We’d talked about doing this trip for months…..finally a reasonably good deal came up and we booked it in early January.  BEFORE the corona virus was a major issue.  As the time got closer and closer we did worry a bit but it still had not been declared a pandemic.  Travel advisories for both countries suggested it wasn’t necessary to cancel plans but to take necessary precautions such as hand washing and masks…..petty theft seemed to be a bigger issue!  Four of us went…..myself, Donna, Brenda and Cathy.  Decided to book a tour as opposed to doing it ourselves because it was just easier and a “small group” tour (max 25 people).  Opted not to include the 5 days in Thailand as that is some place that we’d be able to organize ourselves one day.  Booked it through a local travel agent.  The tour operator was China Star Holidays……who I must say were excellent!  http://www.chinastarholiday.com/  As with this kind of tour we were busy from the moment our feet hit the ground until our last day. 

As the trip got closer and closer COVID 19 was becoming more of an issue.  Our flights thru Shanghai were changed, as well as the airline from China Eastern to Cathay Pacific, going thru Hong Kong, which we were happy about. All was still a go, we were assured by the travel agent that if any problems came up things would be changed as necessary.  We could not cancel at this point (2 weeks out) without losing all our money as the travel advisory still had not changed.  So, for better or worse, off we went! 

Dividing this into 3 blog posts –  1. Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) 2. Hanoi, Vietnam and 3. Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Wed/Thurs/Fri Mar 4/5/6

Last minute flight change had us leaving the night/morning before, at just after 1AM of the 5th (Vanc time), so we gained a full day in Ho Chi Minh (orig supposed to arrive at midnight on the 6th).  Picked everyone up, dropped the car at the park and fly and met our guide, Eddie, at the Cathay Pacific check-in at 10:15 on the 4th.  Met the rest of our group…..8 people, all locals.  Will be two more that we meet up with once we arrive in HCM, so 14 of us, which is just enough.  Luggage checked thru to Ho Chi Minh so don’t have to worry about collecting it in Hong Kong….only have an hour there so that’s a good thing.

Donna, Brenda and the others had already gone thru security by the time Cathy and I did.  We met the pilot, Doug, going thru security……record time for that since we were the only 3 people!  Not sure if just because of the time of day, or morning, or just so few flights.

Plane was maybe just half full…….huge plane too!  777-300.  Had a window and Brenda had the aisle originally but ended up getting a row in the centre to herself.

Not much to see since it was dark all the way until just before arriving in Hong Kong.  Long, long flight…..13.5hrs!  Served dinner around 2AM.  Gave us a menu that listed the salad, our choice of 3 main courses (chicken, shrimp or veg) dessert and the wines they were serving!!   Ran out of our choice for dinner so told us we’d get first pick for breakfast.  Had the and prawns and rice (just OK), wine was Australian (good).

Got settled in with my pillow, blanket, eye mask and my new foot hammock!  That thing is fantastic!  Managed to actually sleep close to 6 hours.  Brenda had moved when I woke up so tried to stretch out over the 3 seats but the middle armrest would not go up! Still managed to get comfy enough to doze on and off for another couple hours.  Great service, very friendly and helpful staff.

Breakfast was OK…scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, an odd little sausage and a really good little sweet bun with cranberries……good, very hot coffee!

All and all for such a long flight it was pretty good and no complaints about Cathay Pacific.

Arrived in Hong Kong just after 7AM, wrong side of the plane of course to get any view of the city.  Unreal seeing so many planes parked, there had to be a few hundred all in neat rows, wing tip to wing tip.  Eddie collected us all and off we went to the gate for our connection to Saigon.  Had only one hour but no problems and NO PEOPLE!!  I’ve never been to Hong Kong before but I’m pretty sure the airport is normally packed.  Honestly you could have had a football game in there.  Only our gate and one other a ways down that had people.  Wow!

 

Flight to HCM was just 2hrs……no window.  Another half empty flight. Eddie collected us and all our passports, extra pics, visa letters etc. for the visa processing.  Took about 1/2 hours, then thru customs/immigration, which took about 5 minutes……not many people at all.  Out to meet our local guide and on the bus.  Busy outside with lots of people coming and going…..apparently only international flights have been limited so still lots of domestic arrivals and departures. Nice airport, looks fairly new.

