Saturday March 26th 2011-Hong Kongien experience

Hong Kong! Currency exchange $1US=$8 Hong Kong Dollars(HKD) Probly the most impressive city I have ever seen in my life.  We pulled into port on a foggy morning after 2 rough days at sea.  Friday morning may have been the rockiest the ship has been throughout the entire voyage.  Many people puking on the ship.  I gave a presentation with two partners in International Marketing about a non-alcoholic beverage and how I would market it in Vietnam.  We started to prepare our presentation just hours before class and finished about 5 minutes before we delivered it.  Brian froze during it and I had to step up and say his part.  He was extremely rattled and Joe and I have made fun of him for a few days since then.  Boring story but it was funny. 
Anyways so we pulled in on a foggy morning as the skyscrapers seemed to appear out of nowhere.  It really is an amazing port to pull into because it is almost like you go through a gauntlet in between these towering buildings.  The river goes directly between Hong Kong Island(central) and the mainland.  The Semester at Sea put us in was great because there was so much to do right around us.  You get off and have the ferry for just $2(their money even though it looks like USD) which will take you over to Hong Kong Island.  Unfortunatly because of the bad weather we were not able to get docked and off of the ship until nearly 11 so we headed straight to a restaurant in Central to get lunch.  I personally wanted to eat at a small local place which most likely would have great local food.  It’s my first time in China so I want to try all the local foods that I can, and if there is one thing I learned from this trip around the world, it is that the sketchier looking the food joint, the better the food.  Some of the places I have got food from at all hours of the night make Pinones in San Juan look like Salvatore’s.  Seriously, Vietnam was the worst….so much late night Pho and I had no idea what kind of meats they were chopping up and putting in.  Anyways, because we were with girls they of course wanted to eat at the really nice looking restaurant across the street.  Long story short I ended up paying $160($20) for one of the worst meals I have had this trip.  I made a vow to myself that for the rest of the trip I eat when I want where I want no matter what pressure there is to eat with people.  Only doing this trip once.  Start doing what I want.

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011- Last day in Vietnam?sad

The last day in Nam did not consist of doing very much.  We were going to go see the Chu Chi tunnels but I heard it was far and not that great of a trip.  Although looking back I wish I could have done it.  We went to a Vietnam history museum for a few minutes before hopping back on motorcycles and going to pick up our tailored suits.  I ended up paying $90US for pants and a jacket fully tailored after he measured me the first day in Vietnam.  Aaron got just a jacket and Drew had Cambodia the first day so was not able to get one made.  He did however pay $50 for the sample jacket which fit him pretty perfectly.  When he got it in his room he noticed all the sweat stains and gross stuff on it.  Probly not his smartest SAS purchase.  We ate a lot of Pho and bought a lot of dumb junk that day.  I made sure to pick myself up one of those masks which Asian people wear in every country.  Mine is Hello Kitty and really cool.  Drew was jealous so I bought him a Scooby Doo one.  Aaron and I got great shirts from one of the places we stopped, mine being a purple button down with chrome buckles and other things on it.  I made sure to not button it up for the motorcycle ride.  Pictures to follow.  We made a lot of Pho jokes…as in when I asked if Sarah would take my Pho-to…no one will laugh at that but I will later when I read this.  Phorase? Haha funny.  Some how what do you know everybody ended up at the bar right next to our ship at the end of the day.  Surprise surprise.  Dock time for some people…and it was pouring rain.
Wish I had more time in Vietnam… One of those ports where I easily could have spent over a week straight.  Just one more place for me to return to when I am older I guess.  Onnnnnn to China

