orphanage

so mom, you mentioned that they call Saigon, Ho Chi Minh now. Well they do but they also still call it Saigon. They use Saigon more. If you buy a bus ticket your destination is Saigon.
Matt, I didn't run into your friend's friend in Cambodia but it would not have been strange. Most travelers are in the same area's and we tend to run into the same people all of the time. We probably crossed paths.

Cambodia was great but we are happy to be in Vietnam. We are not sure how other travelers felt but we were very sad for the people of Cambodia. After all their country has gone through it is no surprise they are in the state they are. It was easy in the tourist areas to forget exactly how poor the country is. So many very young children on the streets trying to sell books and other things.

Our last day we thought we would visit an orphanage and bring food or something to donate. We spoke with someone at our guest house about going to one that they donate 10% of all profits to. It would cost $5 for the ride and he would stop at a market on the way and we could buy some rice to donate. It didn't go so well...
When we got to the market he turned to us and asked, how many bags one or two? We asked how much and he told us $30 for one bag of "good" rice. He was telling us that there was good rice and bad rice. There probably is to some degree but of course most tourists are not going to buy bad rice for children in an orphanage. We thought $30 was more than the rice should cost and he didn't tell us beforehand how much it was going to cost. We didn't know what to do at first so we told him that we just could not pay that so we had him bring us back and we paid him the $5 for the ride. When we have him the $5 he just ran away. We realized this was a scam and started becoming very angry when we looked at the situation in retrospect. He should have let us go into the market to buy it ourselves. We realized how stupid we were for not saying something to him when he tried to charge us $30. We wondered why we didn't question him more. Jose and I were talking about how we come from worlds in which we trust people to tell us the truth, especially when it comes to helping out children. We would not have thought that we were being cheated at home. We don't want to sound cheap either, $30 in our country's is nothing to help feed children but the situation didn't seem right.
Jose and I decided to walk back to the market. I was sure there was no way that those bags of rice were $30. It was a market full of rice stalls so we walked around questioning every one of them. The prices they gave us ranged from $10-$20, and they were not giving us "good" and "bad" rice prices. We were just pointing at different size bags. Also, we know that all the prices they were giving us were marked up to begin with. We don't exactly blend in with the locals. Everyone assumes that westerners have money so we are sure that they were marking up the prices for us. This made us pretty mad... I hope this doesn't make us sound bad... I think you need to be in the situation and feel exactly what they are doing and then you just can not help but get mad.

We had been cheated over and over in Cambodia and just dealt with it. You have to. I guess it's part of traveling there. There is a huge difference between the Cambodians and Thai and Vietnamese. There is much less order in their country and you see more anger or something. They were much more aggressive when bargaining. This is very difficult for me to explain because it was an overall feeling of everywhere we went. I don't want anyone to get me wrong though, the people were kind there also, just very different. Their situation is so much worse off than their surrounding countries and it shows.

I had to explain this to help understand their behavior but I don't think it makes it right.

So, we went back to confront the guy that drove us to buy rice. He understood that we were not happy with him but it was difficult to really express to him how wrong he was. We told him we went back to the market to ask about the rice prices and he was trying to tell us that those prices were the "bad" rice prices. Well, we realized we could not get anywhere trying to talk with him, but we were glad that we at least tried to say something.

He could cheat us all day long and every other tourist there. That we did not care about. That is just a customer agreeing to prices they are given. It may not be ethical business but if we agree to pay, that is our choice. But the kids in that country are not in good shape and they do not have a choice and their own people are not helping.

We realized this even more later...
We were walking down the street and Jose found a store that had some information on the wall about visiting different orphanages around the area. We were leaving the next day and would not be able to try again but I thought I could at least go in and question someone about it and see what kind of information they had.
There was a young guy from Israel working at the desk and after talking with him we were left with a feeling of hopelessness for the children.
I asked how much it was to go to an orphanage and he looked at me in a strange way and said, "there is no cost. you just show up at 6pm and we take you there". Wow did I feel angry. Of course we shouldn't pay to go to an orphanage to help children. I told him what happened to us and he was disappointed but told me that it is a huge problem there. He said that he has been living in Cambodia for one year and that the orphanages are just a huge business. He could yet could not believe that our driver tried to make us pay $30 for a bag of rice. He said it was good that we did not pay it. That the rice probably would not have made it to the children. It usually goes right back out the door to be sold in the market again. Also that many visitors donate clothing, tooth brushes, books etc. and most of it never goes to the kids. Just back to the street to be sold.
His organization brings foreigners to the kids to play games and teach them. It does not advise donations. Sad, really sad that being in the country and personally delivering items probably will not even help.

The idea does not sound kind but I think they need to have the source of profit cut off... no more material donations from those who think they are helping (countries or individuals). It's just causing a bigger problem.

Sorry for the long blog if you made it this far! This is for me to remember too.

So, after Cambodia, Vietnam has been a dream! Ho Chi Min is a great city. I can not believe how many people are living here (8 million). The streets are a constant river of motor bikes. Our pictures just can not show it. Crossing the street has been challenging but we are catching on.

Today we went to the Cu Chi tunnels about 2 hours outside of Saigon. Used by the Viet Cong. That was quite an experience. We got to crawl through a portion of the tunnels in two different locations. Very claustrophobic and intense. One of the tunnels has actually been widened to allow passage for the fuller framed westerners. It didn't feel so wide to me. Myself and one other guy in our tour went through one that everyone else opted out of. It was a bit more narrow and darker. Very... I don't know, strange I guess.

Tomorrow we are going to the Mekong Delta for one night two days. Joanne, it's not far from where your friends brother is but I don't think it will work out to get together with him. We decided to get a tour to the area and we were not planning on too much time in the south. Tell them thank you!

Hope everyone is doing well!