My last hours in Ho Chi Minh City

I am sitting at Highlands Coffee with Jason. It's very similar to Starbucks, but much cheaper. There are several people "deep cleaning" Jason and Rachel's apartment, so we went out for breakfast. There is free WIFI, which is wireless Internet, so now we are just chilling out in the cafe.

Yesterday I was watching the Travel and Living television channel when a travel show about Vietnam came on. I was excited to see it since I am here and curious to see which parts of Ho Chi Minh City they would highlight. After less than a couple of minutes, the entire show cut out for its duration. I assumed it was censored, and when I questioned Rachel about it later, she agreed. They censor all travel shows about Vietnam. I would think they would want to promote tourism in their country. It's weird to be somewhere where there is so much censorship. There are censored newspapers, television shows, and it's against the law to speak out against the government. Imagine if no one could oppose or disagree with George Bush! Or other politicians... There are also propaganda posters all over the country. They are stuck to the sides of buildings, on large billboard signs, etc.; they are even in the countryside. Most of them are anti-American, pro-independence, and celebrating a liberated, communist government. I can't really read most of them, but Rachel and Jason can usually get the gist. Most are accompanied by large, colorful pictures of planes being shot down, Uncle Ho hugging children, or other images. Some are funny. They have to do with elderly people doing exercise and traffic. There are a few propaganda stores that sell the posters with the English translations at the bottom of them. I visited a couple out of curiosity but didn't purchase anything.

I have about 6 hours before I need to start heading to the airport. Unfortunately Rachel can't meet us for lunch because she is in charge of hosting someone special today and can't get away. She said goodbye to me early this morning before she left for work. I was still not really awake...

Last night for my last night in Ho Chi Minh City, Rachel and I went to the V Spa near their apartment for one last massage. We got a 75 minute aromatherapy massage, which was nice and relaxing. When we returned home, Jason heated up a spinach and mozzarella pizza the cook had made; Rachel got some wine; and we all played more of American Idol karaoke. Jason and Rachel asked if I wanted to go out, but I was really tired, and everyone was getting up early today.

I'm certainly not looking forward to the long flights ahead, but it will be nice to be back in the states. I am also looking forward to visiting my sister in Los Angeles for a couple of nights on the way back.

The Mekong Delta

Yesterday Jason and I took our second and final day-trip to the Mekong Delta. After a couple hours of driving in a bus, we arrived at My Tho in the Ben Tre province. I was gagging when we descended the bus because the smell from the nearby fish sauce factory was really potent. They have large vats of rotting fish fermenting or something like that. But after walking about 100 feet, the smell began to fade.

From the tourist office, we boarded a boat that took us around parts of the delta. I could observe many of the houses and shacks up on stilts, boats, local fishing traps, and a lot of banana and cork trees. The water as a shade of milk chocolate, and the shores were lined with jungle. It was really pretty. There were four main islands we went around: Phoenix Island, Unicorn Island, Tortoise Island, and Dragon Island. Those are four important animals to the Vietnamese people. We actually stopped at Phoenix Island.

The tour was pretty well organized. At Phoenix Island, we got off the boat and walked down a small, narrow, bridge that looked like it didn't have many years left standing. We walked though the jungle and observed a rice paper making hut. At first Jason and I thought they meant stationary paper, but we soon learned that it was the rice paper wraps for cooking. They baked some of them into a mild tasting snack, which was for sale of course. We made many of these cultural "pit stops," where we had a brief introduction and then conveniently 10-15 minutes of "free time" to shop. From there, we had lunch. The lunch was included, but it was terrible. They recommended trying the Mekong's famous elephant ear fish, which was not included and, of course, the most expensive thing on the menu.

