Video produced/edited by Lev & Tamara

Hello, my people!

The day began with us waking up at 6:50 am; I was still very tired and slept for a couple more minutes until Xavier woke me up again. We packed and got ready instantly after we woke up because we hadn’t enough time. Also, we ate stuff that we bought from mini-mart yesterday for breakfast. My breakfast was okay, I ate lemon muffins stuffed with marshmallows (I think) since I don’t know the Vietnamese language, and I drank Sting energy drink with strawberry flavor; it was way too sweet that I didn’t want to drink the whole thing. I ate 5 lemon muffins and gave one to Theo because he wanted to taste it, and I drank half of Sting energy drink and saved it for later.

We rode for around 2 hours to Vinh Moc Tunnels from our hotel. Almost all of us went straight to the restroom, and it seemed like we had to pay to enter the restroom; I did it anyway because it was cheap. Anyway, we went to a small museum first and looked at pictures and items. One I found interesting was that they still had tutoring and classes in tunnels during the war, it’s crazy that they still have “school” going on even during the war and the bombs dropping. After looking around the museum, we exited and met a deaf survivor that was born during the wartime period; I was very surprised that we got to meet a deaf survivor at the right time and day, he was right there when we exited the museum, but I think he lives in around this location. He was happy to see us because he can relate to deaf people, and he gestured that he suffered hearing loss due to the bombs sent by USA. Also, he seems don’t know VSL since he was only gesturing the whole time. He led us to bomb craters, areas, and tunnels. The tunnels were so small for us, but not for that guy. We had to turn our heads down for almost the whole tunnel, but that guy didn’t even need to do anything and just walked straight up because he was short and small; I called that guy lucky because my neck was hurting for a while. After exploring, we thanked the guy because he gave his time giving a tour to us. Then we left the tunnel place and hopped in the van.

We went to DMZ (Demilitarized Zone), there were graveyards for Vietnam soldiers, statues to honor local heroes, and a bridge with a line in the middle that shows the north and south sides. We were at the bridge mostly, we were vlogging, taking pictures, and somehow having fun with crossing the line. An unexpected thing happened: one group came excited and wanted group pictures with us, and then they wanted to take pictures with Savannah alone; I’m assuming that is because she is pale, and Vietnamese people see pale as so beautiful. We quickly left before more people came and took more pictures. We didn’t see a graveyard since we couldn’t find them, and the statue was pretty huge. Then, we were done with this place and went inside van.

We went to a city and decided to eat at the Highland coffee shop. I brought a large cookie & cream freezer and 2 banh mi with chicken and cheese. I kept ordering that same thing each time I go to Highland Coffee because they are so delicious, and they make me full enough for just around $4 (105,000 VND, to be exact). Some of us went around the block for ice cream, and I didn’t go there because I was already full and i wasn’t in the mood for ice cream at the time. We were done with eating and drinking then got in van.

We rode for around 1 hour and a half to the airport. We had to act like we were hearing and didn’t sign at all until we got our tickets; it was challenging for me because I did want to talk badly from time to time, but I couldn’t. Why we did this because of the last problem we had at an airport; Vietnam still considers deaf a serious disability and thinks we need someone who is hearing to help us to get to the gate. Anyway, we got our tickets just fine and got past the security check, and we waited 5 hours for our flight. We came here early because we had nothing else to do in here anymore. The 5 hours of waiting was so forever that we had to kill time by catching up on our tasks, eating dinner, shopping, and taking a nap. 5 hours were over and we were about to go to our gate and the worker came to us and she said that we needed someone to lead us to inside of the plane. We just got along with it and went inside the plane because we didn’t want more problems. The flight was about 1 hour and we landed in Hanoi.

We rode in the same kind of van that we were riding in before, but we had no guide tourist with us for today, so there were enough seats for everyone. It was around 45 minutes before we arrived at the alley where our Airbnb is located. It was a dark and creepy alley and kind of maze, and instructions were pretty unclear on how to find it. We finally found it a while later and got our rooms, the Airbnb had 5 floors, and the rooms looked nice and had “ancient” decorations. 

Anyway, that’s all for today!

Good night,

Dylan