Cai Rang Floating Market

Wednesday January 9th

This is Thursday and we're in Phu Quoc but so much happened yesterday we're dividing it into at least 2 parts. Plus the internet here is slow and shaky.
We left our hotel in Can Tho at 7 am yesterday and took the motorboat in the picture about 1/2 hour down the Mekong to Cai Rang floating market. For the past few hundred years farmers in the Mekong Delta have been sending their produce to market this way since there were few roads. The market is usually at an intersection of branches of the river. Gradually, they're dying out but this one is still going.
Local restaurants and shops send out their longtail boats, so named because the propeller is on a long shaft out the back so they can raise and lower it easily, to the bigger boats loaded with produce in the river. The big boats might be loaded with melons, onions or anything else. They tie a sample of what they're selling to a bamboo pole so everyone can see what's available. The boat crew is usually a family who live on board. They wait for a few days at the market until they sell all their produce and then go back to the farms to pick up more. It's all cash.
As we approached the market we went by a gas station, lots of small businesses and lots of houses that are at least partly built over the river on stilts. Some houses are floating on the river. Because these people literally live on the river, every thing they do is associated with it. Hence, the Mekong is incredibly polluted. It's brown because of the silt but maybe that's a good thing. People will sit on a couple of boards with a gap between them at the back of the boat and take a dump. Then 3 feet away they'll haul up water for washing dishes and clothes. Or you see somebody taking a leak in the river while only a few feet away someone is simultaneously washing their face and arms. This is all they have to work with.
In the cities, there is treated municipal water. Outside the cities, those with enough money buy bottled drinking water. The poorest people scoop buckets of water out of the river and mix alum powder into it to help settle the sediment to the bottom. Then they drink it. Of course we couldn't see what effect this has on those with little resistance to disease, like infants, but it can't be good. In Canada, we take clean water for granted. Others around the world aren't so lucky.
And it's not like there's much in the way of health care. Our guide told us that there are public government hospitals but they are not free, just cheaper than the private hospitals. However the public hospitals are very overcrowded, often with 2 to a bed and people lying on the floor in the halls. The private hospitals are better but much more expensive. Even the few people with health insurance have limits to their coverage. So again, this is not a communist state with universal health care like we have in Canada. Count your blessings.
After we toured by boat around the floating market, we went for a tour of a small rice noodle factory. That's another story for later but let's just say we want our rice noodles well boiled from now on.

