Greetings from Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam, a city of over 6 million!!
We arrived 21 hours ago (there is a 14 hour difference between here and the West Coast...it is now 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday, Sep. 26, while it is 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, Sep. 25 for West Coasters). Our airplane accommodations were luxurious on the Boeing 777 soaring for 12 hours coming from Vancouver, B.C. to Hong Kong, riding in Business Class in "pods", with the ability to recline to a prone position and sleep covered by a comforter. The weather was low-80's and humid when we arrived at 10:00 a.m. and the 30 minute taxi ride to our hotel was wild with near misses with motor bike riders and lots of horn honking. It made riding in Tuk-Tuks in Bangkok seem like child's play. As wild as it was, it was nothing compared to being a pedestrian later that day and trying to cross major avenues safely. It was a bit like the game of dodge ball or being the ball in a pinball machine.
In the afternoon we were met with a huge downpour that lasted quite a while. We tired of waiting it out under some shop awnings and made a hurried effort for 200 meters to our hotel from the coffee shop we were in before the torrential flows. We were drenched and laughing when we got inside the hotel. Later in the evening on a 3 hour walk, we were prepared with ponchos and an umbrella. Of course the rain never came back!! We managed a long walk to a small informal art gallery that was suggested by a friend in Seattle, Tu Do, with works by a number of Vietnamese painters and sculptors. The owner, whose English, fortunately, was quite good, provided personal information about some of the artists and political history around the communist regime and "re-education" camps that many of the non-Communist artists were sent to.
We ended the night of walking taking pictures of the grand City Opera House, a statue/sculpture of "Uncle" Ho which was in a small park across from the entrance of the infamous Rex Hotel. We enjoyed beverages and some spring rolls on the 5th floor rooftop garden of the Rex, home to foreign correspondents during the Vietnam War (or "American" War as the Vietnamese refer to it). As we neared our hotel around 8 p.m. and crossed a large park, there were locals dancing to a boom box spewing out music which was driving swing dancing in a gazebo. A lovely way to end our 1st day of this long adventure. We figured out that we have 17 airplane "legs" the whole time and now have 14 left to go. Someone told us that it also means 28 moments of concern (they phrased it differently) since when you take off, you also need to land.
Before leaving Ho Chi Minh City, we spent time with Jordan’s good friend, Tyler, and his wife Hillary, who work for an international school in Ho Chi Minh City and then flew to Ha Noi for 1 night before starting a 6-day 1,100 kilometer tour of the northwest sector of Vietnam.The tour included stays in the towns of Son La and Diem Bien Phu (near the border with Laos), historically important sites relative to the French occupation, as well as lush countryside replete with beautifully tiered rice and tea fields. We were awakened in both these places at 5:00 a.m. by crowing roosters and the blaring of music and messaging over loudspeakers attached to austere government buildings throughout these cities. This would continue for a full 2 hours. The tour of the museums, cemeteries and former prisons in these locales were extremely educational, providing a view different from one that we might have had.
Constant scenes of this road trip were water buffaloes wallowing in muddy rice paddies or ambling in the middle of the narrow dirt roads (since they only have to work 1 month/year when the rice planting takes place), road sides being used for drying corn, rice, peppers and plywood that would go on for miles, and the omnipresent motor bikes carrying anything from bundles of rice stalks to another motor bike laid across the back. In addition, there was usually only one hand steering, the other holding a cell phone or umbrella. We traveled up to 10 hours a day, many times at only 30-45 kmph (18-28 mph) due to ruts, commercial truck traffic and road work in the mountains. Horn honking was a must rounding the dangerous bends in the mountain roads.
We were fortunate to share time and eat with Viet minorities like White Thais, H’mong and Black Dzao in their homes, very treasured experiences. It also was important to join them in their toasts imbibing banana rice wine, which could last a while. Along the trip our guide, Hieu, and driver, Ha, stopped at some of their friends’ roadside family businesses where we witnessed the distilling of rice wine, the making of arrowroot noodles, and the creation of flour from pounding rice kernels.
The highest elevation we reached was 1,900 meters at Tram Ton pass, nearing the touristy hamlet of Sapa (near the border with China), where we stayed for 2 nights (didn’t have to be road warriors for a whole day!). We came back to Ha Noi on October 3, our 37th wedding anniversary, after a wonderful “homestay” the previous night with a Black Dzao family on Thac Ba lake. Maggie was certain it would be too rustic for a decent night’s sleep, but it turned out to be one of her best nights!
The beauty of NW Vietnam can be summed up in words like Shangri La, pristine, primeval and “manicured nature” (referring to the almost architecturally-designed tiers of rice that cover the hillsides and deep valleys).
Our visit yesterday to Ha Noi’s Vietnam Women’s Museum, was one of the most powerful testimonies to the strength of women everywhere. In this case, the 3rd floor of this museum show-cased the many female military and political leaders of Vietnam. One room had several hundred photos of some of the 50,000 women honored as “Heroic Vietnam Mothers” who lost children, husbands or their own lives over the course of their 20th century wars. One woman lost 10 children and 2 grandchildren.
After we leave Ha Noi on October 7, we will spend 2 nights in Kuala Lumpur and then on to Borneo for 5 nights in the state of Sarawak before we go for 11 days “into the heart of Borneo” in the state of Sabah, which is also the heart of our adventure. We will be sharing that part of our journey with long-time friends, Kurt & Joanie and their long-time friends (our new friends) Phil & Marilyn. Our next sharing will be before we start those 11 days.
Love & Cheers, Stan & Maggie