After lunch we taken to a bee farm. By this point it was raining pretty hard, so we weren't able to observe many of the bees before they descended upon the tables where we were sitting. The locals made us some honey, citrus tea and allowed us to try some honeycomb and a strong coconut wine. The wine was really strong and not very good. Our guide told us it was 35% alcohol. It tasted like straight vodka. Next we took an "ox cart" through the village. We expected a yak or water buffalo, but instead there were tiny ponies with feathers and fake flowers tied into their manes.

We arrived at another thatched hut with tables. Outside there were a couple of cages. Inside one was a huge python, and the other housed a small squirrel. Our guide called us over to the tables. We sat down and were given some fruit while we listened to traditional music played by some of the local people. A couple of the women sang, and three men sat on stools, each playing a different instrument. Our guide kept reinforcing that they were not professionals, but he hoped that we enjoyed listening. The fruit plate was filled with different fruits: watermelon, pineapple, dragon fruit, rambutan, longan, etc. I ate some pineapple and dragon fruit before biting into my rambutan and finding a white worming crawling around in the shell. I quickly spit it out and that was the end of the fruit plate.

Two local woman in the traditional hats took us back to our boat in small wooden boats, paddling us down a small stream in the estuary. Our final stop was the coconut candy factory. We observed the local people making the candy, drying and cutting it, wrapping it, and packaging it all by hand! It was pretty amazing, and the wrapping looked like a boring, monotonous job. There were about five women sitting in chairs around a larger table. They grabbed one of the tiny cut candies that were constantly tossed into the center of the table. They then wrapped them in tiny rice paper and then regular paper. When Jason asked, our guide said they probably made about 700,000 dong (42-45 US dollars) a month. I can't imagine!

Cao Dai Temple & the Cu Chi Tunnels

It’s a little before 7 a.m., and in about 30-45 minutes, Jason and I will leave for our second day-trip to the Mekong Delta. Yesterday we went to Cao Dai Temple and the Cu Chi Tunnels. Caodaism, which is a unique religion that began in the 1920s combining the teachings of Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism, Christianity, Islam and other religions into one religion to promote peace, is the religion practiced at the temple. Imagine that! We were able to observe a mass at 12 noon, which was beautiful. Upon removing our shoes and leaving them outside, we entered the colorful temple. At the front, in the center, is the main alter, which has a large painted eye in the center of a ball. The people come to worship the eye of god, looking down upon them.

The religion is a mix of the east and the west. The organizational structure roughly follows that of the Roman Catholic Church with a pope, cardinals, bishops, and priests. There are several colors present in the temple. The common people, who come to worship, wear white. Women use one hallway/stairway, and the men use the other. Some of the worshippers had white scarves on their heads, others had black, and there were others who didn’t use any scarves at all. There are three main colors (other than white) represented by members. Red robes signify Catholicism, Christianity, and Islam. Yellow robes are worn by Buddhists, and Taoists and Confusionists wear blue robes. French writer, Victor Hugo, is one of their famous saints. At least that is what I got out of our guide’s information. It was sometimes a little hard to understand his English. We were able to walk around the temple about 15 minutes before the mass began and then observed about 20 minutes of their rituals, which consisted of a lot of chanting.

The next stop after lunch was the Cu Chi Tunnels. These tunnels were essentially an underground village used by the Viet Cong and one of the most famous battlegrounds during the Vietnam War. The Cu Chi Tunnels were an underground city with living areas, kitchens, storage, weapons factories, field hospitals, and command centres. In places, it was even three stories deep and housed up to 10,000 people who virtually lived underground for years.... getting married, giving birth, going to school. They only came out at night to tend their crops. Parts of the tunnels have been renovated and restored; it’s a major tourist attraction today. We arrived and watched a 15 minute black and white propaganda video. It was of very poor quality and difficult to hear any of the narration or dialogue, but the sounds of the bombs were amplified. It was more anti-American sentiment, and by the end, you got the point. The guide then showed us a map of the grounds and a model of the tunnels, which went down several levels into the ground, consisting of short, narrow hallways, weaving underground, connecting bedrooms, kitchens, and even a complicated chimney system to release the smoke slowly into the air to avoid bombing by the Americans.

