Conclusion to My Blog

Hello everyone. I know it has been a very long time since I last wrote my blog and I thought I should provide a wrap-up for the semester. I was unable to access my blog the last couple of weeks in Vietnam because of government censorship, which also often shut down facebook. Fortunately, I am now back in the US where there seems to be a bit more freedom of the internet.

The end of the semester was very fun and of course, a little sad. The last weekend before finals, Anna and I went to Loretofest. Loretofest is a music festival put on by RMIT, an Australian University and featured bands from Vietnam, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, and the American band, Ratatat. It was held in a big grassy area, quite a rarity in Ho Chi Minh City, so I was very excited to run around the lawn. The bands were really great and the highlight of my night was probably dancing with Pham Anh Khoa, the winner of Vietnam Idol and featured in Coca Cola advertisements all over Vietnam (and also Cambodia I discovered). We also got to see Ratatat front row, center.

The guy with is shirt off is Pham Anh Khoa, Winner of Vietnam Idol

Before we knew it, exams were over, final projects were turned in, and it was our last night of the program. For our farewell dinner, we went to a restaurant with our Vietnamese teachers and roommates, sang karaoke, and Anna and I played the flute.

After a visit from my dad, I flew to Hong Kong to meet with my mom for a vacation. After Vietnam, Hong Kong was a little bit of a shock. Although Ho Chi Minh City was very large, I was not prepared for the sky scrapers and shininess of Hong Kong. I kept telling my mom, "Wow, it's like a city of the future!" We took the ferry across the harbor, ate a lot of amazing dim sum, and met up with one of my mom's high school friends.

The Harbor
Night Skyline

After a few days in Hong Kong, my mom and I flew to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. The city reminded me a lot of Ho Chi Minh City with motorbikes whizzing by, lively outdoor markets, street vendors, and a river running through the city (though this river was much nicer than the Saigon River!). We went to the royal palace (or the small section that tourists are allowed to see), the genocide museum, and the killing fields of the Pol Pot regime. Cambodia was still very poor and under-developed and it was clear that the country had still not fully recovered from the relatively recent attrocities of the Year Zero campaign. However, there were certainly signs that the economy and tourist industry have improved greatly in recent years and I also saw evidence of numerous public work projects. It was interesting to compare Vietnam and Cambodia and the relative position on the trajectory of development for each. Vietnam seemed, understandably, more developed than Cambodia. It will be interesting to see if in 10 years, Camodia's development will be similar to Vietnam's today.

Phnom Penh's Royal Palace