Tuesday March 22nd 2011-Ankor What??? And some ?nam

Sunrise at Ankor Wat was pretty cool to see.  Exploring the actual temple was even better.  It was amazing to think that this huge temple was lost in jungle for hundreds of years.  The thing was enormous. We spent a few hours there just wandering all of the rooms in the place.  The cool thing about being able to see this is that apparently in a few years people will not be able to wander around it anymore…Because it is not in great condition they are going to close it down to the public to preserve it.  After visiting the main temple at Ankor Wat, we were dragged off to another temple.  A few of us in the group had read about the Tomb Raider Temple which has been untouched since found, and wanted to go see that but unfortunately the Semester At Sea trip was on a schedule and could not just change it even though the majority of the group wanted to go see it.  That kids annoying mother threw a fit at the leader of our trip who told her she is free to do what she wants.  That’s the good thing with Semester at Sea trips is that at any time you can just sign out and go do your own thing, as long as you’re on time for planes and trains then you will be fine.  He told the woman that time was short but she is free to go do what she wants.  She could not comprehend the fact that both busses had to go with the original schedule.  It turned into her and her son and daughter (who came along with her) complaining about waiting around a lot on this trip…which I did not agree with.  For a SAS trip, this was run very fast and smoothly.  So she complained that we could not go to the Tomb Raider Temple, even though she was free to do so alone, as long as she was on time back to the hotel for the flight.  I could not even listen to her bitch at our nice trip leader anymore so me and a few girls on the trip hopped in a rickshaw and started to head off to the Tomb Raider Temple independently.  When the mother saw this she ran over to us to ask if we could all go as a group.  I was thrilled to tell her “no, we cannot, we are going alone.”  That’s it.  It felt great to simply deny her but we were already pressed for time and there was no way I was waiting around for some old lady. 
Looking back I am so happy we went to this other temple.  It was apparently what the Ankor Wat temple looked like before they cleared it all out so it was nice to see something so untouched.  There were 500 year old trees growing right through the brick of it, roots much bigger than myself crawling up the walls of the temple.  Once again I had the opportunity to grab some great pictures of myself next to the roots.
The weird thing about these temples is how you can walk around anywhere in them with no restrictions.  There were points when I was walking through the temple that I felt I was the first to ever walk through there.  Climbing through dark crevices over fallen ruins where nobody else was at the time felt so weird.  It is something that would never happen in the United States, or any other countries for that matter.
I felt like we were a little rushed for time at the end and we had no idea where we were.  We stressed out for the entire rickshaw ride back because we had a lot on the line.  They would leave us in Cambodia if it came down to it and we would have been in big trouble.  Luckily after stressing for so long we made it back to the hotel even before the other group.  I made sure to flaunt my pictures in front of the woman and told her how much they missed out by not going to the other temple.  I had her real rattled. 
After a much delayed plane and cockroaches on the airport floor, we made it back to the ship where I slept for a few hours before going out for the night.  Aaron, Drew and I asked to go to Buffalo Bar but the motorcycle driver had no clue what we were talking about…we told him to drive until we saw something.  When we saw a corner with a few bars and a lot of people on it, we told him to stop.  Sure enough we were right in front of Buffalo Bar.  After a new I Pho t-shirt, some beef Pho, and inflatable swords we paid some motorcycle drivers to just go around for the rest of the night.  I can’t do these nightclubs every night like everybody else on SAS.  I would rather drive around on the back of a motorcycle all night and look around the city for interesting things.  I lost a nice Izod polo because I put my Ipho shirt on and forgot my polo on the motorcycle. I was pissed but the $2 t-shirt was pretty cool so it was a good trade.  Aaron and I got some more pho of course and then headed back to the ship.  It was a long night of doing nothing but it was perfectly enjoyable.