We observed several of the pit traps, booby traps, gruesome bamboo spike door traps, and window traps the Viet Cong set throughout the jungles. The American soldiers fell through beds of nails. These traps were usually covered by leaves. It was even hard to find the entrances of the tunnels without our guide pointing them out. I really can’t imagine how horrifying it must have been to have been here during the 1960s and 70s. Today there are thatched roofs so tourists can see the structure of the kitchens, hospitals, and bomb/ landmine making rooms (which are all underground), but during the war, all the soldiers would have been able to see was dense jungle. The Viet Cong had camouflaged the air holes in large termite mounds. There were also ditches all along the path today where Viet Cong soldiers hid to fire at the enemy. There are rooms holding four soldiers, one at each corner, where there were small holes in the ground. The soldiers would fire at the enemy from there.

You could see a couple large holes where bombs were dropped. As we continued the tour, the experience became even more horrifying as we neared the shooting range. For a little more than a dollar a bullet, tourists can fire M 16s and AK 47s. The guns themselves appeared to be bolted down, but the sounds were deafening. I had to hold my ears even near the range. Most tourists, who chose to participate, fired a bullet at a time, but every once in a while, we’d hear a string of 5-10 bullets. It was one of the scariest feelings I have ever felt.

Toward the end of the tour, we were able to go through a part of the Cu Chi Tunnels with one of the guards working at the site. There are now steps to help people down, and at first it was hard to really see how small the actual tunnels are. But soon enough, I was on my feet, crouched as low as I could possibly go, waddling through 3 or 3 ½ by 2 foot tunnels. Parts had a small light on the floor, but most of them were pitch black. It was terrifying. It was hard to see the person in front of my and parts came to a Y. About halfway through, a little claustrophobia set in, and I was ready to be out. I can’t imagine how the families lived in these tunnels. They were so hot and tiny. The Viet Cong stayed in them all day and only came out at night when the Americans were sleeping.

After exiting the tunnels, we were fed some tapioca. Because a bowl of rice can only sustain a person for a couple of hours, the Viet Cong primarily ate boiled tapioca, dipped in chopped peanut. It was pretty good. The tapioca didn’t have much of a taste; it was much like eating a boiled, peeled potato. I’m sure the peanut helped give it some flavor.

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...

Good Morning Vietnam!

I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City last night after traveling for over 24 hours. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. My Thai Airlines flight from New York to Bangkok had an on demand entertainment system on the back of the seat in front of you. You could select from about 25 different movies, watch episodes of popular television shows, play video games, or listen to music. I watched 4 movies on the way over and played a little video blackjack to pass the time. With all the entertainment and the food they kept bringing, the flight really didn’t seem that long. When I finally arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, I made my way through customs and headed outside of the airport to find Courtney, Rachel, and Jason waiting for me. We all climbed into a taxi and headed off for Rachel and Jason’s apartment.

The cab ride provided my first look at all the moterbikes on the streets. They’re everywhere, and they seem to be coming from all directions. The cab we were in was being passed by bikes on both sides and the driver seemed to just be constantly honking the horn so the motercycle drivers knew he was there. There were bikes even coming at us down the “wrong” side of the road. I guess in Vietnam there is no wrong side of the road though.

Within about 10 to 15 minutes, we arrived at Rachel and Jason’s apartment building. I had to check in at the front desk and let them make a copy of my passport. Then we stepped into the convenience store located in the lobby of their building, and Courtney and Rachel bought three bottles of red wine. I guess the store was having a special – buy two bottles get one free. They had a hard time finding three bottles of red because they had taken advantage of the same deal the day before. Rachel managed to find one hidden behind one of the other bottles, and we headed upstairs. We spent the night enjoying some of the wine, and much to Courtney’s delight, playing a Karaoke game on their Playstation 2. I had my first taste of Dragon fruit. Its pink on the outside and shaped somewhat like an oversized pear with parts curving off of the sides of it. Inside it’s white with black seeds running throughout and looks somewhat like Cookies n’ Cream ice cream. It was good. It sort of tasted like a less sweet version of watermelon. At some point I actually went to bed.

