This is the first part of my four part series about my life changing trip to Vietnam. First, I will give you a rundown on the company I went with:
What is World Challenge?
In my own words, World Challenge is an company that allows teens (and beyond) to see the world in a new way. You get to head over to another country for a month and experience their way of living. There are four parts to each trip, acclimatisation, trekking, community project and rest and recreation.
This blog post will be about the acclimatisation sector of my trip. This is the first first few days of my trip, it allowed us to all adapt to our new surroundings. Get used to the climate, food, currency, people etc.
Stepping off the plane into Ho Chi Minh city airport was not gonna lie, scary as hell. Something that made everything a little bit comforting was the amazing Vietnamese woman I had met on the plane. We had talked about Vietnam and the weather and all that stuff. After the flight she asked for a photo and it made the start of my whole trip. And going outside the airport was even even scarier. I had never seen so many people and vehicles in one place ever. It was beyond anything I had ever seen! We found a bus and as soon as we got on the driver was trying to rip us off - welcome to Vietnam!! The bus ride to our first (of many) hotels was hectic. I had never been on road so busy in my entire life!! We all took so many photos and videos only to find out that pretty much ALL of Vietnam was like that. There are no road rules and people just drive any direction they please. There is also no proper way to cross the road. You walk out in front of the mopeds and they stop for you, that is the way it goes - they will never hit you!!
One of the first proper memories I have from Ho Chi Minh City is going out for our first lunch!!! I was with the people I spent the majority of the trip with. We went to a place that sold proper Vietnamese food and I had Pho (beef noodle soup) and a coke. We were only out of the hotel for about two hours but I was freaking out so much!!! I do not do well in crowded places (so, Vietnam in a nutshell) and even in New Zealand I freaking SUCK at crossing the road and to top it off, what the hell is up with the currency???? But I made it through that stressful first day and had an awesome nights sleep and gossip with my beyond perfect room mate Kate.
The next few days were pretty much just exploring, which I love more than anything!!!! Discovering new stores and cafes. Pretty much in every city we went to, we had our "usual". The food or drink store we went to pretty much daily. Our usual in Ho Chi Minh was a perfect cafe called ABC Bakery. Loooooove it.
We visited the War Remnants Museum and I would say it is one of the highlights of my entire trip. It was filled with actual things found from the Vietnam/American War. There was a whole room dedicated to beautiful black and white photographs taken during the war. We also learned about "Agent Orange" and looked at a bunch of photographs of people effected. Agent Orange is a chemical that was dropped during the war to destroy forests and trees. But as well as killing nature, it also ended up killing a lot of people in the area. Those who didn't die that went on to have children gave birth to deformed babies. As much as learning all these things made me feel a little uneasy it made me really think about a lot of things and (don't call the cliche police on me) made me so thankful for all my working limbs. As you walked into the museum there was five or six seven Agent Orange suffers sitting at the door and they were selling little bits of jewelry but one young man that caught my eye was playing piano AMAZINGLY. As I stood by and watched for a while I noticed that he had no eyes. There was just skin where ones eyes should be. I was both so shocked and inspired at the same time.
Thank you so much for reading!! I hope to me be publishing blogs every Monday but we shall see!!! Stay golden xoxo
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