Last Day in Asia

I would be remiss if I did not report on the hotel in Saigon.  We are at the Reverie downtown.  I checked it out on Hotels.com and it goes for $314 per night.  We are on the 38th floor (out of 39) with a killer view of the river and sunrise.  The room is huge with a giant tub with a TV and a heated toilet seat with bidet functions - front cleansing, rear cleansing and dryer.  Oh my Buddha!!  The breakfast is included and has items such as Eggs Benedict with foi gras and asparagus in addition to the usual omelette bar, cold cuts and cheese, fruit, congee, pork and shrimp bao, etc.  The cappuccino is beautiful and delicious.  Do I have to go home?
The morning was spent on the disco bus for 2 hours to the Chu Chi Tunnels where the VC hid during the war.  We had the opportunity to go down into the tunnels and even for someone my height, it was a challenge.  They also had examples of some of the booby traps the VC set in the jungles.  Low tech, but very effective.  We had bahn mi for lunch, then I shopped a little more.
Tonight is our last dinner together, then on the plane tomorrow.
Great trip, great people, great times.

Mango basil cocktail

                                   I know it’s the year of the pig but his is the ugliest dress EVER

Booby trap 

                              Our hotel room

 McDonalds in Saigon

Sunrise from our hotel window 

Ho Chi MInh City

Got off the boat in the morning to a huge city.  Traffic is crazy, but maybe I am getting used to Asia and it didn’t seem so bad.  The smog was much less than in Hanoi.  We went to the old post office designed by Gustav Eiffel, saw the Norte Dame Cathedral and the CIA building where the last helicopter left Viet Nam.  Then it was drinks at the rooftop bar at the Rex Hotel where the foreign correspondents held the “5 o’clockfollies”.  The old colonial buildings are elegant and very well maintained.  Stopped briefly at the Ben Trans Market = another place with lots of stiff, North Face knock offs seem to be a favorite.  Our visit to the War Remnants Museum was grim.  The victor gets to write history and it was very biased.  I get it, was is hell - for BOTH sides.
We then went to a cooking class where we learned to make pho, ginger chicken, summer and spring rolls.  I won an award for my summer rolls!
The afternoon was spent back in the market with “the girls”. Dinner was pizza at the hotel bar which has a wood fired oven and actually turned out a great pie!

Got to get me some of that coffee!!!!!

Night lights in Saigon

                                   The old post office

                                      Dean at cooking class

Night lights in Saigon

My Summer Rolls

                                               Inside the post office

                         The gray building in the middle is the former CIA HQ

Last Day on the Boat

Morning was spent in Ben Tre, first arriving by sampan, then walking through the village where they grow all kinds of fruit:  coconuts, cocoa, jack fruit, mangos, tamarind, papaya.  We then loaded into a horse cart for a ride to a restaurant where we were served sweet tea flavored with kumquats and were serenaded by a VIetnamese group playing the 2 string banjo, guitar and one string zither accompanied by several singers.  They sang a few traditional songs and ended with Auld Lang Sine in Vietnamese.  We then boarded small sampans (2-3 people each) rowed by a woman standing up in the stern, much like a paddle boarder. The river was lined with water palms. Then it was on to the coconut candy factory.  A woman there husks the coconuts by hand, then feeds the meat into a machine that pulverizes it, another that mixes it into a paste, then another that adds flavor.  The result is hand pressed into forms, cut into lengths and hand wrapped.  The result is delicious, especially the ginger banana one.  They were also selling some kind of rice based moonshine with a cobra in the bottle.  I could have bought small souvenir bottles with tiny cobra, but I don’t know anyone I dislike enough to give that to.
The afternoon on the boat included a visit to the wheelhouse and kitchen as well as being part of the parade of ships into Ho Chi Minh City. Quite a change from the Cambodian Mekong.  The crew came out to give their goodbyes and sang and danced traditional Cambodian songs, then invited us to

dance with them.  You haven’t lived until you have done the twist with the 20 year old Cambodian kitchen staff! Disembarkation in the AM.