Once on the bus and enroute to the hotel Eddie and Jackie, our local guide, explained the itinerary etc.  Great drive to the hotel thru the city.  Millions, literally, of scooters, Crazy busy traffic and constant horn honking and beeping.  Architecture is very interesting.  A mix of residental and commercial, very narrow buildings, many look almost colonial or French, some very modern.  Shops on the street level, homes above.  Lots of fruit and veg vendors along the road as well as a few food stands….pho!  Tons of restaurants and cafes with little plastic chairs and tables on the sidewalk.  Streets are relatively clean, bits of paper here and there, bags of trash piled up for pick up.

We have a “free” day here…..because we arrived earlier, so we’re on our own for lunch and dinner today.

Arrived at our hotel, the Equatorial, around 10:30.  https://hochiminhcity.equatorial.com/tours/  Eddie and Jackie looked after all the check-ins for us while we sat and enjoyed a very refreshing glass of hibiscus tea.  Too early to get our rooms but luckily had packed bathing suits in the carry-ons.

Beautiful pool surrounded by plumeria trees and other greenery, nice bar with lots of shaded seating.  Had a swim and our first Saigon beers to celebrate arriving and surviving the incredibly long travel day(s)!  Very hot!!  Got our rooms just after noon, so went up and got a bit organized then back down to the pool for lunch or a bit of a snack.  Just too tired and too hot to head out exploring.  French fries, satay and spring rolls.  We were doing everything we possibly could to NOT go up to our rooms and just go to bed.

Met up with others in our group.  Maureen and Ken, Alan, Grant and Gord are all old friends (some since elementary school…..and they’re our age!)  Another lady, Jody is not with them, she’s from Kamloops I think.  Mark and Mercy from Abbotsford. Met the other two ladies, Connie and Lori, who had just arrived from Thailand where they’d been for a week.

Up to change around 5:30 and figure out what to do about dinner.  Donna decided on a short nap, Brenda, Cathy and I ventured out for a little tour of the streets around the hotel….even managed to cross the street a couple of times!  Lots of places to eat but Eddie and Jackie suggested not trying anything for the first day or two, so just found a Circle K for some big bottles of water and headed back to the hotel.  Donna was up by the time we got back. Brenda and Cathy were done and just went to bed. Donna and I went to check out dinner in the restaurant but it was buffet and just way too much food.  Back to the pool bar and ordered a couple glasses of wine and pizza.  Was OK and good enough.

Was totally done for the day by 8:30……so tired I could hardly see straight.  Read for a bit until the lights went out…..by themselves!!

Sat Mar 7

Ack…..the lights in our room have a mind of their own!!  They come on and go off without any help from us…..just bizarre!  Slept pretty good for a couple of hours until the light show started.  The light beside my bed came on, I turned it off…..10 minutes later the light near the door came on, turned it off, then the bathroom light came on and on it went until 2 when I finally got up and put my eye mask on.

Slept until 5:30.  Felt OK, made the hotel room instant coffee and took it down by the pool to update my journal and wait for everyone for breakfast.  Really hot and muggy.  Just the best time of day!!  Fun watching and listening to our street wake up. It’s busy with scooters loaded with bundles of stuff, various types of carts being pulled by people or people on bikes, lots of honking, stores/cafes starting to open with people sweeping up out front, setting up their big pots and a few people sitting on those little chairs having their breakfast.

Excellent breakfast buffet.  Lots of variety, eggs, bacon (v.g.) etc. Asian assortments of soups, noodles and dumplings, great pastries and really good, hot coffee.

Chatted with some of our groups…..a couple of other rooms also had light shows!!  Just weird.  Alan knows my nephew thru the BC Lacrosse Assoc. and Gord, is the brother-in-law of a friend of Cathy’s!  Ken and Maureen live about a 5 minute drive from my house!! It really is a small world!

