Monday morning in Saigon

Today was our day to do whatever our whims demanded.  First order of business, sleep in.  After a long day yesterday, it was important to catch up on sleep.  Somnambulism in Vietnam would not be a good idea with all the vicious traffic that clogs the streets.  We spent the morning resting and thinking about what we were going to do with our day, but mid-morning we were contacted by APU and we decided to head over there to meet and greet and to potentially explore the area.  APU is located in District 11 of HCMC (pull up a map of Ho Chi Minh City if you want to know what I am referring to) and is a 6-12 grade school that is working to provide an American high school experience and to help students transition well into American universities.  RWU works heavily with them as well as several community colleges across the United States to get their students into universities that will provide degrees that are desirable to corporations.  Southeast Asian universities are not well received (regardless of whether or not they actually provide a good education or not) in the rest of the world, whereas American degrees are universally respected.  It is strange to be a citizen of a country that has such a dichotomous world reputation.  Opps!  Did a little political commentary just slip out?  Regardless of my leftist bent, APU, or American Pacific University, is the only school in Vietnam that can fly the United States flag, as they are the only one to be owned completely by US interests and teach classes that follow American academic standards.  In a nutshell, APU is a private school that cost parents a pretty penny, but increases their kid’s life chances.  A pretty common story actually.  I know of at least one person going to college with just those goals in mind (me).  All the students are have passable if not proficient English skills and their mostly American professors expect a lot out of them. 

After meeting several of the fine staff at APU, whose names shall be protected in order to not incriminate them, we headed to Ben Thanh market to get ripped off.  While we did have a member of the staff there as a guide and interpreter (the locals know enough English to haggle, but it was nice to have someone there to help get the prices down) we were taken for all that we were worth.  Here we are, thinking we are so cool for knocking 30k VND off of an item that they were selling for 150k VND and it is only probably worth 5k VND, and that is a generous estimate.  While the locals are happily taking our money, we can smile and grin as well because the exchange rate is absolutely amazing.  Depending on where you go you can get 15.9k VND to one USD.  Seriously, I have spent less money here in Vietnam then I would have at home for my routine expenses.  Vacationing in the center of a bustling city complete with tourist expenses is turning out to be less costly then just buying food and gas at home.  Remember when I was talking about how great the food is here?  Well the food is great and it is cheap.  Four star, multiple course, suit and tie meals translate into ten to fifteen USD per person.  If you just want to grab a bowl of pho for lunch and an iced coffee to go, that will run you about two or three USD total.  With an American income and Vietnamese expenses, one could live like a king, private army and all. 

Money taken, we had another Amazing dinner like the night before a la APU, this one was of Central cuisine.  A little weird, and I much prefer Southern food (more flavor and less strange meats that I have to avoid), but it was still a good meal and I am looking forward to the Northern meal that we should be getting to round out our experience.  I hear that they have farm rat up there.  And cat.  Sometimes porcupine.  Occasionally bat, but that is harder to get then dog.  The south has the strange fish and assorted river creatures, but the north eats all the funky mammals.  After dinner, we headed to a bar owned by a teacher at APU (can’t tell you who, just in case his/her students are reading!) called Polo Bar in district 1.  It was defiantly a foreigner bar (the term for whites of all kinds and basically anything non-Vietnamese) but the beer was good, the bar girls were politely not in your face, the other APU staff that came out with us were awesome.  We didn’t stay long, but long enough to know that I never want to go out on the town with my RWU professors.  If you hang out with them, then you might learn that they are human beings with lives and personalities outside of the teaching role!  Oh the humanity!  Well, beer, food and a long day are all launching an assault on my current awake state.  Sleep and another day in Vietnam beckon.