A Farewell to Ted, and We're Back in Saigon

Ted left last night from Hanoi, and Rachel, Jason, and I have returned to Ho Chi Minh City on a long, noisy two hour domestic flight. Our last day in Hanoi was as hot as all of the other days in the north. We woke up early to have breakfast before taking a taxi to view Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum, which is supposed to be free.

The Vietnamese take great pride in their “Uncle Ho,” who helped reunite them against the Americans and reunify the country into the communist, I mean “socialist” republic it is today. People from the countryside make the pilgrimage regularly. There are thousands of Vietnamese, and even a few tourists here and there, in a long line, winding around the streets. Luckily it moves continuously. Once you reach the front entrance, everyone is supposed to check their purses, bags, cameras, etc. There is counter for Vietnamese, though I think these rules weren’t really enforced with the locals. It is strictly enforced with the tourists; there is even a separate counter to leave behind all of your things. One woman at the counter tried to sell Jason brochures. He was confused and pointed to the sign that said the mausoleum and luggage/ bag check was free. She then proceeded to tell him that those were free, but he should buy the brochure. She seemed offended when he told her we didn’t want the brochures. But, we were in…

There are a lot of strict rules. For starters, there are armed guards in bright white attire everywhere watching the crowd. The public must follow a strict dress code, no shorts or short skirts and no tank tops. You aren’t allowed to take any pictures, talk, or even put your hands in your pocket. There can be no disrespect for Uncle Ho. After walking sometime on concrete, under blue tented walkways, we approached the rubbery red carpet that led up to the mausoleum. We were still moving at a pretty steady pace, and we finally entered. We continued around a couple corners and up a few steps until we had finally reached the room where his embalmed corpse lay in a glass box lit up in the center of the room. Uncle Ho is surrounded by 4 motionless bodyguards at all times. He looked almost too perfect with his wispy, white beard and arms crossed. Apparently his body is returned to Russia a few months each year for touch-ups, but there is also some discussion and doubt as to whether it is really him or some wax figure. The old, Vietnamese woman in front of me couldn’t get enough. She stopped dead in her tracks, staring at Ho Chi Minh. One of the guards on our level had to eventually shuffle her along in the line.

Upon leaving, we were ushered to a yellow house, fishing pond, the house on stilts that Ho Chi Minh supposedly spent some time in, and a one-column pagoda. This was free for all Vietnamese, but 10,000 dong (about 70 cents) for tourists. We were irritated to pay -- not because it was super expensive, but because the visit was supposed to be free. And we were getting nickel and dimed to continue the tour to get out. It was just another of many scams. After that we went into the Ho Chi Minh Museum, which was another 5,000 dong (about 35 cents). The museum was strange. It had more anti-American, pro-Communism sentiment, and weird lighting. There were some paintings of Ho Chi Minh on the wall, and Ted and I saw other old, Vietnamese ladies rubbing the hands and touching one of the paintings of Uncle Ho.

We spent the rest of the morning relaxing at the air-conditioned hotel before we had to check-out. After lunch, we did some shopping and met some of Rachel’s friends at a nearby café.

It’s nice to be back in Ho Chi Minh City. It’s been an exciting and tiring two weeks. We did a bit of American Idol karaoke on Playstation 2 last night, and I hope to return a bit to the spas. Tomorrow and Tuesday Jason and I will take some day trips if the weather holds up. It’s sunny today!

Friday Night in Hanoi...A True Cultural Experience!

Our last full day in Hanoi has come to an end. We met Rachel and Jason this morning in the hotel for breakfast before heading out for the day. Breakfast is included with our rooms, but seems rather unimpressive after 3 days of being spoiled on our cruise. Our first stop after breakfast was the Memorial House, which conveniently is located right next door to our hotel. The Memorial House is supposed to be a renovated traditional home used by merchants at the turn of the 20th century. You wouldn't know it though, because as soon as we paid our admission and moved past the French and Vietnamese informational posters, we were greeted by all of the trinkets for sale in each of the rooms of the house. A woman followed us from room to room trying to sell us the goods and occasionally pointing out the obvious, like "This is the bedroom." Our visit may of lasted 10 minutes, and when we left, we joked about how we were all swindled to pay to enter one of the many crap stores we could of visited on any of the other streets for free.