 

 

On the bus by 8 for our visit to the Cu Chi Tunnels.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%E1%BB%A7_Chi_tunnels  Nice drive, about 45 min.  Small scattered villages/communities enroute, all still within the city limits but much more countryside rather than urban. Rubber tree plantations line the roadside.  They mark and slash the trees then put in a sort of spigot for the latex to drain, apparently it can only be done at night.  The trees are good for producing for 25 years.

We entered thru the museum which has various artillery and guns on display……they are still finding bombshells as well as un-detonated ones!  Mines are also still a problem all these years later.  We stopped in to see a video, which Jackie explained was a Viet cong propaganda video, made in the late 60’s meant, to encourage villagers to join the fight against the Americans…..it showed happy smiley people, including little boys and girls maybe 5 years old if that, holding and shooting guns.  Told them all how smart they were and that fighting and killing Americans was their priority.  They dug the tunnels, set booby traps……really quite horrific ones…..the things nightmares are made of!  If you didn’t join them, they simply killed you, or your family…..these poor people had no choice….they were stuck between a rock and hard place.  I remember thinking how horrid it was that innocent women and children were also being killed during the war  but this kind of makes us understand now why the Americans shot everyone and everything in their way……you just wouldn’t know if it was an innocent villager, or small child, with an AK 47 or Kalishnikov (sp?) tucked under their shirt.   Just incredible!

The tour was very good and informative.  Cathy went in one of the tunnels……pretty claustrophobic and she’s really tiny!

The route is laid out very well, easy to follow and nicely shaded so relatively comfortable to wander thru.  There are re-creations of what some of the areas in the tunnels would have looked like; the kitchen or cooking area with the special venting so the smoke went along the ground instead of up in the air so as not to be detected from above, meeting rooms, sleeping rooms and sewing rooms where they made uniforms and sandals, made from old tires, that you put on backwards to make it look like you were walking the other way if someone was tracking you.  The hospital building was really interesting…..the area was completely covered in bamboo, which was planted on purpose…..if the Americans used some defoliant to kill the trees and grass, the bamboo would grow back very quickly. They also had the various booby traps displayed, just horrific…..seeing one or two was enough for me!  Many termite mounds around, some real, others manmade, which would have little holes hidden in them for airways into the tunnels.

What made this place all the more creepy was the shooting range!!  So the whole time you are wandering around all you hear is gun fire…….just a little disturbing.  You can shoot any number of different weapons for $3US a bullet!  Also a number of bomb craters….one from a B52. Finished the tour at the little souvenir and rice paper shop.

Lunch was a short drive away at a great spot between two canals…..Ben Nay (lots of trip advisor reviews), very pretty and picturesque!   One big building and lots of smaller pagoda type buildings for dining. Set menu but the food was quite good and there was lots of it!  Nice cold beers to go along with it all.   Very hot even with the ceiling fans going inside our pagoda.

About an hour bus ride back to the city centre.  Big trucks filled with watermelons, lots of roadside produce places.  Stopped for an hour or so visit to a local market.  Crazy busy, selling everything……standard tourist souvenir stuff, some really nice clothes and tee shirts, flowers, beautiful colourful produce, fish (fresh and dried), many food stalls…..it all smelled really good!  Too hot and just too busy so Donna and I headed across the street to a little bar for beers…..the boys from our tour group joined us so chatted until time to meet the bus to go back to the hotel.

Back to the hotel and time for a nice dip in the pool and drinks at the swim up bar!  So, so hot.  Not as muggy as it was this morning.  Chatted with more of our group.  Lori and Connie are cousins!  Fun ladies.

Dinner tonight was on a big riverboat.  Cruised around the harbour for an hour or so, good views of the city at night.  Big boat, two levels, meant to serve hundreds of people but not even half full….the bottom level was not in use at all.  Dinner was a set menu and would have been really quite good had any of it been hot, or even warm.  Some entertainment…..singing and playing a xylophone type thing made of slabs of slate.

We boarded the boat at 7:30 and were off a few minutes after 9.  Not terribly a great evening unfortunately.  The whole thing overall was pretty tacky…..apparently meant for the Asian tourist market.  Was nice driving thru the city at night though.  They still have all the New Years decorations up…..lots of lights.  It’s a “special” new year.  Busy on the streets at night…..people milling about, tons of scooters, all honking!!