GOOD MORNING VIETNAM! This morning I was the last one to wake up. I probably could of slept all day if Courtney hadn’t woken me up. The plan for the day was to see the Reunification Palace and the War Remnants Museum. We got ready and headed off for breakfast. Before we left the apartment building I exchanged some US money for the local currency. I changed out $60 and thought I had won the lottery when she gave me the Vietnamese money. It was over 900000 Dong!

For breakfast we went to a nice little restaurant that served crepes. It was quite good. I had one stuffed with mozzerella, tomatoes, spinich, and mushrooms in a cream sauce with my morning dose of caffiene. After breakfast we decided to take a taxi over to the Jade Emperor Pagoda.



I’m still not sure what this place was. I’ll have to look it up in one of the guide books when I have a free moment. From what I can gather though it was some sort of Buddhist temple. I was feeling kind of sick, though, as we made our way through it. It was filled with the smoke from incense that was burning in every one of the rooms. We went through it fairly quickly and snapped off a bunch of pictures along the way. Outside there was a pond filled with turtles some of which were dead and floating on the surface. We had seen a lady outside selling baby turtles and figured that people bought the turtles and tossed them into the pond as some kind of offering.

After the Jade Emperor Pagoda, we took a taxi to one of the markets to get a little shopping in before the Reunification Palace reopened after lunch. The market was huge. It reminded me of the ones I saw in Sydney and Melbourne. Vendors were setup selling anything you could imagine and some things you could never imagine. I’m not even sure what many of the food items for sale were, but I can assure you they wouldn’t ever be entering my mouth.

From the market we walked over to the Reunification Palace. Over the years, the building was occupied by the French, South Vietnamese, the French again, then again by South Vietnamese with the US, and in 1975 it was taken over by the North. I think that’s how it all happened. I was having trouble following our guide. Now it stands as a tourist attraction. On the lawn of the palace they have the two tanks the North used to break down the gates in 1975. Inside it was a bunch of rooms with chairs and tables in them. One room was a conference room, another a dining hall, upstairs there were more of the same. There was a movie theater, a library, and the President’s office. It felt a little like going to Graceland. The President’s office was decorated with stuffed Cheetahs and Jaguars or other such animals. They give you pretty much free regin of the place though, and we wandered around all four floors and the basement.

The next stop was the War Remnants Museum. I didn’t really know what to expect here. I had read the short blurb about the place in one of the guide books and knew that it was fairly anti-American, but I wasn’t sure how it would be depicted. The museum consisted primarily of photographs and military vehicles. There were six different areas filled with photographs, and by the end, I had seen enough. It was kind of hard to follow as well because all of the information written in English was printed in small type below the larger Vietnamese information. I think I stopped reading about halfway through and just looked at the photos, many of which were very graphic scenes from the war.
After the museum, we went back to Rachel and Jason’s apartment and took a little break before heading out again to dinner. Rachel and Jason took us to an all you can eat Brazilian barbeque restaurant called Au Lac do Brazil. They advertised 17 meats or some ridiculous number like that. The food was really good. The wait staff just kept coming up to our table with giant hunks of meat on skewers and cutting it off on to our plates. I ate at least 5 different animals tonight, but I think my favorite was actually the fried bananas and some green leafy vegetable sauteed with garlic. Following dinner we stopped for a drink at I-Box, one of the bars nearby Rachel and Jason’s apartment. It was the perfect ending to a great first day in Vietnam!