We headed for the lake that resides in the middle of the Old Quarter. This is where the famous red bridge is. Well I keep hearing the bridge referred to as the famous red bridge, but I've never seen it before. It didn't keep me from photographing it from every angle, though, as we approached it. We crossed the bridge and visited a temple on the other side. It was pretty unspectacular, though it had a nice central room with a big Buddha and other gold accessories. Around the side of the building, there was another room that housed a dead giant water turtle in a glass box. The turtles are rumored to be living in the lake and seem to be something like the local Loch Ness Monster.

Our next stop of the morning was the Hoa Lo Prison, which was originally built by the French and used to hold Vietnamese prisoners during their fight for independence. It's perhaps better known in the US as the prison used to hold all of the American POWs during the Vietnam War. The prison itself appears to be rather nice as far as prisons go, and touring it, you wonder how much of it has been cleaned up to be turned it into a museum. There was very little information posted about the structure as you moved from room to room, but they had the usual prison stuff. A main room for prisoners, a pit toilet used by the inmates, and a number of solitary cells used to hold prisoners before they were executed by guillotine, which is on display. The most interesting rooms to me were the displays they had dedicated to the internment of the US pilots. They had a number of pictures displayed depicting how well the US troops were treated. They showed them with captions like "US Prisoner receiving gifts from his family," "US pilot playing guitar and singing a song of his hometown," "US pilot receiving the proper medical care when they were sick." There is another display case containing Senator John McCain's flight suit and other articles that he was wearing when he was shot down during the war. The other articles on display included other objects to portray the Americans' stay in the prison as a nice vacation. There were playing cards, billiard balls, volleyball nets, and few other objects. The whole thing was pretty ridiculous. Upstairs, the entire floor was dedicated to the martyrs that had been executed or escaped to join the revolution for independence. Outside there was also a huge monument to the cause.

When we left the prison, our next stop was the Temple of Literature. We decided to take a taxi conveniently waiting outside. The taxi driver ripped us off. He had rigged the meter to increase the fare every 20 seconds or so. We knew we were getting ripped off and let the driver know it, in English, Vietnamese, and sign language as we exited the cab. We put the experience behind us though and headed in to enjoy the Temple of Literature. The Temple of Literature is Vietnam's oldest university and is quite beautiful. The complex consisted of a series of manicured courtyards, some with ponds, others with bonsai, and of course there was a pagoda mixed in here and there. Towards the rear of the complex, there was a building with a traditional band playing music. We sat down to listen and as soon as they finished the song, they all stood up and starting walking around selling their CD or pointing to a basket for tips. We just stood up and left. The final building of the complex appeared to be like some of the Buddhist temples we have visited on other parts of our trip. The bottom floor had the usual big Buddha sitting in the middle of the room surrounded by other statues of people and animals. From the other visits we've learned that the surrounding statues represent some of the other gods and spirits important to the religious legends. Upstairs there were 3 or 4 different alters setup with what seemed to be the same statue in each one, though I'm sure each one represented something else.



After we finished touring the Temple of Literature, we headed off to lunch at the highly recommended KOTO. KOTO stands for "Know One, Teach One" and is a restaurant/school that helps street kids learn the trade of cooking and hospitality. In addition, the school trains them in English and places them in jobs when they complete the program. To date, they have a 100% success rate with the program. So, it's dining for a good cause, and the food was excellent! We all got fresh fruit smoothies to drink and ordered a main from the menu. I had the gnocchi, which was great. Courtney ordered a falafel pita, Rachel a traditional Vietnamese dish, and Jason had the lasagna. Courtney and I even split a piece of carrot cake for dessert! Really good.