Back to the hotel, drinks in the bar with most of our group…..fun chatting and getting to know everyone a bit more.

Up in our room the lights were just as wonky as ever.  We’d reported it to the desk and they told us they’d been fixed….NOT.  Remembered to take the little flashlight into the bathroom, in case the lights went out….and it did!  Donna and I just laughed…trying to guess which lights would go on and off and when.  We tried taking the card out but it made no difference.

Great day….all very interesting.  It’s quite a nice city…..colourful, busy, loud, crowded, definitely full of life!  To bed around 11…..with my eye mask!

Sun Mar 8

Up early for coffee.  Psycho lights!!  Thank goodness for my eye mask, I slept great.  Really like the pillows!!

Great breakfast, lots of chatting about the lights….everybody has told the desk and they just say it’s fixed….ah well!

On the bus by 8 again….Mekong Delta today.  First we had a visit to the Thien Hau Pagoda, Tau not Buddhist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thien_Hau_Temple_(Ho_Chi_Minh_City)   Had to walk a block from the bus and came across ladies selling birds, song birds.  Lots of them in cages.  Before or after you visit the temple you are supposed to release a bird….it’s for good luck, health and compassion (?), now that said why catch them in the first place, but oh well.  The pagoda is really quite impressive….appears to be very similar to a Buddhist temple.  According to Jackie, it’s not important who you worship but just the fact that you do….many people go to more than one temple.

Jackie suggested we wear our masks….they’d stopped yesterday and bought us all one.  With the outbreak here, it’s necessary to wear them some of the places we’ll be going.  Here though was for the incense…..very strong, lots of it and lots of smoke!  What an incredible place.  You must step over the threshold when you go in, light an incense stick and pray.  Inside is beautiful but it’s the roof and eaves that are amazing…..the detail of the porcelain figures is incredible, dioramas.  The pagoda was originally built in the 1700’s and has undergone a number of renovations/restorations.  It’s pretty much open air.  Some beautiful treasures encased in glass….a ship, and figures.  Beside the incense sticks, you can buy a big coil/cone shaped incense that is hung from the ceiling, when lit it burns all day.

It’s in the centre, in front of the main altar.  Many, many people, some doing the incense, others bringing offerings, ladies putting together beautiful flowers.  The smell was pretty strong I must say….not a bad smell but a bit overpowering, especially if you have any breathing issues.  There is a wall with pink pieces of paper showing who has donated and how much….besides recognition, it’s to entice others to do the same.  In a separate enclosed room, which is sort of a meeting room, there are pictures on the wall that are quite beautiful…..one that depicts each animal of the new years.  But I must say it was the porcelain roof figures that were amazing to me.  They could use a good power wash though…..

The drive thru the city and out to the countryside was wonderful.  The city with the scooters, sidewalk food sellers, fruit/veg stands, motorcycle parts and repair shops….sometimes regardless of the type of business a bike would be parked inside!!  Various modes of transport…..mostly scooters but a few other carts often pulled by a  bicycle, or the person!  Busy, busy…..just constant action.  On the main highway and in a few other places there are separate lanes just for scooters.  Just outside the city it gets green…..lots of palm groves, gardens, rice fields.  Some of the rice paddies were just recently harvested….they get 3 crops a year down here.  Lots of stores and roadside stands selling those little green packets of “fermented” meat.  They looked like little presents wrapped in green paper with gold ribbon….is actually banana leaf and dried grasses or shredded corn husks.

The countryside is really quite lovely….much more green and lush.  The gardens are very neat, tidy and orderly. They’re growing bitter melon, corn, coconut palms, lettuces, cabbage etc. as well as the green rice paddies.  Many of the plots of land have above ground tombs…..families bury their dead on their land.  If the land is ever sold they cannot be moved and the family will always be allowed access to visit whenever.

