China was fun; it was time for a change in scenery in Vietnam and Cambodia! We set sail from Hong Kong that night just as the light show had started, what a great way to remember China!? We arrived in Vietnam in a short two days and the boys and I had planned on getting custom tailored suits. Little did we know that TET was in full effect the day we got there and all of the shops were closed L. We had our eyes on one specific tailor; the shop was called Cao Minh, their tailors from Hoi Ann were the finest tailors in Ho Chi Minh so we had to check it out. We arrive at the shop and look inside and it literally looks like a shop you would see in London or the states! We saw the suits they had on the display models and the hype was building immensely! We started walking to the door and there it was, a massive “closed for TET” sign.
We looked for another tailor for hours but had no luck at all, finally we gave up and ended up finding a tailor. The girl that was showing us the fabrics was really cute, she knew English really well and also at the same time she was hitting on all of us like no joke. We picked out our fabrics and suit styles and slowly began getting measurements, we told her we needed the suits before we left Vietnam and she said they would be done, so we trusted her!!
Matt and I were headed to Cambodia the next day so we had just dedicated our focus on that, as pumped as we were, we couldn’t stop worrying about how our suits would turn out. We had invested so much time into these outfits it was hard not to think about them. We slowly decided that we would shift all of our attention to Cambodia and leave the tailoring to the tailors.
We left for Cambodia on bus and it literally took forever, matt and I had just decided to kick back and relax but that never happened. It started out with a speed boat trip to the cu chi tunnels where we saw what had happened during the Vietnam war and how it had affected both the Vietnamese and Americans as far as guerilla warfare. We saw traps that just made you cringe, knowing that people had stepped into these traps and suffered immensely made me realize how fortunate we were for living in the 21’st century!
Shortly after we got back on the bus and began our 8-hour trip to Phom Phen where the depressing part of the trip began! It was also valentines day, I had bought a card for a girl I'd give it to on the ship, It ended up winding into the hands of a very beautiful girl named Kayla Hauser! (White tank on the left) Im sure I've talked about her in the previous posts and she's in some of the pictures in the past blogs, along with this one as well. I know going to a killing field wasn't going to win her heart over but it was the thought that counts! It started out with going to the killing fields where thousands of kids, parents and elders were killed. Pol Pot, a communist leader who thought that killing the richest and smartest people would benefit him in becoming the next leader of Cambodia bashed kid’s heads into trees and wacked their parents with bamboo sticks until they died! We saw a stupa with 17,000 skulls that were excavated from the killing fields. People were killed because one man thought that if he got rid of the smart and rich people, he would be able to control the rest of the population.
After spending most of my Valentines Day there with Kayla (the killing fields were too depressing so we had valentines day in Singapore which will be in the next post) Still had a great time with tons of ice cream and a great card I gave her! We moved on to Siem Reap where we went to Ankgor wat (temple where mortal combat was filmed) and Tomh Prah (where tomb rader was filmed). We had a great time, had plenty of brewski’s with my bro’s and had a yoga session during sunset at Ankgor Wat, Good Times! We made our way back to Vietnam ready to get our suits and we found out that they weren’t ready!
After making it back to Vietnam, we spent most of the day messing around and walking to museums! I never knew how much the U.S. had screwed up in Vietnam, Agent Orange was the first time I became aware of what the U.S. had done in Vietnam and was ashamed of everything that had happened. After walking through the museum I felt as if Vietnamese people hated that we were in their country after everything that had happened between our two nations!
After a while it was just too depressing to keep looking at the photo’s, matt and I had decided to leave and make our way back to our tailors to pick up our suits! When we got their, our tailor told us that our pants weren’t ready! Our ship was leaving in an hour and half and we had nothing to take with us, Matt and I left and began walking towards Cao Minh!
Matt and I decided we weren’t going to waste anymore tine since our suits weren’t ready so we went back to Cao Minh, They were open this time around so we got measured and suited! Those new suits will be shipped to India and I have no regrets, although if they don’t fit, that would be a different story!
We made our way back to the ship, they bribed us to come back early with BBQ so Matt and I couldn’t resist after easting pasta, pork and potatoes for the last month. After making it back to the ship, we ate like pigs, the ribs, chicken and mac and cheese were absolutely amazing! Shortly after we set sail for Singapore and that was it! That was Vietnam and Cambodia In a nutshell!
Until next time!
-Raj Patel
