Wordless Wednesday

From My Travel Journal - Vung Tau, (Ho Chi Minh), Viet Nam

Wednesday, November 14, 2007—Vung Tau, (Ho Chi Minh), Viet Nam

Reunification Palace

            Vung Tau. Our “tender” this morning turns out to be a hydrofoil jet boat that holds about 250 people. In ten minutes, we are ashore. The ship’s tenders we are told, take almost a half hour.

On our two-and-a-half hour bus ride to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), we get a smattering of history. France and Japan occupied Viet Nam for years. In 1954, the country was divided into South and North Viet Nam. President Diem of South 
Viet Nam was murdered along with his brother just 21 days before Kennedy was assassinated. It is questionable whether Kennedy was responsible for the murder of the brothers. (No wonder there were so many conspiracy theories in Dallas.)

            If you look beyond the clutter and shoddy buildings, the countryside is truly beautiful. We pass some nice looking apartments and what appears to be a resort.

            More history: The war ended in 1975 and on April 28, 1986, the door opened to the outside world. In 1994, the USA lifted the embargo and in 1995, the US embassy opened in Hanoi. President Clinton was the first president to visit (2000) after the war.

The roads appear in good condition. There are few cars but quite a contingency of scooters!

We pass a tree farm. Something is made from the sap—latex?

Education is not compulsory. People have to pay for their children to go to school. Eighty percent receive an education.

 Our guide gives us the most profound statement of our whole trip: “Some people think Viet Nam is a war but actually it is a country.” I will remember that for a long time to come.

Hanoi is the political capital of Viet Nam and Ho Chi Minh is the economic capital.

The Reunification Palace is our first stop in HCM. It was first built in 1861 and perhaps rebuilt or redesigned in the 1960s (I don’t understand what he says here). The president of South Viet Nam stayed here during the war. It was bombed again then and had to be rebuilt. The North Vietnamese plane that bombed it sits in the park outside along with some tanks from the war.

The “palace” is more like a huge meeting center with rooms full of tables and microphones and one large room set up with chairs and a podium behind which a large bust of Ho Chi Minh sits. The basement is the area where the South Vietnamese leaders were bunkered for the war. It has heavy walls like a bomb shelter. 

There are old radios and desks in some rooms, a large kitchen/dining area, a room where we are told President Diem slept, and a map room with a large poster listing the number of troops from foreign countries involved in the war. The guide points to the top of the list and says that is the United States number. It is larger than all the rest.

We drive through the city and marvel at the pretty parks that are dotted throughout. At the Notre Dame Cathedral, we stop for pictures and the opportunity to run across the street to purchase stamps from the huge post office. It resembles a large train station and reminds me of Grand Central in New York City. The stamps we buy are very nice—blue with a whale on them—and cheap.

After another photo shoot at the city hall, we stop at a temple. This one has unusual incense burning but similar to what we have seen in China and Japan, a wish/prayer is tied to the top of a cone shaped spiral of incense. The cone is about two feet high and a foot across at the base. It is lit at the base and as it burns, I guess it sends the prayer to heaven. I’m thinking your answer must come when it burns to the very top. We have to be careful of pieces of incense ash falling on our heads. 

In a small side room sits the god of good fortune and while we are admiring the artwork, one of the locals is feverishly praying and bowing with some sort of sheave of grain in his hands.

Lunch is a buffet of delights at a five star hotel. It was very nice with local spring rolls and unique pineapple fritters with chocolate sauce. Some of the other food was considered “international” but I didn’t recognize it. Still it was a delicious meal and there was no lazy susan.

We finish eating early and slip out to get a cup of coffee at the coffee shop in the lobby. It is a little bit of Western civilization and a welcome reprieve from all the noise and shuffling of a large group of tourists.

Followed closely by vendors, we stop at a lacquer factory. Workers sit along a trough of water and sand the lacquer ware with fine emery. As usual on the “factory” tours, we don’t learn a whole lot about the process but we do get a whole lot of opportunity to shop. We buy a small lacquered screen inlaid with mother of pearl for my dresser at home.