Stopped about half way (2+hr drive to My Tho…on the river)  for a break at a neat Farm Stay place called Bac Kim Thang, I think.  Very clean, nice and bright and big.  Cool lights made out of baskets, bamboo water features and produce grown on the farm, including fresh peeled whole coconuts.  Local wine too…..normal wine and a specialty wine, which I bought a bottle to try for $5US…..it’s not like the normal wine apparently….we’ll see when we get a chance to try it.  Beautiful place……would be kind of fun to experience this away from all the hustle and bustle of the city for a few days.

Arrived in My Tho and Jackie explained where we’d be heading on our tour.  Very warm and muggy, sort of overcast, or maybe pollution….not sure.    Four islands, Turtle (longevity) Phoenix (??), Dragon (strength) and Unicorn (happiness) but the order that we visit will depend on the tides because of our small boat ride.  This is just a very small section of the Mekong Delta, which is huge.   The floating markets are another 2 or 3 hours away so we were all a little disappointed that we wouldn’t get to visit them.  You can take a boat up the Mekong to Phnom Penh…..fast boat takes approx 5 hours….also can do cruises that take a couple of days with a lot of stops along the way, which I think would be interesting and something to try one day.

Boarded our boat for a nice little tour and ride out to Turtle island.  About a 1/2 hour ride along the river.  Lots of brightly painted boats or junks that people live on.  Many are for transporting supplies to the islands and/or floating villages.  Very interesting watching the people onboard going about their daily business….cooking, washing, fishing.  Lots of kids!! Quite a few barges with gravel or sand loaded so full they’re just barely above the water line.  They actually “mine” the sand, which is slowly destroying the delta and and river banks.  Closer to the islands is what looks like a floating village with houses.  Getting near the end of the dry season so the river is very low and quite silty right now…..unfortunately also a lot of garbage, mostly plastic bottles and bags.  Not sure why but many of the boats were at quite a tilt…..a bit scary, but they just motored along.

Docked at a rather sketchy pier (a board from the front of the boat to a concrete block) but we all made it off the boat with the help of our guides.  Bees!!  Lots of bees.  Got to hold one of the slats full of them….apparently they’re quite docile when they’re busy making honey….this is good!  The island is beautiful and lush…..very hot and humid too.  Local fruit trees; banana, mango, rambutan, longan etc.  We got to sample some honey tea that was very good and not as sweet as I’d expected.  Various other treats made with honey…..dried banana, ginger and a kind of peanut brittle….all very good.  Bought some of the dried banana.  We also got to sample some of the creams and balms they make and sell made with royal jelly.

After our sampling out came the snake!!  I think it was a boa….about 5 or 6ft long.  It’s the family pet!!  They let the snake out into the rice paddies/gardens in the morning to get the rats!  Not sure exactly how they get it back, but they do.  I’ve held smaller ones and a very docile cobra in Morocco, but this guy was huge and very strong.  When he moved his head, you could feel the muscles, or whatever snakes have, move 4 ft away down towards his tail.  Only a few people decided to hold him……the lady stood close by of course but not sure if it was for our safety or the snakes!!  Not creepy at all.

Back onto our boat and to Phoenix island…I think.  Another nice ride along the river.  The sun had came out by this time and really brightened everything up….much better for pics….it had also warmed up a lot.  Very hot and even more humid.  Got off the boat on much the same type of pier.  More houses, or dwellings….hard to call some of them houses.  People had settled on these islands, most from central Vietnam, “a long time ago” according to Jackie, but not really clear on how long, but many generations.  Because they were quite isolated on the delta, they’ve kept many of their traditional farming habits and songs and dances etc.  Kids take water taxis to school, some in My Tho or to the bigger islands that have schools. Had a nice walk thru paths lined with trees, mostly fruit and palms, and peoples houses and yards……some cooking, doing laundry or just laying in a hammock….can’t say I blamed them!!  The sweat was just running down our necks….and that was in the shade of the trees!  The houses were a mix of concrete, bricks, wood, corrugated metal, grass etc., some so tucked away you could hardly see them.

