own. We ended up going to the Rex Hotel and dancing up at the rooftop bar there. The Rex hotel has been there since before the war and its slogan on the door was “your home in Vietnam” and we heard it was a very popular spot for soldiers in the war and people visiting… it is really classy, old, traditional and pretty. And the rooftop bar is really cool. There is live music and a dancefloor, and it looks out into Saigon… Having a drink up there is actually in the “Thousand things to do before you die” book!!! Check!

So trev and I swing danced the night away and took in the great atmosphere, so grateful for the amazing days we had had in Cambodia and the exciting two days we had ahead of us in Vietnam.

On the fourth day we woke up and were excited for our first real day in Vietnam. We headed into Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) with our friend and funnyman Eric and made our way towards the War Remnants Museum. This museum was a very hard one to visit, it had a bunch of U.S. aircrafts and tanks outside and on the inside it showed a dark side of the war. Christina took a break and strolled around mostly outside because we had seen plenty of intense stuff in Cambodia. There were very gruesome pictures of people who had been hit by agent orange, and a re-creation of the guillotine and cages we had for Vietnamese prisoners. The whole museum was incredibly slanted towards the Vietnamese side, but still it was very graphic and intense. It made me feel better that the war is over, and that we have the opportunity to visit such an interesting culture. We made our way to the Benh Tanh Market, while stopping on the way at a Yogen Fruz (essentially a Pink berry/yogurt land/ red mango tart place) where we grabbed some yogurt which made Christina happy. We went through the packed market, where Christina and Eric (New Yorker with a loud voice) did some bartering damage, and I did my share by getting a beautiful hand crafted chess board and a some suspenders. Post-shopping, Christina got a manicure/pedicure/scrub/mud exfoliating special for only $20 which lasted about 2 hours, while I sat in one of their massage chairs. After that cheap spa treatment, we took a bicycle rickshaw (a seat with a guy who bikes you around) over to the Independence Palace which was the white house for the South Vietnamese government during the war. They have the tank in front which crashed into the gate on the last day of the War. We took a tour of its beautiful inside, with large meeting rooms, offices, a movie theatre, dancing floor, gambling room, etc. and then we went down to the underground secret tunnels where they kept all the war strategies. They still have original decoders, and radios used, as well as maps that document the movements of Viet Cong as well as the allies, which was really interesting to see. After all that history stuff, Christina wanted some more tart yogurt, and then we headed on to a dress shop that she had seen on our rickshaw ride. There was a beautiful dress in the window that she liked, and when she asked the lady about it, she was more than happy to make her one in any color/material that she liked and that would only take a day. This was awesome, because we were sure that we had no time to get something made like a lot of other students, because of our Cambodia trip and lack of time. All the suits take 3 days to make, but Christina was lucky that she found somewhere to make a whole dress for her in only one day, so the lady took her measurements and Christina picked the colors and we were stoked. Next, we went to a shopping mall where I had some good luck, and found a couple polo button ups and a Tiger beer t-shirt for a total of only $20. In the mall, we witnessed an all out shouting match between two Vietnamese lady vendors, they were yelling at the top of their lungs about who knows what (and if you’ve heard the Vietnamese language you can imagine how piercing it was), needless to say we got a video of it haha. We headed out to dinner, and found a nice Italian place outdoors with a beautiful courtyard where we enjoyed a great meal which was refreshing and yummy. On the way out, we saw huge dvd stores, with thousands of pirated dvds. So I bought 15 dvds for 6$ and I had them show me that they all worked (sidenote: they don’t actually have any legitimate dvd stores in Vietnam or China, so this is how people get their movies, including ones still in theatres: I got Avatar! Up in the air, new york I love you, princess and the frog, etc etc etc) Next to kill some time, we went down the real shopping street with actual high end retail, and upon walking in to one dress store, we hit paydirt. It was a very nice store (Condolezzia Rice had just shopped there a week before) with a bunch of dresses for $250 plus. But there was a clearance section in the back, with dresses that had just been put on sale that very day, Christina found three she liked and wanted to try on.. they were all 100% hand made silk and beautiful. The lady helping us was so happy because they all fit perfectly and was yelling about how Christina is “perfect, like a model” and they ended up being only $10 each!!! We were so excited that we had found another great deal in Vietnam. After that, we headed over to the Rex hotel where we met some friends for drinks and live music. We headed over to a club called Apocalypse Now real late and stayed for a bit, but left right around when a crowd of 40 Semester at Sea students came inside. We had to get back because we had to get up early the next day, so we took mo-peds back, which is the craziest ride ever. Luckily Christina’s guy went slow, but I was not so lucky, with a backpack on, and one hand holding a shopping bag, my guy sped off and we hit 55 mph on our little mo-ped. I got back to the ship about 5 minutes before Christina did, with my eyes stuck open from going so fast.

We woke up around 7:30 and headed to the buses for our day trip to the Mekong Delta. We got a chance to sleep for our 2 hour bus ride. We stopped at a beautiful temple with a humongous fat Buddha carved out of stone, and it was really nice because the whole grounds had beautiful plans and flowers with butterflies. Christina even got a rice paddy hat for a buck so that was cool. Next the bus took us to the river where we took boat down part of it and got off on an island that makes famous coconut candies. When getting off the boat, Christina slipped and fell all in the mud on the bridge from the boat which was funny but lucky that she didn’t fall right into the water! Good thing is she had for some lucky reason brought extra clothes and quickly changed into them. We checked out how they made the coconut candies and they had a little market with alligator skin bags and snake liquor (the kind with the snake in the bottle). Next, we took a horse drawn carriage through the small town on to a little street where we sat down for a snack. They had a huge cage with three of the biggest boa constrictors I’ve ever seen. They gave us pure honey and lemon tea with a huge place of a variety of fruits: durian, pineapple, little bananas, and logans. We walked through a lush tropical forest to an inlet of the Mekong and jumped in a longboat with a Vietnamese person in a rice hat on the back paddling. We navigated down the skinny river with huge muddy banks on each side with beautiful greenery sprouting up. There were a lot of critters all around, but sadly no alligators as are usually seen. It was a traditional Vietnamese fish trading boat so it was so cool, and we took it all the way to our restaurant. We had a popular fisherman’s meal where they prepared the Elephant ear fish whole (it’s as big as an elephant ear). They prepared it with rice paper, mint, noodles, and a fish all wrapped up into a spring roll. Christina fed a cute little dog during the meal (since she couldn’t eat it for fear of peanuts) but of course stayed away from petting the dog-- with reluctance. We finished up our meal and headed out, past a huge water buffalo (reminded me of a gruesome chapter from The Things They Carried). It was really cool to see the real life of the average Vietnamese person. Most of them fish all day and make a living of 2 US dollars a day but somehow are incredibly happy. We took the bus all the way back on a freeway that had just been opened a month before (most roads outside Saigon are still dirt). We passed by hundreds of farms and rice paddies that are just the most pure-form of green. With 3 hours left in Saigon we went back to the DVD shop and I purchased the best buy of the trip-> the entire Disney Collection a total of 143 movies for only 40 dollars! Then we went to the tailor where Christina’s dress was made and they were happy to see her. They had her try it on and swarmed all around her like a scene out of Cinderella and it looked great as well as fit perfectly (I guess that’s why they call it custom). They had made two others to her size but in black with gold (she got white with navy), because they saw that a foreigner girl had been attracted to it while passing by and wanted to capitalize on a dress that such a beautiful girl had noticed. We walked through the city with its crazy atmosphere one last time, grabbed taxi back to the ship, and said goodbye to Viet Nam.