Mekong Delta to Can Tho

Tuesday, January 8th, 2013

Idiot traveler that I am, I thought when I booked online and saw higher prices per person for 2 people rather than 4 and 4 rather than 6 and so on, that it was just a volume discount. Although we were paying what seemed like a premium price (almost $1,000 for 5 days and 4 nights including all buses, boats, hotels, breakfasts (no dinners), Phu Quoc island upgraded resort and flight back to HCMC), we accepted it because it sounded great and really easy. We were expecting to be on a big bus and a big boat with 40 or 50 other tourists. However, the increased price for 2 was because it's a private tour. Our little tour guide lady showed up at our hotel at 8 am while our driver and 12 passenger van waited on the street. As we drove out of the city I asked if we were picking up anyone else. Hoa (pronounced Hwah), our guide, said, "Oh no, this is a private tour". We've never had such luxury when traveling.
We drove for an hour or so to My Tho on the Mekong River. The Mekong comes all the way from China and splits into nine major branches in the Delta, along with numerous smaller branches and canals. The Mekong Delta area is huge. Anyway, at My Tho we got on a motorboat and traveled out past a few islands to Unicorn Island. There we walked around a bit and then went for a stop for honey tea and treats. Then we walked some more through the gardens and over little bridges crossing the irrigation ditches.
Our next stop was for fruit at another little cafe. A band and about 5 different singers serenaded us with traditional music from the area. At the end they finished with "If You're Happy and You Know It" in English. Strange but very nice.
Then it was off to a coconut candy factory. In the picture there are ladies wrapping the finished candy behind us. They work an 8 hour day, 6 days a week for about $60 US per month. But it's a job locally rather than moving to HCMC.
Then we went for a ride in a smaller boat, like a big heavy canoe, paddled by 2 people, down a little canal and back to our motorboat. For a 20 minute trip, the paddlers get paid 15,000 dong total (about 75 cents). If they're lucky, they might get 2 trips a day in high season. Then they work on farms in the afternoon. They work at this because they have no land and nowhere else to go.
Our motorboat took us a little ways to an outdoor restaurant where there are little private cabanas set for each group of people. So we had one for just the 2 of us with our own waitress who wrapped the fish, rice noodles and herbs in rice paper for us. Then we had soup heated at the table into which we put some seafood rice.
All of these stops were included in the price of our tour. While we motored out to the island, our van driver just waited for us and kept our bags. While we were on the island, our motorboat driver just waited for us and then took us back.
We saw lots of boats and floating fish farms on the Mekong, plus a water buffalo cooling off in a ditch on the island.
We got back to shore about 1:30 and then drove along the highway past rice fields and so on for another 2 hours to get to Can Tho. It's a small city in the heart of the Mekong with a big branch of the river going by right across the street from our hotel. The only downside to driving through the Vietnam countryside is that there is litter everywhere. If there's a vacant lot, there's piles of garbage on it. And due to the exhaust fumes, a lot of the little shops along the highway look pretty grimy. At intervals, there are little food stands with a lot of hammocks strung under tarps so people traveling far can buy a snack and take a rest. There are also new modern rest stops for the tourists.
We walked around town a bit and bought a couple of T-shirts ($3.50 each - I think we paid too much) and some one-toed socks for Anita so she can protect her feet from mosquitoes and still wear flip-flops. We found a recommended restaurant that we'll go to tonight. Tomorrow we leave at 7 am to take a boat to the Cai Rang floating market before we travel to Rach Gia on the coast to catch our boat to Phu Quoc Island. We should be there by about 4 tomorrow afternoon.
Today has been lots of fun and new experiences. We also learned more about Vietnam from our guide. For instance, if you don't have a job here, there's no unemployment insurance or welfare. You're on your own. So much for communism.
Many homes have 3 generations of family living in them. That's why the smaller, more modest hotels often rent rooms by the hour to young couples looking for a bit of privacy.
There are almost 10 million people in HCMC and 5 million motorbikes. Cars are too expensive and so is gas. At 23,000 VND per litre that equals about $1.15 CDN, almost what we pay yet our wages are many times higher. So gas here is extremely expensive for the average person.
The government owns maybe half of the largest corporations (can anyone say PetroCanada) but there are more private companies all the time. There are hundreds of thousands of small independent businesses. Everyone here seems to be an entrepreneur, looking out for themselves and their families. It's the wild frontier.
Anyway, enough for now. Tomorrow will bring more adventures. Finally, as I write this Anita has noticed that there is a sign on the desk drawer in Vietnamese and English that says "Birth Controls Cabinet (prevent AIDS). There are condoms in the drawer. This hotel isn't used only for sleeping.

Mui Ne to HCMC

Yesterday we took a walk along the road in Mui Ne and back along the beach. Although there are a number of beautiful small resorts, there are also a few that were never finished. Money probably ran out for some reason. Along the beach we took a picture of one of the basket type boats that the fishermen use to get out to their nets about 100m or more offshore. The nets are buoyed and anchored in place and a rope runs from the nets into shore. The fishermen pull these little round boats hand over hand along the rope out to the nets and then check their catch. It seems like a simple smart way to get out through the big surf.
We ate at the hotel again and then had a few drinks of beer and wine and just hung out on the grounds. There is a pool table in a cabana near the swimming pool so Kasumi schooled us in the ancient Japanese art of shooting pool. It's a good thing we weren't playing for money.
This morning after breakfast our new driver arrived in a big Ford SUV this time to drive us back to HCMC. This driver wasn't quite as aggressive and traffic wasn't quite as bad so none of us were in danger of heart failure. It took about 4 1/2 hours this time.
Dylan and Kasumi headed back to their hotel because Dylan has school tonight at 6 pm. We're back at the Ngoc Minh hotel (pronounced yock minn - Vietnamese is very hard to pronounce or read). Anita and I walked around the corner to the Stella restaurant where we've eaten before and had spring rolls, beer, cashew chicken with rice and a chicken noodle dish all for 242,000 VND (about $12). The food in Vietnam is excellent.
Now we're just relaxing on the rooftop with a bit of wine and beer before we go back to our room for an early night. The drive from Mui Ne is just too much stimulation. There are times when our vehicle is surrounded by big trucks. Everyone weaves in and out while honking their horns to warn that they're coming. Sometimes the hood of our car will be right under the back of a truck as we pull out to pass. It's a little unnerving.
We want to be rested for our first day touring the Mekong Delta by boat tomorrow. Our driver should arrive at our hotel at 8 am.