Arrived at a big covered market area.  We got to sample some local fruits; mango (v.v.v.g), papaya, dragon fruit (pretty but rather tasteless), pineapple (quite dry??), and longan or dragon eye…sort of lychee flavor and texture except for the big seed in the middle so you kind of have to suck the fruit off of it.  They put on a nice little performance of traditional song and dance while we enjoyed more honey tea.  Had few minutes to browse the market before our canoe ride on the canal.  Four per boat plus the rowers in front and back.  Getting in was a bit tricky…..stepping into the canoe dead centre was very important…..not the easiest thing to do from the wibbly stairs but we managed.  Very, very hot, so we all got conical hats to wear.  Was really very pleasant going along the canal….lots of shade.  It’s not very wide, just enough room for two canoes to pass most of the way.

Very interesting plants….the mangrove palms have look like big round pinecones on them, that when broken apart have a very tasty fruit.  Many houses and what look like little pop-up cafes that people set up, boats tied up along the shore.  Went just over a kilometre, took about 1/2 hour.  Wouldn’t have minded a bit longer of  ride.  Nice, but short, walk in the shade back to our big boat for the next stop.

Not sure exactly which island we went to next but it all pretty much had to do with coconuts!  They make anything and everything from the coconuts….nothing goes to waste.  They still use ancient presses to get the milk out of the coconut meat.

Had a demo of candy making….almost like toffee, very tasty and not really sweet.  Scorpion wine or a liquor of some sort made with coconut water.  Each bottle has a scorpion in it.  Beautiful purses and bags made with the fibres.  Had a very pleasant walk along a canal and thru the village to our buggy ride…..the poor donkey!  I really could have done without it. Didn’t notice the driver whipping him luckily but he was yelling a lot, so not terribly enjoyable.  Hate seeing animals used for stuff like this.  Lots of people riding bikes….apparently we could have done that, which I think I would have preferred.  Nice shady, paved pathways, mostly bikes, scooters and buggies.  Whatever the place was, it was really very clean and tidy.  A few restaurants and food sellers, so definitely bigger than the other islands we’d been too.

The shoreline where our boat was is full of lotus plants……like huge waterlilies.  Very thick but no blooms.  Jackie pulled one out to show us the root that is used in cooking.  Once on board we all got a coconut to drink the milk.  Not very much taste but just cool enough for it to be refreshing.  Smoking hot by then…..well after 1PM.

Back to My Tho and on to a beautiful place for lunch.  The Mekong Rest Stop…..beautiful gardens with many different restaurant areas.  We had a set menu lunch as usual but all was really good.  A couple of highlights were the sticky rice ball…..have no idea how they make it but once cut up it was delicious and the “elephant ear” fish, which is deep fried, the scales all curl up making is quite interesting.  Was quite tasty with sort of the same texture as halibut.  It all went really well with a couple of nice cold beers.  So, so hot!!

Great drive back to the hotel…..the street scenes are just fascinating.  No matter where you look there is something interesting to see.  Just enough time for a bit of break with a nice cooling swim before getting ready for our Farewell Saigon dinner.

Dinner at Au Parc Mediterranean Restaurant.  In a neat part of town full of cafes, restaurants and bars.  Buzzing with people on the street and sitting at the outside tables.  Dinner was excellent.  Kabobs, really good french fries, salad etc. with a yummy, and decadently sweet chocolate torte for dessert.  Today is International Women’s Day so Jackie bought us all roses…..how sweet!

Fun evening…..a bit of tour by bus and walking thru the area around the opera and the beautiful Hotel Continental.  The Opera was something else before the opera…..they added a number of embelishments to the outside during renos…..quite like anything you’d see in  Europe.  Very pretty with the streets all lit up.  Still incredibly warm even at that time of night.  Will change soon tho when we get to Hanoi.

Another great and very full day……sometimes by the end of the day it’s hard to remember something we did in the morning……was that just this morning or was it yesterday????  They definitely cram in as much as is humanly possible to see.  Drinks in the bar back at the hotel but to bed pretty early by just after 10…..with the eye mask of course!!  Won’t miss the lights…..the most annoying thing is when you’re in the shower and damn things go out…..thank goodness for my trusty little flashlight!

