Seeing the Light at the end of Cu Chi Tunnel

After so much planning and thinking of every detail of our trip, at last the day of our departure has finally arrived. Our flight to Vietnam was last February 18, which was a Friday night, a week after my birthday. I took a half-day leave from work, and met up with Jamie and George at Mcdonalds at around half past seven. They already finished their dinner, so I decided to just eat in the airport. We waited for JE to arrive, and off we went looking for a cab going to the airport.

It was a Friday night, employees are rushing to get off work to meet up with friends in malls and bars to hang out and blow off some steam. As expected, all the cabs were taken. We wander through the busy streets of Makati, hoping to catch a cab for hire. I even tried calling different cab providers that I know, but end up with no luck. JE and Jamie were starting to get stressed finding a cab, but me and George remained calm and relaxed. "Itay" ,(father in Filipino) as I would call George, and I actually found it funny that they were stressed-out, while we remained calm and chilling, like walking in a park. Finally, after about an hour of walking, we ended up in Greenbelt, and were able to find a cab there.  It was a dilapidated and old cab, but we didn't have a choice. The driver was even making an excuse that he can't take us, he said he has a flat tire, but turns out he just wants an extra pay for our fare. He was asking us to pay him P250, and we were more than willing to give him more. And so,  we took our seats inside the cab, JE taking the passenger seat in front. Manong driver started interviewing us, and shooting some questions. I don't know why we lied, but we said we were going to Cebu. I guess it's for security purpose that we didn't want to disclose where we were going to a complete stranger. But our lie fired back to us, Manong driver was actually from Cebu. So he started to narrate his personal story and even gave us some peculiar warnings. He warned us not to eat the food in the streets as we might be poisoned. He said that there are many witches there, and they might put a curse on our food. He even told us that he himself knows witchcraft and he can put a curse on us, even by just staring at us. What the heck?? So freakin' creepy!!! I was sitting backseat between Jamie and Itay, and when he looks at his rearview mirror, he can see me directly. I didn't want to look at the mirror as he might catch a glance of me and curse me! He narrated that he once helped a friend who was cursed because of eating at the streets, and was poisoned. He healed him by giving him grated coconut and sugar, and it worked. His friend's family was very thankful to him, and he was welcome to his friend's house. He added that he fell in love with his friend's sister, but she didn’t love him back. He said he could a put a curse on her, but he decided not to, because he truly loves her. He said that he can also put a curse using the hair of the person, the usual voodoo stuff . All of us thinking freaking out in our minds, 'Did my hair fall off? I can't leave a single strand of hair inside this cab!' The only good thing coming out of the driver's mouth is when he noticed that JE has a 'malapad na noo' (wide forehead). For us Filipinos, that's a sign of being intelligent. He commented that JE looks like someone who's smart and knows a lot of this. This is partly true, since we all studied in UP, but ironic as well as JE flunked some of his subjects and got delayed. It was funny for us that the driver would comment that.

At last, after 30 minutes or less of that creepy cab drive, we finally reached the airport.  We checked in our bags, and got our boarding pass. When we got to the immigration,  itay got hold up for a bit, since he was carrying a Canadian passport, and he had some additional travel documents. The immigration officer laughed when she saw the picture on his documents. It was a picture of him when he was still a kid, and he was still fat and was just wearing a sando. Looking at it, we couldn't really decide if he was a cute kid or an ugly kid. Lol. He looks like he was hungry in his pic, and he was not in the mood.  Having finished checking in, we have time to kill before boarding. JE and I haven't eaten dinner yet, so we decided to eat first.  Almost all the restaurants were closed, so we ended up eating in Seattle's Best. While eating, Jamie whispered to me that the she heard the girl sitting beside our table telling her boyfriend, " Oh my god, I’m so full. I had like 3 potato wedges for lunch.”  WTF?? How big is that freaking potato?  To think that it was already 10pm that time, and her last meal was lunch.  From then on, we can’t help but talk about her throughout the whole trip. We call her the potato wedge gurl, and was considered the "black hole" of the trip. Black hole is a term we just coined ourselves, it usually refers to the person we can’t stop talking about throughout a trip, usually dishing that person. Hahaha. We can really be mean and nasty.

At 12:30am local time, we landed at Ho Chi Minh. After 10 years, I’m back in Ho Chi Minh again. In fairness, their airport is much newer now and less crazy. We decided to convert some of our dollars to their local currency Dong, 1USD=20000 VND. We are filthy rich here!  We saw the driver who would take us to Madam Cuc. Jamie commenting “ Paminsan kelangan mo na lang talagang magtiwala sa mga tao noh?” *Sometimes, you just have to trust a person, whether you like it or not* Hahaha. Come to think of it, that's really true. We don't have a choice but to trust that person and bring us to our hotel in the wee hours of the night.  Ho Chi Minh is very much like Manila, their streets are like the streets of Dapitan or Tondo, with thick electrical wires lining the streets, and small establishments with steel gates. And I quote Itay's Canadian cousin, " Why are you going there? It’s so ghetto” Hahaha.

So the driver stopped in front of an old building with steel gate, which is closed. Are we here?? Yes, it seems we have arrived in our cheap Vietnam hotel, Madam Cuc.  He rang the bell, and a lady in her pajamas opened the gate. She asked us to remove our shoes, as our room is on the 2nd floor. But we asked her if we could just walk barefoot and just bring our shoes with us in our room, which she let us. The lady asked for our passport, which at first we couldn't understand what she was saying. Of course we were hesitant to give it to her. She said that we could get it anytime we want, and so we agreed to give it to her and we'll just get in the morning. So it's now time for bed as we need to wake up early after a few hours for our Cu Chi Tunnel tour. The room was ok, it was spacious, with 2 large beds, a flat TV, air con and ref. The bathroom was clean, with bath tub and hot shower. Not bad for such a cheap hotel. Time for bed..