Monday March 21st 2011-Arrival in Siem Reap

After the market we took a quick flight to Siem Reap where we only had time for dinner that night.  Dinner was at a show where we watched a traditional Cambodian story of love being told.  It was mediocre as was dinner.
The hotel once again was beautiful but unfortunately my roommate wanted to stay in my room this time…I guess I can live with that.
After dinner we took a few rickshaws to a bar district called Pub Street.  Sarah Larocca was telling me how she read about a bar called Ankor What? A play on the temple name Ankor Wat in Siem Reap.  Right as she was telling me all she wanted was a t-shirt from that bar, we looked to our right and saw it.  We had no idea it was down there…pretty weird.
Went inside and got free t-shirts, met an Australian guy who stayed on Hertel Ave. in Buffalo all summer and wrote out a note from SAS 2011 on the wall of the restaurant.  Afterwards we all had a few drinks in us and decided to get fish pedicures.  It was so hard to keep your feet in this tank of a few hundred little fish.  It tickled so much that it was hard to keep them in over 10 seconds.  At first I hated it but eventually got used to it.  It was really funny to watch about 15 of us around the tank all yelling at how weird it felt on our feet.  If you ever get the opportunity to do it you must because it is such a funny experience with those fish nipping the dead skin off of your feet.  The whole experience lasted about 20 minutes and cost me $3 with a free beer. Not a bad deal.  Once again, even the bars sold pitchers of beer for $2…Cambodia…cheapest place ever.  I had a delicious noodle meal alone at a restaurant before returning the hotel where I did not go to sleep.  I skyped my parents and Kelsey all night until about 5am when people started to come downstairs to go to the sunrise at Ankor Wat.

Monday March 21st 2011-Phnom Penh Second Day

So I learned a lot today.  I know it’s a shame but I can’t remember what I did this morning.  Ate breakfast and then went somewhere…not very important clearly.  After we did that though we were able to do what I came to Cambodia for, to experience the killing fields and learn about the history of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge rule over Cambodia.  We started by going to Tuol Sleng which was the former high school turned prison where over 20,000 Cambodians were killed by torturing and execution.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuol_Sleng_Genocide_Museum is the link for people who want to read about it.  I was able to go into the cells and see the beds where the people were actually chained to.  It was a very sobering experience to walk around the prison and see not only the tiny cells where they were forced to live but the specific items and ways they were used to kill and torture people.  Much of the museum was just filled with pictures of faces simply to get a feel of truly how many people were killed in the little courtyard right outside.  The Khmer Rouge trained young boys to abandon their families and in some cases they even had to capture and torture their own families.  Our tour guide was completely emotionless throughout the tour and even spoke of how his mother was killed at this very prison.  He told us how the Khmer Rouge ripped off all of her finger and toe nails to drain her blood and then injected her with water to kill her.  He told us that she still was not completely dead when they buried her alive.  The thing that is amazing about this whole genocide is how recent it was.  Only 30 years ago arguably 2.5-3 million Cambodians were killed in the genocide.  It seems as though everybody in the town had connections to the killings as well.  Our bartender the night before at the hotel told us how he was able to flee and 36 of his family members were killed by the Khmer Rouge.  Truly amazing.
After this we had the opportunity to go over to the Killing fields which were used simply as execution sites and large graveyards.  It is amazing that this whole area was kept as a secret from people living so close.  They would bring people here to kill them in a variety of different ways.  Children were killed by smashing their heads against a specific tree to prevent them from growing up and taking revenge for their parent’s deaths.  People were forced to dig their own graves and then buried alive.  The Khmer Rouge would poor chemicals over the bodies to both eliminate the stench of hundreds of bodies as well as kill off the people who were still living in the piles.  A sign read about where something called “the detention” was located.  Since the killing fields were used simply as a place to kill people, nobody actually lived there, but there was a point during the genocide where too many people were being shipped in to even kill in a day.  They were kept in a detention overnight until the Khmer Rouge got to them.  They were killing over 300 people a day…so many that they could not even keep up with killing them all.  How terrible is that, and to think it was not that long ago.  It was really bizarre being somewhere where something like this happened because as you are walking through you can literally see bone and clothing still sticking out of the ground.  Almost like it is untouched.  They had a memorial in the middle which consisted of over 600 skulls and loads of clothing from people recovered in the mass graves.  It was weird that it was wide open, if I had wanted I could have picked up one of the skulls.  The story of Pol Pot(which literally stands for Political Potential) is fascinating and one which you should read about it if you don’t know already.  What is shocking to me is the fact that we are not taught about this in school.  It may have been mentioned but not like we talked about the Holocaust.  Nearly 3 million people were killed and in American schooling you don’t even realize this happened just 30 years ago.
After we were finished we ate lunch at a similar place in which we ate dinner the night before…it was delicious and afterwards we were able to walk around this market in the center of town.  Before we went in our trip leader who had been to Cambodia many times told us that it was one of the best markets he had been in around the world.  Hailey and I rushed through lunch and ran over to it.  He was so right.  To date, and I have already been to China, Cambodia had the cheapest items I have seen in the entire world.  Shirts, shorts, knick knacks, crappy souvenirs, North Face’s, fruit and other food….anything you wanted for very cheap.  I got 3 t-shirts and a pair of shorts for $5 at one place.  I loved that market and would love to go back to go Halloween shopping.  They had some pretty terrible looking stuff. 
Oh I remember what we did that morning.  Went to the king’s old palace.  It was huge and pretty spectacular but again, I have realized I much more like spending time learning about and being immersed in the culture than seeing the typical tourist stuff.  I have pictures for that. 