2 Days at the Spa, and Ted has arrived!

The big news is that Ted arrived last night. Yay! He hasn't really had much of a chance to see a lot of Ho Chi Minh City, but he observed all of the motorbikes from the taxi on our way home from the airport. Last night we played some “American Idol Karaoke” on Jason’s Playstation 2. It was so fun! I think Rachel and Jason are getting a little sick of karaoke; they said they played more in the past two days than they have since they got the game. But I LOVE karaoke, so I have been pleading with everyone to bust of the mics.

Rachel and I have been testing out more of the spas for the past 2 days. On Saturday, we decided to try the Regency Health & Leisure Club Luxury Spa recommended from her Asia Life magazine. It was advertised as “everything you could ever want in jacuzzis, saunas, Chinese back rub, face masks, haircuts, ear cleaning and massage… They’ve taken service to a new level. For $14.95, you get sauna, steambath, gym access, Chinese back scrub, jacuzzi, hair wash, face mask, face massage, ear cleaning, haircut, foot massage, a free light meal, free cigarettes and iced tea, and an all over body massage,” all in one sitting of about 4-5 hours. Believe me, it was NOT luxurious. Jason was laughing when we told him about it. What did we expect; it was a 5 hour spa treatment for less than $15?!

After the taxi got lost and drove the wrong way down a 4-lane road, we made it to the Regency Health & Leisure Club. It was really hard to find because the hotel it is in has a different name and is under some major construction. After climbing through boards and sawhorses to the half renovated elevator, we were taken to the spa. We tried to confirm the price with the ladies at the counter, but no one really spoke English. They grabbed their brochure, which had pictures of many of the services, and it listed the $14.95 price. We were on our way. The beginning of the experience felt a little similar to the Korean mogyoktang (bathhouse) , which I desperately miss. You enter a small room with lockers where you changed out of your clothes and into a towel. We were first taken into the sauna. It looked like a small plastic space station, with built-in seventies looking seats, a lot like the furniture in the dorms from our freshmen year of college. There were two small, plastic baskets of lemongrass, and I immediately saw a huge live cockroach in one of them. I pointed to it and told the lady when we were all inside. She came in and started spraying it, chasing it all of the floor. Finally it managed to crawl back in the crack of one of the seats, and she said in her meek, light-pitched voice, “It’s okay now. Don’t worry. He die.” We were underway. We climbed onto the chairs and waited for the steam to fill the room. It smelled wonderful and very invigorating with the lemongrass. Luckily the cockroach never made a second appearance.

After that, we were taken over to these interesting looking, shallow bathtubs with built-in blue foam, where we were told to take the towel off and lie there naked. Two women then wrapped their hands with washcloths, and rubbed as hard as they could to exfoliate our skin. It hurt so bad! It was similar to the exfoliating rubs at the Korean bathhouse, but without the specialized cloth, and much, much more painful. My skin was turning red and hurting everywhere. After they rubbed both sides of us, front and back, we were led to the showers to wash off all of the dead skin. We sat a while in the “steambath” and watched MTV Rewind to the 80s, which was probably one of the highlights of the spa. The steambath was more like a hot tub, and the water smelled a little off, but it was okay. Some time later, one of the ladies asked if we were ready for our facial. We looked at each other and decided why not? So we were given some light clothing (like Korean jimjjilbang), and taken through the first of many dingy staircases to the next level. On the second floor, no one spoke any English. They seemed really confused but finally took us to lie down. They rubbed some cream into our faces for a while and then laid long, thin cucumbers slices on our face. It was freezing! We were laying there a long time when Rachel suspected they forgot about us, so she removed a section of the cucumber and motioned one of the ladies over to us. They had forgotten about us, but finally they took off the cucumber slices and sent us on our way. It wasn’t much of a facial, but what could we have expected? Everyone expected a tip after we left each station, and the face ladies were screaming at us as we walked to the shampooing ladies.