We woke up at 6am, that's 7am Manila time. We each took our turns taking a bath, then went downstairs for breakfast. Breakfast consists of bread, strawberry jam/margarine and their yummy coffee. The bread is like the French bread, but the outside is chewy and the inside was really airy. We called it Our Daily Bread. After which, I asked for directions from one of the reception ladies on how to get to the Sinh Tour office. Good thing she gave us a map, that would become very handy later on. After like a ten minute walk, we arrive at the Sinh tour office, the cheap travel agent where I booked our Cu Chi Tunnel tour and bus to Mui Ne.  We caught our bus going to Cu Chi tunnel, where Anh, our tour guide talked about Ho Chi Minh, both the city and the person.  He seems to be a fanatic of Ho Chi Minh. When we arrived, Anh discussed the story of war and the purpose of the  Cu Chi Tunnel, then watch a very ancient video way back 1960’s. Continue reading here.

Anh, our tour guide

Revisiting Vietnam after a Decade: The Painstaking Planning

Visiting Vietnam for the second time around is much more fun for me. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy my first time there with my family, but nothing beats chilling with friends in a new scene, and escaping from the realities back home. The first time I visited Vietnam was way back in high school, where my sister was assigned there for work, and we were able to travel for free. We were able to stay in one of their most luxurious hotels, where even the foreign ambassadors stay. We dined in hotel buffets, high end restaurants, and their famous floating restaurant. 

More or less after a decade, I found myself again in the biggest city of Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City, formerly known as Saigon. My friends and I are really not planning to visit Vietnam, we actually wanted to visit Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, Cambodia. But since there's no direct flight from Manila to Cambodia, we either had to pass Thailand or Vietnam to get there. When JE found that Cebu Pacific is having a seat sale last November, we took the opportunity and automatically booked a flight to Vietnam in February, which just cost about P4.5K. Cheap flight to Vietnam, checked!

My college friends made a pact that we should take turns organizing our trips, but one way or another, I always end up as being the travel organizer. As I had no choice, I had to plan our itinerary for the trip. First thing first, I had to find out  how to get to Cambodia from Vietnam. We had to options, either travel by bus or by plane. I checked both Vietnam Airlines and Jetstar, but found that there is no cheap Cambodia flights. The flight costs about P13K, which beats the purpose of booking a cheap flight to Vietnam. 

Checking the second option, I found out that it would take about 13 hours to get to Siem Reap. But stupid us, we didn't realize that we only had 3 days of travel when we booked our flights to Vietnam. We thought we had four days of travel, but when we double-checked our flights, we realized we only had 3 days of travel, as the flights were on the wee hours of the night. Hmmm, the cons of being random. 

After asking my friends and giving up of finding a cheap flight to Cambodia, we decided to just visit Vietnam. George said he wanted to visit Hanoi, and go to Ha Long Bay. And so again, I search on how to get to Hanoi from Ho Chi Minh. We had 3 options, either by bus, train or by plane. Again, the bus or train route is not a good option, as it would take about 6-7 hours. The plane ticket would cost about P5K-P6K.On top of that, we had to find a Ha Long Bay cruise.  Again, had to give up  Ha Long Bay trip due to time and budget constraint.

Having gone to Vietnam already, I had to find a different tour from the one I had the first time I went there. Good thing Maan, my officemate, gave me her itinerary when she went to Vietnam. I booked the Half-day Cu Chi Tunnel tour from the Sinh Tour travel agent. Sinh Tour is one of popular cheap travel agents in Vietnam, formerly known at Sinh Café.  They also offer tours to Cambodia, Thailand and other neighboring countries.

I also found one of the cheap Vietnam hotels, Madam Cuc, which is really more of a guesthouse for backpackers. Their rates are really cheap, at $32/night for a room good for four. Their location is also very strategic, situated at Pham Ngu Lao area,  which is the district for backpackers, with other neighboring cheap hotels and guesthouses, and near local markets and malls.

So we have a place to sleep in, and an activity for our day 1. I decided not to book a Ho Chi Minh city tour, and thought that we could just roam around the city on our own. So our day 1 would consists of the Cu Chi Tunnel tour in the morning, and our own city tour in the afternoon. Now, I had to find what we can do for the next couple of days. Being a beach bum, and the summer season just a couple of months way, I decided to look for the closest beach from Ho Chi Minh. After the surfing the net, I found Mui Ne beach in Binh Thuan which is about four hours away  from Ho Chi Minh. It's suppose to be the destination choice for adventurers who like to wind surf, kite surf and just plain surfing.

 I found that Sinh Tour travel also offers bus from Ho Chi Minh to Mui Ne which just cost about $12 per person for a round trip, so naturally I booked that. Now, a place to stay in Mui Ne beach. I found the official site for Mui Ne travel, which is very useful as it already provides accommodation per category, from five star hotels to cheap inns and guesthouses. Of course, I opt for the cheap hotels and guesthouses. Skimming through the different options, I found Mai Am guesthouse to be the best option, as it is the only one who has a website amongst the different cheap hotels and guesthouses listed. I've booked 2 rooms for us, for just $25/per room for a night.

At last, our itinerary is complete! We have a flight, accommodations and tour, all within our budget.