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Our next trip will be a Christmas trip to Mexico City. We look forward to a beautiful celebration in Mexico City over the Christmas Holidays.

This last day was a lazy one. We slept late, sunned by the pool, had a hamburger lunch and packed out bags. Now we are waiting for the time to arrive so that we can check out. This has been a wonderful journey full of wonderful memories and in some cases great physical accomplishments on our part. It seemed we climbed half way to Laos to enter Paradise Cave, that we clamored aboard dubious boats to cruse down rivers, that we walked miles and miles in the footsteps of the last King of Vietnam and that we withstood the blazing sun to see Cham temples. Neither of us would trade a minute of this journey. Traveling to the wonderful places makes us appreciate what we have in America and draws us closer together as we share these adventures. Thank you Troy Knight for this Far Eastern Odyssey.

A water buffalo wearing a bright red bow being ridden by her ower

Tai Chi about our cruise ship on HaLong Bay.

Beautiful baby girls wearing pink dresses and gold ankle bracelets.

Beautiful baby boys wearing comfortable pajamas and silver ankle bracelets.

The Water Puppets.

Ladies in their traditional dress and hats.

Bicycles laden with everything you would ever think of needing to live your life.

Being escorted to a massage by the bell boy. The trip was a 90 second walk and he never left go of my hand until he put it in the hand of the therapist.

Son and his driver Hi who treated us like royalty.

Being bumped up to the pent house in Hanoi.

Red Brahma cattle roaming freely along the road and in the city.

Chickens and ducks and rice paddies with family cemeteries in the middle of them.

Entire families on a scooter.

Open trucks used as school busses.

Each meal a picture. Each day a history lesson, and every person a sweet spirit.

and lastly the Ghost of Uncle Ho still hovering over Vietnam.

ids=”11972,11969,11968,11967,11964,11953,11951,11949,11941,11938,11927,11911,11905,11891,11874″]This was a last day of sight seeing while we are in Vietnam and it was a wonderful day. We left Saigon and traveled south to the Mekong Delta which played such an important role in the war. These drives prove that the Vietnamese live their lives on the sidewalks. Small shops, cafes, repair places, the butcher, baker and candlestick maker all make a living on the sidewalk. The family wash hangs from metal racks and children play beside their mother and father while the family pet is tethered in the door way. This is true of large cities and small villages. After about two hours we stopped for a visit in the largest city in the province. We visited a popular pagoda which serves as a place for the elderly, homeless and poor children to go for a rest or a meal. This pagoda is very active in the community and a testament to the Buddha’s philosophy. A quick stop at a market where ladies shopped for the evening meal and flower and we reached the Mekong known as the Mother of Rivers. We took a boat ride across the river to visit a bee farm, eat some local fruit, listen to some bad music and take a horse cart ride down a country road. Poor horse looked terrible, but so did all of the horses on the path. We then boarded another tiny boat and were paddled down a swift little stream to our restaurant. I promised God I would be good for the rest of my life He would just let us arrive safely. I gave the lady rowing the boat wed wipes, and hand sanitizer as well as a generous tip. Lunch was Elephant ear fish, soup, egg rolls, rice and watermelon. They served the fish whole and perched on a little wooden rack. Delicious. Boarded a larger boat and came back to Saigon. Days outside the city are always a favorite. Interestingly we saw a showroom of Christmas trees on the way back. Though Christians are a minority, there are still pockets of Catholicism throughout the country. The Portuguese introduced Christianity to Vietnam about three hundred years ago, the French really established the Church here. Tomorrow will be a long day. We need to find some way to be entertained until out flight to Japan. Then back to Houston.

Early this morning we threaded our way out of Saigon into the countryside to visit the Cu Chi Tunnels. These tunnels were started during the Indochina War when the Vietnamese were trying to earn their independence from the French. This site was a little more sophisticated than the one we saw in the north. There were costumed manniquins and docents to provide some visuals and to indicate how the people lived in these tunnels. Women as well as men were prepared to give their lives first in the war with the French and later with the Americans. There is a shooting range near the site and we thought that there was a series of sound effects to add to the reality of the site Wrong. It was live ammo being fired on a range. Sadly people over the big 70 could not enter the tunnels so we could only poke our heads in. Our guide laughing said those tunnels were made for the Vietnamese not Americans anyway. Troy would not have fit in. The jungle had been destroyed and all of the growth is new. Rubber plantations are part of the economic resources in this area.
Back to the city and another wonderful lunch. Cuttlefish was the first course and the final one was flan. We visited the Post Office, the Presidents Residence, and the War Museum. Interestingly the photos bring back memories of what we were seeing on TV during that war only this museum presents a different point of view. No matter what ones political beliefs are, I have come to admire the courage and ingenuity of the Vietnamese and to recognize how difficult their lives were as the result of living constantly in war from 1939 until the end of the Vietnam War.