Next we were shuffled across the hair salon to get our hair washed. This lady was pretty good, but I felt like she was never going to stop washing my hair. Not to mention I had already washed it that morning at Rachel and Jason’s apartment. After what felt like 30 minutes of shampooing, she dried my hair, and then she showed me to another hidden staircase to the next level. This one had lighted strips along the floor like in the movie theaters. I met Rachel in the foot massage chairs.

Two men brought us tea and gave us a foot massage. That was probably the highlight of the spa treatment. It actually felt pretty good. There you could order the free light meal, which was ramen noodles. We skipped it. The lounge was terribly smoky, though, because it was also where you were given all of the free cigarettes. Jason was laughing when he heard that the spa was giving out free cigarettes. It does seem a little ironic.

The final part of the experience was the full body massage, which we could rename “Hell on Earth.” It was awful. As we were taken back through more scary, hidden staircases, we were brought into an old, wooden paneled 70’s looking room. The air conditioner was so loud Rachel asked them to turn it off. No one understood, so they turned it up louder and positioned us on the tables. One women climbed on my butt and started kneeing me everywhere. It really felt like she was doing the splits or some dance routine on my back. There were bars on the ceiling, and sometimes she was standing up, doing ballet or something across my back. Rachel asked her lady to lighten it up, but no one really understood. They were pinching, twisting, bending, and slapping us everywhere as they moved about the tables. The final treat was getting my hair pulled over and over and over. There was nothing relaxing about it. Rachel described it as if these women made no adjustments than if we were 300 pound men. After about an hour, the torture ended. At the end of each service, we had to sign a slip of paper, and these women were really pissed off we weren’t giving them an automatic tip. Rachel tried to explain to everyone that we were tipping downstairs at the end of everything, but these women we pulling our arms, and shouting, “TIP! Madam, TIP!” and pointing to the paper. We ran out and somehow found our way through the maze of staircases back to the front desk. We paid a full $18.75 each, including tip, and then left. I would agree with Asia Life; the Regency was taking the service to a different level, a painful one!

Yesterday, we went to a much better, up-scale, French spa that Rachel and Jason had previously been to. We are no longer trusting the Asia Life magazine and only returning to the spas Rachel has tried out previously. If the Regency was “Hell on Earth,” the L’Apothiquaire was as close to a slice of Heaven that we may find in Vietnam. We got the Half Day Relaxation package, which lasted about 4 hours, all $82.50, including tax. We were taken to a station to fill out a skin questionnaire for the facial. Then we changed into the robes, and the relaxation began. We had a one hour foot massage, one hour full-body massage, and then a 45 minute to one hour facial. It was amazing! I never wanted it to end. When it finally did, we had lunch (included) and tea in the garden. The day was incredible, and although there were some customer service issues when we paid (we were supposed to receive a 15% promotional discount but no one spoke enough English to fully understand what was going on, and there was a huge communication breakdown), it was worth every penny.

Other than going to the different spas, we have been trying out some of the restaurants, doing a bit of shopping, and playing a lot of Playstation 2 karaoke. Woo hoo! Well, now that Ted is here, I image we’ll be sight-seeing a lot more.

Oh, the other big, exciting news! I’ve moved to a new level. I crossed the street by myself 4 times! At first I was terrified. It was raining, so Rachel and Jason didn’t want to walk across the street to the ATM. I looked at them with the sad eyes of a child, “You won’t help me cross the street?” But then I did it! And I feel so proud. It’s a very liberating feeling.

Walking, Massages, and Tapas, Oh My!

This morning Jason and I explored Ho Chi Minh City by foot. We are saving the museums, pagodas, and other really touristy things to see for Monday when Ted is here, so we aren’t seeing everything twice. We walked by the famous post office with a huge painting of Ho Chi Minh, the Notre Dame Cathedral, the opera house, and some famous sights from the Vietnam War, like the Hotel Rex. There are statues and pictures of Ho Chi Minh throughout the city. I’ve been told that the war is referred to here as the “American War.” We plan to tour the anti-American War Remnants Museum with Ted on Monday.