Sunday March 20th 2011, Cambodiarrr

Even though I got back late the night before, and my trip did not leave until 1130, I got up very early the next morning.  Half because I was so excited for my Cambodia trip and half because I was so afraid I would oversleep my alarm and miss it entirely.  I got up at about 0700, and off the ship to find a flag.  I had a motorcycle driver take me to a local market where we were literally walking the bike through a crowd of people.  It was a little uncomfortable but a really cool experience.  A sunny warm early morning and all the Vietnamese people were out getting their fresh produce and meat.  I think it is funny how people in Vietnam wear those round pointy on top hats…not sure why I think it’s funny.  Maybe because it is precisely how I pictured Vietnam to be.  Every other port for the most part has been so different from what I pictured so when I actually see something I correctly predicted it seems weird to me.  After I found a Vietnam flag for my collection in the market I had my driver take me back to the ship.  We left for Cambodia right around 1130.  Phnom Penh group B was chosen as the trip for people whose parents came to visit them.  I was in group B as well.  Mom and dad apparently did not get the memo and I was one of 2 kids on the 50 person trip whose parents were not there (sad face). 
I met this woman on the bus on the way to the airport who was this kid on SAS’s mother.  I forget her son’s name,  he was a little bit different and of course ended up being my roommate.  Thankfully he slept on the floor of his parents room and I get our big ass hotel room to myself, this seems to be a theme I have had on SAS trips.  Anyways the woman got to talking about where we were from and just had nothing positive to say about me being from Buffalo.  She was about 60 years old but I almost smacked her.  What jobs are available there? What’s going on downtown? She did not get the fact that I lived in a suburb.  And she is from Pittsburgh… in my opinion the darkest gloomiest winter in the United States more so than Buffalo.  I’m not one to necessarily defend the city of Buffalo because I know it’s not the best city, but seriously.  It’s okay I owned her later in the trip. 
The flight to Phnom Penh was pretty short and soon enough we were on a bus going to our first stop which was an art museum.   Although impressive…not really my thing so I walked over to a bunch of kids playing soccer with some ball and watched them for a while before getting on the bus.  We then had a boat tour of the Mekong River Delta before going to eat dinner.  Authentic Cambodian food is pretty good.  We ate at a restaurant which had dish’s that everybody shared.  That’s called Tapas right?  Yeah we had some Cambotapas.  The skinny kid across from me grabbed every dish first and made sure to take enough so that everyone else had to split a lot less. 
After dinner we had the opportunity to do one of the most exciting things I did in Vietnam/Cambodia.  We went to an orphanage called Palm Tree Orphanage which was started by a former SASer.  All the kids there were so cute and excited to see us and they each chose one of us as soon as we walked in, grabbed our hand and pulled us around to show us everything.  I was able to meet an amazing 19 year old girl named Chealode.  She showed me around for the short 40 minutes that we were there and told me about her days and what she does.  I was able to hand out around 30 wristbands at the orphanage, which is the reason I actually brought them in the first place.  Unlike in India, these kids were so happy and appreciative of us being there.  They simply wanted to sit down and spend time with us and it is a shame that SAS gave us so little time to spend there.  The kids ranged in ages of babies all the way up to 21 years old.  Pretty amazing considering there were about 64 kids living there and they were all able to look over each other almost like a family.  Unfortunately we had to leave too quickly and I said goodbye to Chealode and all the other kids.
That night was pretty slow.  We got to our hotel which turned out to be beautiful as usual for SAS trips(and even more beautiful when I learned about my room by myself) and sat with Rikki and her parents(who went to UB funny enough) at the hotel bar.  They bought her, a kid named Andrew and myself a drink called “Around the World” which seemed appropriate.  Corny picture followed.  Afterwards Andrew and I walked down a sketchy ally and found a Karaoke bar and then a different club.  I ate so much street Pho that night?  Have I written about pho yet?  I don’t know why I asked because clearly no one is going to answer. But it is a very popular noodle soup, of which I had 3 bowls that night.  Andrew told me a really messed up story about how some crazy girl on the ship accused him of rape and simply lied about it.  Andrew is now gone and everyone hates this girl.  I wont go into details on my blog but that is a scary situation for him because it is the type of thing which can follow him home…and it is a lie on top of it…crazy.