Outside, Bob enjoys an exchange with a street vendor over a lacquered box he wants for his mother. He gets the price down to $1 but when another group of tourists join him, the price suddenly jumps up to $3 again. We learn that if you get the vendors alone, the price will be lower but they won’t admit selling that low to a group of people.

Finally we arrive at the history museum for the primary reason we have come on this tour—to see the water puppets. We sit around a large square pool of water. At one end, there is a “stage” with three green screens hanging down into the water. Behind it is where the puppeteers stand.  We suspect the puppets must be on long poles. They fly through the water and perform their dance and tell their story. There are pyrotechnics when the dragon appears. It is amazing the control they have with all of their puppets. After the show, the puppeteers appear. There are six of them and I am even more amazed that so many could work in the small area behind the screen with all that equipment.

            We walk through the rest of the museum, are fascinated by a mummy, and then dash for the bus just before it begins to rain.

            This evening we have dinner in the personal choice restaurant with Molly and Fred. I like the atmosphere better than the main dining room. It feels more like you’ve gone out to eat at a nice restaurant. 

From My Travel Journal - Nha Trang, Viet Nam

Tuesday, November 13, 2007—Nha Trang, Viet Nam

The tenders take us into Nha Trang, Viet Nam for our 9:30 a.m. tour. The area is beautiful. According to our information from the ship, this is where there are lots of resorts and beach areas that are becoming a popular tourist destination. Green hills rise up from the shore line around the bay. Gondolas move across a cable stretched over the bay to an island on the other side.

            If there are five star hotels here, we are not going to see them today. We do pass a nice beach but the water looks a bit green and muddy. There was a storm that passed through a few days before our arrival—a typhoon. According to the news reports, parts of Viet Nam flooded but we see no obvious indication of that here.

            Our first stop is at a private (Catholic, I think) pre-school. The kids are ages 3-5. The threes sit in little chairs in a semi-circle and sing for us. Next we see the fours. Another song and some costumes. The fives however offer us a full program of traditional song and dance and costume. They are full of energy and seem truly pleased to be able to perform for us. As we watch, I notice the kids seem to be anticipating something. Then, on a signal from their teacher, they rush to us with lively chatter and hug us. I am not the only one in tears. It is a touching moment. Now I miss my grandkids.

            We learn that the school costs $10/week if we understand our guide correctly. We are having difficulty with his English.

            Vendors swarm the bus hawking their postcards, purses, shirts, and paintings. Everything as usual, is negotiable and much is “one dollah!”

            The next stop is a farmer’s market in a little farm town. As we travel, we see acres of rice paddies. They surround the homes here. Like in China, every bit of acreage is used. One paddy is full of ducks. A farmer is raising them for food but our guide implies that it is a problem here because the ducks eat the rice plants and the duck farmers don’t always contain their livestock.

            The farmers market is under a huge pavilion in the center of the town and is “open air.” There are various levels of cement platforms. Vendors spread their wares on the raised platforms and sit in the middle of what they are selling—vegetables, fish, poultry, rice noodles. The place reeks of fish smells and I don’t know what else. Rotting vegetables, maybe. Flies are everywhere. I take a picture of a cleaned chicken or duck like you would find in one of our supermarkets without the plastic wrap. Flies are swarming all over it. We don’t stop but make our way through and out to fresh air.

            The street vendors pursue us again and we realize they have just been following the bus on their motor scooters. Our guide mentions there are 80 million people in Viet Nam and 60 million motor scooters. Next month they will be required to wear helmets because of the increasing number of fatalities from accidents. There are few cars, some trucks on the road and I marvel at how nice our buses are all things considered.

            A Buddhist temple is next. We aren’t certain that’s what it is and I have to ask passengers from another bus to confirm that. It is not as ornate as those we’ve seen in other countries. In the courtyard, women are weaving samples of sleeping mats. There are children there selling the samples for. . .yep, “one dollah.” I hand out the candy I’ve collected from my pillow at night to the kids I see. As we head inside, I wonder why they aren’t in school. I could ask but I probably wouldn’t be able to understand the answer.

The temple is nothing remarkable.