Vietnamese combo

                                                   Pomelo

Husking coconuts for candy

                                                Wrapping coconut candy

                                                      Jack fruit

                                            Small sampan

                                                   Horse drawn cart

                                                        Cobra in rice wine

                                                        River canal

Small sampan

Boat staff doing the macarena 

Traffic on the Mekong

                                                       Our chef in his kitchen

                                               Shark boat in Saigon

                                                  Getting ready to get back on board

                                              Night boat in Saigon

Saigon skyline at night

The girls in our elephant pants

South on the Mekong

In the morning we went to Long Khanh A, a town of 20,000 along the river arriving by sampan.  Our first stop was at a house where lived a former Viet Cong soldier, now the local pharmacist.  He fought at Ben Tre where one of our group manned a patrol boat during the war. Not a dry eye in the place as the man ran up to shake Rick’s hand.  The man’s wife was very proud of her kitchen with all her pots and pans hanging neatly from the wall.  We also went to see some local weavers.  They used to use a hand loom and turn out 2 scarves a day.  Now they have electricity so have 4 looms cranking out 20 scarves each, so they are in (relative) fat city.  The scarves go for 2-4 dollars.
In the afternoon, we went to the oldest Catholic Church on “mango” island.  Transportation was by a 6 seat cart pulled by a motor bike.  We had to wear non la or the traditional conical hats to keep from getting hit in the head by mangos falling from the trees.  Most of us looked pretty silly.  We visited the home of a lady who makes the hats, again can only make 2 per day.  Our final stop was at a sampan builder who makes the wooden boats by hand.  It takes him 1-2 days depending on the size of the boat.  He makes them out of golden oak and they are quite amazing.  He showed us how he cuts the brackets for the inside of the boat with a hand saw, stabilizing the wood with his feet.  And he still has all his toes! He was by far the happiest person we have seen in Viet Nam.

                                       Former adversaries

Rocking the non la

Non la

                                              Inside the Catholic Church

                                   Proud of her kitchen

Making non la

Old Catholic Church

Local pharmacy 

                     Boat builder stabilizing his work with his foot

Viet Nam

                                  Stilt houses

Some of the lady’s fancy duds

Pig for rent 

                  Duck farm

Local fisherman

Crossed the border on the Mekong in the morning.  Getting through immigration involved a sampan from Immigration coming out to the boat, leaving with a backpack full of everyones’ passports, then returning 20 minutes later with the passports stamped and returning to immigration with a bottle of whisky.  Very efficient.  We pulled in to Chau Doc where we went to the “wet market”.  This is where people traditionally go for their daily shopping.  It is covered with awnings so low that most of our party had to duck their heads.  The floor is wet from all the tubs of semi-live fish thrashing around.
Tons (literally) of produce, meat and fish.  There were even skinned mice, ready to cook - uh, no.  There were street vendors selling rotisserie chicken with the heads and feet still on, coffee and flowers.  We went to a modern grocery store where the “young people” shop which was very much
like a WalMart with prices that were not that dissimilar to the States.  Viet Nam had a population of 40 million in 1975 and now it’s over 90 million, so in general, the population is young.
In the afternoon, we took a long sampan ride down a side canal where people live in stilt houses, farm fish and ducks and fish the river.  Then we in a small town where they have a temple to a lady statue that supposedly was found there many years ago.  They have enshrined her in a temple where they bring offerings of flowers, food and incense.  The top offering is a whole roasted pig and since many
families cannot afford it, they rent it for a period of time.  We were not allowed to take photos of her, but she is pretty chunky and has many jeweled robes for various holidays. It is brutally hot and the local beer tastes so good.

                                                      Chickens

                                                        Noodles

                                                           Bananas

In the Market

                             Chris has to duck

                             Semi-live Fish

                                                  Mice - it’s what’s for dinner