Saturday March 19, 2011-When I was in Nam

After only a few days at sea we are already here in Vietnam.  I woke up to the Mekong Delta which reminds me a lot of the Amazon River.  Not very clean and little towns on either side.  This is the port where the parents were visiting the students, and Semester at Sea chose a great port to do so.  Matt was going off with Kim on a tour, Drew was going to Cambodia, and Charlie was going off with his parents for that first day so it was just Aaron and I.  First thing we did was hop on motorcycles and head to Ben Thanh Market.  It was a huge marketplace where you could buy all sorts of clothing, food, essentials, souvenirs or pretty much anything else you could think of.  The thing was is that everything did not seem as cheap as I thought it would be.  Although the prices were some of the lowest which I have seen on the trip, they were still not as low as I pictured them in my mind.  Aaron and I hopped back on a motorcycle and had them drive us to a place to get custom suits made.  We got measured up and paid $100 apiece for a jacket and pants custom made… not too bad.  Ohhh yeah and the currency exchange is $1=20,000 dong.  Really stupid I know but my suit cost me 2,000,000… how baller is that.  After that Aaron and I paid our motorcycle drivers to simply ride around…The best way to see any city is to rent a rickshaw or motorcycle and just drive around until you see something you want to stop at.  We ate so much the first day.  Over the course of the week I ate ridiculous amounts of pho which is a popular noodle soup with beef, pork, chicken or any other meat you wanted.  You could go to any road side stand and order it for just a dollar or even under, and was amazing. 
Not really that much happened the first day except for buying a bunch of crap and seeing the whole city.  Towards nighttime, I saw a restaurant which was very busy and Aaron and I decided to stop and eat there.  It was an outdoor type deal with over a hundred people sitting and eating.  We received the menu to find it all in Vietnamese and no idea what items were.  Not only that but this was the longest menu I had ever seen so we had no idea what to order.  I had a list of notes that I had taken from preport the night before with simple food words so I could know basically if it were a seafood or beef meal.  A lot of dog is even served in Vietnam and although we looked for some over the course of the week, we did not have luck finding any.  I thought it might be a cool thing to say I have tried before…maybe in China.  Anyways we ate some sketchy little hard boiled eggs that had more of a fetus inside than a cooked egg.  Something was not right about it but we had a few beers and did not care.  The rest of the meal besides the eggs was great and after that we headed back to the ship. 
After a quick change, we headed off to the wedding of Adam on the ship.  He legitimately had a wedding and a reception that people were invited to.  All you can drink on the top floor of some hotel.  It was pretty awesome but the weird thing was that no one even thought twice about the fact that he and a girl he had just met on the ship got married.  Oh well not my problem.  I had a bunch of drinks with Charlie’s parents who also attended.  Mrs. Demar brought me a bottle of Frank’s hot sauce which I requested and I thanked her so much for it.  Mr. Demar asked me if I like Tobasco and I told him how I did not like it at all.  He called me a pussy and asked if I also did not like girls.  I put my head down and walked away in shame.
After that we went to this Apocalypse now place.  It was kinda stupid and I was looking forward too much to Cambodia in the morning.  Drunk moto ride back to the ship.