We walked down Le Loi street, seeing more famous buildings and eventually ending at the big marketplace, which had a bit of everything. We saw many of the cyclo drivers camping out on their bicycle rickshaws. Jason told me that many of them are men who fought in the war on the side of the south and were punished and stripped of their citizenship and all rights at the end of the war. They wear tattered clothing and search for tourists to drive around the town. The Lonely Planet guidebook stated that many were former doctors, teachers, and journalists that were punished for siding with the Americans. It’s really sad. Actually there was a family sitting next to me on the airplane that was returning to Vietnam to see long lost relatives. I sat next to a Vietnamese-Canadian girl about my age, and she was telling me that her mother is returning for the first time since 1975 to see the siblings she left during the war, and she and her siblings are meeting aunts, uncles, cousins, and other family members for the first time. Tears filled their eyes when the plane landed in Ho Chi Minh City. What an emotional reunion!

The local market was beautiful but hot. It looked similar to other markets I’ve been to in Asia with fresh, live seafood; beautifully stacked tables of fruits, herbs, and vegetables; and bags of rice and grains. There were also trinkets, clothing, hairclips, a ton of shoes. You name it, it probably was sold somewhere in the market.

We met Rachel again for lunch at a French restaurant and then went back to the cute coffee shop called Nirvana, but unfortunately the power was out there. Rachel and Jason have a really luxurious set-up. Their apartment comes with a built-in cleaning/ maid service, so the towels are changed daily, beds made, and even the floors are cleaned. They also have a cook who comes three days a week. She does the grocery shopping, prepares the meals, and even cleans up and does the dishes! She packs all of the food into nice, plastic, microwavable containers and places them in the refrigerator, so all they need to do is reheat their food in the microwave. She even washes and cuts up the fruit for them!

When Rachel returned from work, we went for a foot massage at the Qing Dong Du Salon, recommended in her Asia Life magazine. The Vietnamese women looked small and frail in their orange shirts, but these women were strong and intense! It was actually a little painful. I felt like they were rubbing the skin off of my legs, but the massage on the soles of my feet felt great. They finish the massage with arms, shoulders, neck, back, and head – bending, twisting, slapping your body. I am not sure if I liked this one that much or not. I prefer the one from yesterday.

We went out to dinner with some of Rachel’s friends and co-workers to a Spanish tapas place called Pacharan. We had a couple of pitchers of sangria and the tapas were pretty tasty. Although I can’t say I had an extremely busy day, I do feel exhausted. I’m looking forward to the weekend. I hope the sun comes out. It’s been overcast with a sprinkle here and there. And tonight it poured for hours. But then again, it is the rainy season!

Unexpected Adventures and a Warm Welcome from Vietnam

After an unexpected adventure, I finally arrived safely in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly named Saigon). My original flight plan out of Reagan National was abruptly changed when the first of my four flights to Asia was delayed significantly. I would have been stuck without a hotel in Dallas at least overnight, so I was in panic-mode. After pleading with the airline, I finally found someone to help me. Rather than fly west via Los Angeles, I was rerouted east through Frankfurt, Germany from Dulles. I called Ted in a state of panic, and after reclaiming my baggage, he picked me up and rushed me to Dulles. Thank you, Ted! I ended up making all of the flights, which ended up turning out better in the long run. So now I will have truly flown around the world on this trip! (I am returning via Los Angeles across the Pacific Ocean.)

After many, long hours and nearly 2 days of traveling, I arrived this morning at the airport in Ho Chi Minh City. I cleared customs rather quickly, and Jason was waiting for me near the baggage claim. Thank you, Jason! We went back to his and Rachel’s place, which is really nice. After a nice long, hot shower, Rachel met us for lunch. I had a delicious glass of freshly squeezed pineapple juice and a Vitenamese dish with shrimp, noodles, and veggies. It was delicious.