            As we pull up in front of a farmhouse, I am amazed that we will be invading this little place like we did in China. This home is even smaller. There are three rooms across the front of the house which look more like three niches set into one large room. There are three sets of doors that all open out making the whole house exposed to the outdoors. Many of the houses we passed have been like that.

            The lady of the house greets us at the end of the short walkway. She nods and smiles. Her yard is full of green tropical plants. Some are flowering. We approach the first room which is set up like a shrine with the picture of a man in the middle of a table full of candles and statues. Our guide explains that her husband died three months ago. Are we taking advantage of a widow or is this a way for her to survive? I hope the latter and I pray the tour company pays her well.

            The second room appears to be a dining area. There is a cabinet with china in it and a small table and chairs. A young boy, perhaps nine or ten, sits impatiently in a chair in the third room watching the stream of visitors pass by. At the end of the three rooms, are two cubicles that are sleeping areas. I see a wooden platform in one with a sleeping mat in a similar pattern to the sample I bought. The other has a hammock and smaller bed.

A small room in the back is the “kitchen.” It doesn’t resemble anything I’m familiar with but has some pots and pans hanging on the wall. We are told the “bathroom” is behind the house but there is a bottleneck because one of the walkways is blocked by a barking dog no one wants to pass near. I turn and exit the way I came. Bob shows me a picture of the traditional bathroom. It looks like a porcelain bowl on the floor. He says there’s a brush next to it to keep it clean.

On our way out, the vendors get a little more aggressive grabbing our arm to stop us as they shove their wares at us and insist we buy. I notice there are police or security guards who are making sure they don’t board the bus. As we pull away, I watch the eager salespeople run for their scooters and fall in line next to us. I wonder how they will stay on these narrow roads with the buses.

There is a “Kodak picture spot” along the way. A half dozen women and a farmer with some water buffalo are waiting on us to stop and take pictures. The ladies try to sell us rice stalks but our guide has already picked up some pieces for us to examine. We take pictures of the farmer and his team as well as the women wading almost knee-high in the rice paddy.

            Our last stop is a nice open air restaurant that is next to some body of water—an inlet or river. We are served a plate of fruit including the delicious Dragon Fruit. The meat is white with tiny dark seeds and tastes a bit like a kiwi with more of an apple texture. I wonder what it looks like before it is cut? The coconut milk is supposed to be a treat but I’ve had better. It is served right in the coconut which has had the outer shell removed. The coconuts are very light in color and the meat inside is soft rather than hard like others I’ve had. It is not as sweet either. There is a group of musicians that supplies some beautiful soft music as we eat.

            The toilets are tolerable.

            We wind our way through another onslaught of vendors to board the bus. At the dock where the tenders pick up, there are numerous stalls of all sorts of merchandise. Most of them are selling freshwater pearls if you can believe they are real. There are lots of lacquered articles and many knock-offs. We buy three lacquer boxes and a “Coach” bag to help us get our souvenirs home. After some negotiating, the bag is reduced from $17 to $12 US. The temperature is climbing and we decide to head for the air conditioned ship.

In My Lifetime--Viet Nam Perspective

It's been a month since I've posted--a very busy month. We were traveling in Asia. A land tour as well as a cruise that took us through China and on to Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand, and VietNam. Surprisingly, our favorite two stops were in Viet Nam.

Perhaps our interest was peaked most in Nam since we lived through the Viet Nam war era. I remember holding our breath through the draft lottery that would determine our future. Bob's number was high enough to make it possible to ensure he would finish school and we could continue with our plans for the future.

I recall the nightly reports that more than any other war brought home the sacrifices we were making. Then there were the protests, the draft card burnings on campus, and the young men who fled to Canada to avoid the draft. Viet Nam was certainly devisive in those years.

Our two stops in Viet Nam were quite different. The trip to Ho Chi Minh city gave us a glimpse of history--remembering the pullout of Saigon, the mass evacuation by helicopter, the war headquarters. Our other excursioin took us into the countryside where we met more closely the people of Viet Nam. Our hearts were touched by their lives as they shared customs, lifestyle, and traditions with us.

But what will stay with me are the words spoken so profoundly by one of our guides. "When people say Viet Nam they mean a war but Viet Nam is a country." Yes, a beautiful country with some very beautiful people.