HCMC to Mui Ne

After another great dinner and shooting some pool at Stella restaurant in the backpacker area we all went home for a good sleep. In the morning our van and driver arrived and Anita, Kasumi, Dylan, Dylan's friend Jay and I left for Mui Ne. It took 5 1/2 hours to get here (maybe 200 km), the first 1 1/2 hours through extremely heavy city traffic. The first pictures are of the lobby and adjacent motorbike parking in our hotel in HCMC. Every hotel, shop or restaurant has to have secure parking or a guard for motorbikes parked on the sidewalk.

On the way here we took pictures of typical wiring on a pole and a typical family driving in town. You often see families with infants all riding on one bike. Also, sometimes you see a driver driving with one hand while balancing a tray with 4 bowls of soup on the other hand. Delivery of takeout food or anything else is really cheap. The last hour of our trip was more rural but there are definitely a lot of people in Vietnam. Yesterday must have been an auspicious day for a wedding because we saw about a dozen in little restaurants right beside the road, with the band in full swing before noon.

The roads here are generally narrow, sometimes rough and always busy. 

By the time we got here there was a steady rain that lasted all day - the first rain we've seen. So we played some pool out by the swimming pool and had an excellent dinner by the pool. Most dinner items on the menu are about 90,000 VND ($4.50 Cdn) and beer from the bar was 20,000 VND ($1). There's always items on the menu that include a fried egg on top of rice. It wasn't long after dinner that we all went to bed. The power was on and off all night and sometimes through this morning. Brownouts and blackouts are frequent in Vietnam.

Our hotel, the Orchid Beach Resort, is small but very nice and right on the beach. The rooms are large, nicely tiled and the ensuite bathroom is tiled, clean and fairly big with a glassed-in shower. Quite nice.

Breakfast of juice, coffee, bacon, eggs, nice buns & fruit is included with our $38 per night price.

 After breakfast Dylan, Jay and I went for a swim and did a little body surfing. Now Jay and Dylan are negotiating the rental of a scooter ($5-$10 for the day) to take Jay into a hostel closer to the town of Mui Ne where he's going to stay for a few days before maybe going up to Nha Trang. Anita and I are going for a walk along the beach and maybe find a restaurant for dinner. The weather today is warm and slightly overcast but great for the beach.