We arrived in Saigon about two pm and met our guide who looks like she is about 15. Our hotel is along the river just on the outskirts of the Old French Quarters. Saigon as we know it does not have the history of Hanoi and is more crowded and much larger. Statistically there are 9 million people and 6 million undocumented. We spied Starbucks and McDonalds along the way to the hotel neither of which were in Hanoi. Night is falling and the city is turning on her lights. Although there are more cars and scooters on the streets, the drivers stay in their lanes and the scooters are limited to two passengers. Mai told us that if there are 3 on a scooter the one in the middle had better be ill. Apparently the police enforce this law, but they cannot enforce the no parking on the sidewalk law. Like all of the other cities we visited scooters line the side walk sometimes two deep. Troy and I immediately noticed the difference in Saigon from the other cities we visited. There is graffiti, people are not very welcoming and there is not a gently spirit about it that we noticed in other cities. Still we are looking forward to exploring and going out into the countryside over the next few days. More tomorrow about South Vietnam.

Vu, our guide, wanted an early start this morning so that we could get ahead of the crowd and we were so grateful after we arrived that this UNESCO world heritage site. My Son, pronounced me son, is a series of Hindu temples. They were constructed of brick and we intended to honor the god and goddess of fertility. This particular site was probably chosen because it symbolically represented male and female reproductive organs. We arrived before busses and vans to watch a performance of Indian music and dances they strolled through the different temples. WE could actually go into the altar rooms of some of then and there were flowers and incense burners from the visitors the day before. This site was a hideout for the Viet Cong and many of the temples were destroyed by bombs and hand to hand combat. Some nevertheless survived and are being restored by UNESCO funds and Indian and Vietnamese funds. The German and POlish government are also heavily involved in the project. Women were working in a hut weaving on ancient style looms and recreating old designs for robes and other products. A new performance started and the music wafted among these ruins. We were cautioned to stay on the path because the possibility of live mines is very real in the area. Gorgeous butterflies, birds, flowers and other jungle plants had to fear of the danger, but again we were reminded of the damage war can bring to sacred sites. A bumpy ride brought us back to Hoi An and after lunch we went for a rest. The heat got to me today and I needed some extra rest. We are ready for the sun to go down so that we can again see the lovely lanterns of Hoi An.

The past two days were spent in Hue the last capital of Vietnam before the French colonized the country. The city suffered through the Indochinese war with the French and what is known here as the American war. The Imperial City or the community where the king of Vietnam lived was badly damaged. Much was destroyed by the fighting when the Americans tried to take Hue and a lot was destroyed by termites the damaged seems about 60/40. There as been some restoration with the funds coming from UNESCO, but it is difficult to find workers with the skills to restore such old buildings. The last king was not a good king to the people and very much in the pocket of the French. He abandoned the capital and went to Paris is 1956 leaving Vietnam in the hands of the French. This made the rise of Communism easier for the leaders of North Vietnam to manifest. These cities amaze me. They have modern buildings, pagodas that are centuries old, and cattle still freely wander along the waterways. We also visited the ancient tomb of one of the older kings of Vietnam. When he realized that death of coming, he asked some of his loyal followers to bury him in a secret place and to leave his tomb empty. Many many years when the French came they opened his tomb expecting to find hidden treasure. What they found was nothing, not even some bones. That King got the last laugh. There were many visual treats in Hue. The dragon drums and dance to celebrate the opening of a new dress shop. a boat trip down the Perfume River, snapping pictures of little children and watching their faces as they looked at them on our camera screen, schools children being picked up by parents on scooters, and an older museum guard demanding a high five as entered a museum. We had a wonderful time in HUe and ended it with ice cream covered in toasted coconut and a demitasse of espresso poured over it. Wonderful

Much of today was spent in the car. We left Don Hoi and drove to the DMZ which was a 17 mile zone where no fighting took place during the war. We also had a chance to visit the famous tunnels where the Vietnamese went underground to avoid being bombed by the Americans. Their engineering and ingenuity was amazing. Miles of tunnels facing the sea for fresh air, wells, hospitals, maternity wards and schools all underground to outfox the enemy. The Vietnamese had spent years fighting the French and knew how to conduct a war. The more they were bombed, the more determined to defeat the enemy and they certainly did that. We are now in Hue which was at one time the Imperial City of Vietnam. It is a beautiful city on the Perfume River where the streets of the old quarter are shut down to autos and pedestrians can explore without fear of being smashed by a scooter or car or bicycle loaded with fruit. Prior to that we took our lives in our hands and crossed the street not just once but four times. Each time my life flashed before my eyes. My favorite part of the day was listening to a local band playing small drums and performing dance steps. I love to see local people keep their traditions alive. Tomorrow more of Hue then on to Hoi An.