Vietnam: Playing Chicken in the Saigon River

One day, Taylor and I decided to do homework in a hallway on deck 7 since the front was closed due to high winds. Dean Nick came by and made a joke about his fan club always hanging out outside his door. He ended up showing us his massive suite and the view from his balcony. During our conversation he told us his memory of pulling into Ho Chi Minh City port from the last time he was on Semester At Sea. I have found that each professor, staff, crew, or faculty member who has sailed before has a different favorite port. And before each port I think, ‘Nope. No way. I am sleeping in because ____ said the last port was the prettiest.’ But sure enough like the ship will surely dock, I will surely find myself convinced that the next port will be breathtaking.

Docking in Cape Town is still a blazing image branded on my mind: the sun rising over Table Top Mountain with a sprawling metropolitan city along its base. Docking in Spain is like the memory of a first love- after my first eight days on the ship with nothing by sea around me, the sight of shore from the top deck was miraculous. Each port has that first impression image of beauty. But docking in Ho Chi Minh City was my favorite so far because docking here was an Experience.
To get to the city we had to wind our big home down the Saigon River for three hours. To give an idea of how wide it was: not only could we see both sides, but if I were to shout out to someone standing on the river banks they would definitely hear me and I could probably have heard them if the Captain wasn’t blowing the startlingly loud horn at the time. Seeing a country by bus window is one thing, seeing it from a ship is another. We could see little huts along the river. We could see lines of fishing boats tied up waiting for low tide. We called out to fishermen as they floated by. We placed bets on games of chicken with other boats. It was awesome.

That was all I saw of Vietnam for a while because once we were docked I was off to Cambodia.