Following lunch we thought it would be fun to take a cyclo ride around town for an hour and end at the market. Unfortunately our experience trying to hire the cyclo drivers rivaled our earlier experience with the taxi driver. We were all prepared to pay what we knew to be the going rate and thought the drivers were agreeing to the same amount, when all of a sudden they started asking for double when they realized we were going to share the cyclos. We told them to forget it, walked away from them, and just walked to the market. One of the drivers continued to follow us for a few blocks continuing to shout ever lowering prices at us as we ignored him. His final offer was 4 times less then what we had originally agreed to pay him at the start. I guess everyone just wants to rip off the foreigners because they think they can afford it. Our walk to the market took about 20 minutes, and we were all soaked with sweat when we arrived. I think we all just wanted to head back to the hotel for a shower at this point, but we headed inside to take a look around. It was three floors of the same trinkets and junk we've seen for sale in every other store, so we were in and out in 18 seconds.

We walked back to our hotel, but before heading in, we stopped for a much needed cold beer at one of the local breweries. It was just what we needed to wind down from our afternoon adventure. We took a mini siesta before meeting up again to head out for a light dinner and our exciting evening on the town. Tonight was a real cultural experience. We saw two movies at an international film festival and visited the local circus. The films were quite good and were being shown as this cute little theater at the back of an alley. You would never even know it was there unless someone told you it was back there. Both of the films were documentaries. The first one, Looking for Love, was about the "Love Market" of the Hmong people, an ethnic group spread out over the northern highlands of Vietnam, parts of Laos, and Thailand. Once every year the Hmong people gather for the "Love Market" in one of their local villages. Girls that are of age show up in hopes of finding a boyfriend and falling in love. The movie was well done and showed some of the ritual involved in their cultural dating scene. It also included some humorous interviews with some of the older members of Hmong tribes that used to just kidnap the women they wanted to become their wives. The second movie, Mai's America, was about a girl from a well to do family in Vietnam that goes to America for her senior year of high school and plans to attend an American university to further her education. She was sent to rural Mississippi to live with a family of self proclaimed "rednecks," so needless to say she didn't get the American experience she was hoping for. She does end up getting a accepted to Tulane University, but sadly, with only a half scholarship, her family runs out of money before they are able to pay for her to finish school. She ends up moving to Detroit and trying to make her way by painting nails with the help of the local of a local Vietnamese community. After six months in Detroit, she returns to Vietnam without having finished her education.

To cap the night off, we went to the local circus. This was a real local event, and we didn't really know what to expect. It started off kind of slow with singing, but by the end, we were entertained and saddened at some of the sites on display. There were acrobats walking on tight ropes, balancing huge clay flowerpots on their heads, swinging around by their necks, and balancing on ladders. The most disturbing of the sites though were the scenes with the live animals. There were bears dressed in tutus and muzzles running around on two legs jumping hurdles, putting balls through basketball hoops, and riding bicycles. One of the bears seemed to be having a problem with the routine and was tied up to the wall and whipped by one of the handlers. Later they brought out monkeys in dresses and had them lifting dumbbells and riding bicycles as well. The monkeys seemed terrified of the handlers, and it was both sad and amusing at the same time to watch the handler chase them around the circus ring when they weren't pedaling fast enough. Finally the circus ended with two elephants doing various poses and balancing on one leg while lifting women dressed in sequenced dresses. You could clearly see the shackle marks dug into the front feet of the elephants. The kids were having a blast though, so it was kind of nice to see them having a good time. Most of the kids I've seen during the trip were either infants or old enough to get out and beg or work, so it was nice to see them with their families running around having some fun. The circus let out sometime after 10 pm, so we headed back to the hotel and called it a night.

Back from our 3 Day Cruise on Ha Long Bay :-)

We've just checked back into our hotel in Hanoi after a 3-day cruise of Ha Long Bay, which is about 3-3 1/2 hours by bus from Hanoi. The cruise was amazing. It was my first cruise, so I went in with few expectations. The boat, a junk, was an old wooden ship that looked like a pirate ship. The boat holds eight passengers, but we were the only people on it. We had our own private cruise!