Mon Mar 9

Slept great.  I almost feel like I’ve been gone for weeks but it’s only been 4 days!!!  Packed up this morning …..off to Hanoi this afternoon.  Checked out after breakfast and had a bit of a bus tour thru the city and then a walking tour.  Great city……really fun, busy and some beautiful architecture.  Started near the Opera House, I think, and worked our way thru a bit of a ritzy shopping area (passed yet another Hermes…..there is a scarf in my future one of these trips!!) to a very lovely plaza and pedestrian only boulevard. At the top of the plaza is City Hall, which is a very pretty colonial style building.  The Rex Hotel, originally built in the 1920’s but not as a hotel, is on the corner. It was renovated and turned into an upscale hotel during the 1960 and is where many of the press and correspondents spent their time during the war.  Interesting tidbit…..we refer to it as the Vietnam War, they refer to it as the American War!!  Many of the buildings were built or renovated during the French occupation……they really are pretty lovely and they’ve been well maintained over the years.  Then on to Notre Dame cathedral and the old train station, which is now the post office.  We could not go in the cathedral, too bad.  Not sure if it was a covid thing or??  The post office building is beautiful inside and out!  We could see the old US embassy and supposedly the ladder that is still there from when the last people were being evacuated……now I want to see that movie, Miss Saigon again!!

On the bus for a short ride to the Independence or Reunification Palace.  https://independencepalace.gov.vn/# Used by the president of SVN during the war.  At the end of the war the NVN tank that crashed the gate is on display.  Lovely well kept grounds.  Building is rather art deco-ish.  The slats or whatever you would call them on the face are meant to represent bamboo….calming and airy.  No AC only the open slats create enough cool air flow to not need it!  Not clear if it’s used for anything today…..meetings, art exhibitions and a tourist attraction.  A rather austere building inside and out.  Toured it from top to bottom…..the rooms are huge, lots of local Vietnamese woodwork, inlay and lacquer.  Some artwork on the walls but basically not a very warm and welcoming place.

Besides a movie theatre, there’s a “rec room” (upstairs, not in the basement as we would have), interesting with various games tables etc. but really uncomfortable looking furniture….not a fun looking place.  But it was the basement that was the highlight of the tour!!  This is where the president and his generals kept tabs on what what going on…..also was a bunker of sorts and where they’d flee too if invaded.  All the old equipment is still there.  An entire separate kitchen to feed all the people that worked down there.

Our next stop was a tour and visit to a lacquer craft shop.  Who knew all that went into making this stuff….it’s never been one of my favourites but definitely appreciate it much more.  The process is very interesting.  Quite a few steps to prep the material and even more interesting was besides just paint and shells, they also use crushed duck eggs to make some of the designs.  Bins and bins of duck egg shells…..who knew!!  Very time consuming and apparently there are a lot of “fakes” so we were told.  Not sure I’d be able to tell real lacquer from fake so it’s a good thing that I’d be unlikely to buy any but some very nice stuff.

All this and it wasn’t even noon yet!!  Our last stop before lunch was The War Remnants Museum.  http://www.baotangchungtichchientranh.vn/Main.aspx?L=EN  I only got as far as the first room and that was enough for me, I could not deal with it……..just horrific. I lived thru the 60’s and 70’s….I’m just glad I did not have to live thru what so many people here did!!  Vietnamese are just amazing resilient people.  To have lived thru what they have for centuries, being invaded and occupied by not just other countries but their own too!!  Millions of people died during the war. Supposedly Vietnam has one of the youngest populations in the world, the average age is 34 or something like that.  Jackie had family, many that perished, and enough that lived to tell about it.  I hope they, nor anyone ever has to live thru anything like it ever again.  They have made quite an incredible comeback over the last 40 years.  Tourism is now one of their main industries.  Anyway, I hit the gift shop and then coffee shop.  Chatted with a couple of others who’d also seen enough.  Some people came out with tears in their eyes!

Lunch before heading to the airport.  It was great as usual, everything absolutely delicious….ribs today which was a real treat.  We always get one of all the plates for 4 people….so way more than enough. It seems like we eat a lot!!

Off to the airport for our 4PM flight to Hanoi.  Check-in etc. all went smooth.

Hanoi next……..