The motorcyclists are definitely out of control here! The cab ride from the airport would have been a lot scarier had I not been mentally prepared for the chaos of the streets. To my surprise, there aren’t really any tuk-tuks here. The streets are littered with cabs, a few brave drivers of cars and vans, and more than 6 billion motorcycles! Seriously, every time you attempt to cross the street, you are likely to be hit by about 10 of them coming from all directions! People don’t really seem to follow any rules of the road, and I haven’t even really seen that many traffic lights. Needless-to-say, pedestrians definitely do NOT have the right-of-way. Drivers and motorcyclists don’t even slow down at cross walks. I have been ducking behind Rachel or Jason for every attempt at crossing the street so far. You have to start walking out into the street amidst the heavy flow of traffic, usually in both directions. Jason warned me to walk slow because just as we don’t want to be hit, the motorcyclists don’t want to plow over any pedestrians either. As long as they aren’t looking down, text messaging, or talking on their cell phones, and the motorcyclists actually see you, they will more than likely turn their bikes to avoid hitting you. The pedestrian’s important job is to make eye contact with all high speed oncoming bikes, so you can see if the drivers are paying attention and will (hopefully) avoid hitting you. Cars and trucks apparently do not slow down, stop, or swerve, so they must be outrun in a game of leapfrog at all costs. Apparently people making left turns have the right away because they just drive out in the middle of traffic, and people are forced to stop. And no one wears any helmets.

Jason and I went to this adorable coffee shop this afternoon to sift through some guidebooks and spa information while the rain drizzled. Rachel and I are planning to go spa hopping every day I am here in Ho Chi Minh City. When she finished work, we began with our first, the Sen Trang White Lotus Spa, just down the street. We treated ourselves to a 90 minute aromatherapy treatment massage with lava stones for less than $25. Some of the stones were really hot, but it was so relaxing, I nearly fell asleep. Tomorrow we plan to enjoy a foot massage at another one of Rachel’s favorite spas.

After the spa, we met Jason back at the apartment and made our way to dinner at the Com Nieu Saigon restaurant for dinner. There were locals as well as tourists sprinkled throughout the restaurant, and it is notable for entertaining the guests with a rather unique delivery of com dap, or smashed, rice paddies (looking a bit like pancakes). Once the rice has been baked in a clay pot, one of the men from the kitchen stands in the doorway to the dining area, smashes the claypot, and then throws the remains on the ground, where they shatter into a pile of clay rubble. Next he tosses the rice paddies one by one more than 15 feet across the restaurant to another waiter standing near our table, who catches the rice paddies on a plate and tosses them into the air a couple of times (which made me think of the pizza dough tossed in restaurants in Italy) before serving them to the customers. Tonight they were ours. I wonder what happens the ones the man doesn’t catch… I also ordered some tofu with lemongrass and chili, and Rachel and Jason ordered some steamed veggies, a pork dish, and a traditional southern Vietnamese fish soup. The food is really cheap; entrees were about $2 each. The food was pretty good until our meal ended rather abruptly.

There seem to be geckos everywhere. They were all over the walls of the restaurant. Toward the end of our meal I saw a look of panic on Jason’s face as he lifted his feet. I immediately asked what it was and worried it may have been a rat. He tried to play it off by telling Rachel and me it was a gecko, but I knew it wasn’t. He finally admitted that a huge 7-8 inch rat was running around behind our table, which he spotted only looking more closely at the dead cockroach lying on its back underneath the table next to us. Rachel soon spotted the rat, too, and started screaming. I glanced down; it was now only inches away from our table, and I was wearing sandals! After a few screams and fingers pointing toward where the rat was last spotted, some of the men working in the restaurant came over with the bill laughing. They didn’t really seem at all bothered by this. We quickly paid and ran out of the restaurant and into a cab. It’s been a pretty interesting first day. Welcome to Vietnam!