Our guide was a little cheesy. His English was sometimes hard to understand, and he tried to crack a lot of jokes. But it often took us a long time to figure out what he was saying, and then we all had a good chuckle. After introducing himself, he said, "I'm sorry. We don't have any nice rooms; we only have beautiful rooms." It took us about 5 minutes to even figure out what he was saying, but then we all laughed, and he showed us around the cabin.

The food was amazing! Han, our cook, was superb. We began with a fruity welcome drink, and then we were served lunch on the deck as we began cruising through the limestone karsks. We began with spicy seafood soup, followed by a tomato and cucumber salad. The Tropical Sails Company was very accommodating with all of my dietary restrictions, which was wonderful. We then had prawns, steamed crabs, squid with mixed vegetables, beef with lemongrass and peanuts, steamed clams with chili pepper and lemongrass, fish, steamed white rice, a green (spinach-like) vegetable, and fruit (cantaloupe, banana, pineapple, and watermelon) for dessert. We were stuffed by the end of lunch!

We continued cruising around the bay and then took a small boat through the bay to a peaceful, hidden lagoon. We saw tourists kayaking everywhere. After that our boat guide took us to one of the karsts, where we climbed over 425 steps up to a spectacular view. We were exhausted by the end of that! When we returned to our boat, the guide convinced us to jump 6 meters off the top of the boat and into the bay, which he told us was 20 meters deep. Jason went first, followed by Ted. Rachel and I almost couldn't do it, but we finally plunged into the warm waters. It wasn't too dirty near the boat that day. There is quite a bit of trash and motor oil near the coast, and garbage seems to come in with the tides. It's kind of sad because the bay itself is incredibly beautiful. The guide, the jokester that he was, tried to scare Jason. He told us, "We have a lot of sharks. No small sharks; only big sharks." Jason swam out of the water as fast as he could, while Ted swam a lap or two around the boat.


We hung out on the deck of the boat playing cards that we borrowed from the boat crew until dinner. Our guide came up to get us and told us they had a big surprise for us. He had us close our eyes when we went back down into the cabin. They had the lights turned off, and then had us open our eyes and turned on the lights. It was such a beautiful presentation. They had cut animals and flowers out of the fruits and vegetables and laid out much of the food on the table. There was a glowing carved pumpkin with a candle in it, a hollowed out boat made of fruit with a carved traditional person sitting in it, etc. The cook was preparing "hot pot." We had steamed fish, squid, more prawns, tofu, a different type of clams, chicken, beef, stir fried cashews and onions in a sauce, pork and noodle soup, and vegetable noodle soup. They also gave me a full plate of vegetables on the side. We ended with some more fruit, Asian pear, pineapple, dragon fruit, and cantaloupe. I think I've probably gained 15 pounds!

The second day we woke up a little later and had breakfast. Breakfast was less spectacular, but still very good. We were served toast, rolls, danishes, butter, jam, ham, and fruit (guava, papaya, banana, and dragon fruit). The cook also made Rachel and Jason eggs by request.

The first part of the morning was spent kayaking in two person kayaks. It was kind of hard core. My arms were tired after the first 10 minutes, and we went kayaking for about an hour and a half. I can't say I love kayaking, but maybe if it was a little more relaxing, I may try it again. Our guide never gave us a rest. We just kept paddling. Ted was in the back of the kayak and controlling the rudder.

We finally ended up at this small cave in the rock, where the guide was having us hike up slippery stones in sandals. Jason had also noticed he lost his glasses, and we all spent some time looking. By pure luck, I finally discovered them buried in the sand. Yay! When we returned to the boat, the guide gave me a free beer for finding the glasses, which I gave to Jason since I don't drink beer.

We took the small boat in the afternoon to a deserted beach, where the cook barbecued our lunch. It was awesome! The crew set up a table in the sand on the beach. We started with a peanut and vegetable salad. Then we had grilled prawns on skewers, grilled squid, grilled pork kabobs (and I had another grilled prawn), grilled fish, chicken wings, and fried rice. The cook even prepared two different fried rice dishes, one with eggs for Ted, Jason, and Rachel and one without egg for me. We had fresh fruit (banana, pineapple, and cantaloupe) for dessert. Unfortunately this was our last meal with the cook, but we didn't know it at the time.

After eating, we spent about an hour on the beach swimming, lounging, and Ted and I collected quite a few seashells. The trash and glass eventually began to roll in with the tide, and Ted even a saw a needle on one part of the beach. There were also bubbles all over the water, and it looked like foam from oil or something. After Rachel cut her foot on a rock, we were ready to leave.

The guide said that we would have to wait because the big boat was gone and wouldn't be back yet. They had brought some kayaks for us, but after walking around the beach a bit more, they agreed to take us back to our big boat by the smaller one. We seemed to be going for quite some time when it appeared that we were lost. The guide was looking around for our boat, which was nowhere in sight. He finally saw another boat by the same company and flagged them down. We temporarily boarded that ship with some other Americans we met while our guide called our boat with his cell phone. It appeared that the cook was hurt. There was some miscommunication, and at the time we thought he had been burned during lunch. We later found out the cook had an appendicitis and had to return to the mainland for surgery.

The crew returned with a new cook, who was much less impressive. His food was really oily and often undercooked. I thought the fish was undercooked and in weird sauces. He made a "fruit salad" with dragon fruit, pineapple, cashews, and mayonnaise; I couldn't bear to even try it.

Rachel and Jason had smuggled a 5 liter jug of boxed wine on the boat, so we had some wine after dinner in our rooms. All of our food was included but drinks were not, and they were really expensive!

This morning I felt really sick after breakfast, so unfortunately I missed seeing the cave that Rachel, Jason, and Ted explored with our guide. Ted took some great pictures, though, and after laying down, I felt much better. Today we checked out early and then had one last lunch, with beautifully cut fruit and vegetables and mediocre (at best) food.

I'm really glad we went on the cruise. It was really relaxing and beautiful! Tonight we'll see water puppets after dinner. :-)

Hanoi: an Evening in the Old Quarter

We're back in Vietnam, which, strangely enough, feels kind of relaxing. We took a Vietnam Airlines flight from Phnom Penh that made one stop-over in Vientiane, Laos for about 15 minutes. We had to deplane, which gave us just enough time to use the bathroom, to peruse the cheesy, airport, tourist shops and the Duty Free store, as well as to buy a snack and get some of the local currency. From Laos we were on our way to Hanoi. I was 1 for 2 on the veggie meals. I really lucked out on the first flight. I had some nice tomato stewed vegetables with rice and fruit. Ted had some beef dish that even smelled awful. But, on the second flight, I wasn't so lucky. I had a triple-decker tomato and relish sandwich on white bread with the crusts cut off. Even the bread was soggy. I took one bite and then stopped abruptly.

Our hotel, the Hanoi Elegance, has internet in our room, which is certainly an added bonus. It is situated in the famous Old Quarter, which we will most likely explore in a few days when we return from our cruise of Ha Long Bay. We arrived kind of late tonight, so we will probably skip dinner and wait for breakfast tomorrow morning, which is also included in the price of our hotel.

Our final morning in Phnom Penh wasn't all that exciting. We began with a visit to Psah Toul Tom Poung, a Russian market that is one of several famous markets in Phnom Penh, but I had had enough of the hot, crowded, smelly markets for a while. It was chaos! And I was losing my patience, overheated, and exhausted. We spent less than 30 minutes total there; I refused to even look at one of the other markets.

That brought us to the National Museum, which is one of the world's most impressive museums of Khmer art. They had a lot of the carvings, Buddhas, and artifacts from the same time frame as Angor Wat. If we were able to travel back in time to the 13th century, the city of Angkor must have been amazing!

Tomorrow morning, we will meet Rachel and Jason early, and then we'll all head out together to Ha Long Bay for our 3-day boat cruise. I'm sure we'll have a lot to report when we return after living on a boat for 3 days! I better get to bed...