Cu Chi Tunnels

Friday January 4th 2013
First, we forgot to mention that our backpacks arrived in our hotel on Wednesday afternoon. So, we were without them for almost 3 days but we coped.
Last night we went back to Nha Hang Ngon (Delicious in English, we think), the restaurant we had gone to on New Years Eve. It's our favourite so far, with the stations along each side where teams prepare specific dishes. Excellent meal again for 488,000 VND (<$25 for 4 of us).
This morning we awoke at 4 for some reason and waited for the 6 am rooster, who never fails. We were ready in lots of time for breakfast on the rooftop patio at 7 and then off to Tuan Travel office where our bus left for Cu Chi Tunnels. The bus with driver plus English speaking guide cost 80,000 ($4) each. Our entry to the Cu Chi area cost $90,000 each ($4.50) and our lunch there of 2 grilled corn on the cob cost $15,000 (75 cents) each. An inexpensive day. In Europe this would cost at least $60 to $100.
While we waited on the bus for the tour to leave, we watched a food street vendor lady across the street. She washed her dishes with a tiny bit of water, wiped them with a rag and dumped the water on the street. She used the same rag to wipe the little plastic stools. She cooked pho or something and made tea and cola drinks. When she had a moment she re-filled used plastic bottles with clear water from a dirty pail and put the bottles back on the rack to sell as bottled water. Food safety is not a priority here. No germaphobe should ever visit Vietnam. We avoid vendors and restaurants like this but you have to eat and you're never really sure what's happening behind the scenes. You do your best but you can't follow what you know you should.
Our tour guide to the Cu Chi Tunnels was a former interpreter for the US military during the war. While we drove out to the tunnels, maybe 50 km but very slow through city traffic at first, he told us a bit about the war. He said that Vietnam was at war with various conquerors for 4,000 years and only at peace for the last 37 years. The French and the Americans were only the latest colonists.
On our way we stopped at a craft factory and shop where all employees are disabled in some way due to birth defects from Agent Orange. The young women who sold the crafts looked fine but are all on birth control pills to prevent them from ever having children. Even at this 3rd generation, there are still birth defects due to the chemicals that their parents or grandparents were subjected to. The government allows Cu Chi area families to adopt 2 children for free so they can have a family whereas westerners who want a Vietnamese baby pay about $3,000. Apparently, it's still not uncommon for young unmarried girls to abandon their babies at the hospital shortly after giving birth. There's apparently still a social stigma and no help available. Anyway, the lacquered woodcarvings and stuff were amazing.
After that we stopped for a few minutes at a rubber plantation. Neither of us had any idea what rubber trees looked like but now we know. Apparently the dioxin from Agent Orange has dissipated from the soil so the Cu Chi area can now produce rubber, rice, cashews and other food that's okay.
Starting in 1949, the local people started digging tunnels to avoid the French soldiers. People who lived in South Vietnam but believed in the nationalist, communist ideas of the North were known as the Viet Minh when they fought the French. Their children who fought the Americans were known as the Viet Cong. Gradually, as the fighting grew more intense, 18,000 people lived underground in a 200 km tunnel network in the Cu Chi area. Some of them lived underground for up to 26 years until the war ended in 1975. Above them, the US used Agent Orange to defoliate area so they could see through the tree leaves and then napalm to burn all the tree trunks. In the end there was a lot of bare ground above them. By 1975 only 6,000 were left alive.
They had kitchens, living quarters, bomb making areas, a maternity ward, schools and everything they needed underground. The soil is hard clay so the tunnels could be dug without other support. They had small tunnels to travel through so they could come up through little holes to ambush their attackers. At first they had no weapons so they dug in booby traps made from sharpened bamboo spears. When they could, they stripped victims of the booby traps of their weapons. If a bomb did not explode, they cut it open, salvaged the explosive material and made land mines from it. As Dylan said, when you see their determination and resourcefulness, it's no surprise that they eventually won.
It was another intense day but actually a little more positive than the War Remnants Museum since it was more a story of how people will survive no matter what.
On the bus ride, we could see that Vietnam is very poor. Most of the businesses and homes look shabby because there's just no money to fix them up. Plus the smog makes everything look kind of dirty. However, there are also Mercedes dealerships and other fancy stuff popping up. The traffic everywhere is intense. Our guide said that there are 90,000,000 Vietnamese and 44 million motorbikes. We have seen how a lot of delivery is done by motorbike. Anything you can think of including drivers driving with one hand while balancing a tray of 4 bowls of pho on the other. Lots of motorbikes haul big sacks of vegetables or boxes of whatever or building materials. We saw 2 guys on a motorbike yesterday carrying a wooden ladder about 5 metres long. Once, Dylan saw a full size fridge being hauled on a motorbike. It's crazy.
A lot of the women on motorbikes wear face masks or scarves. It may be for pollution but is also apparently to keep their skin paler. Some women go out with wide hats, scarves on their faces, long sleeved jackets and gloves during 30 degree weather. Pale skin is highly prized.
Tonight we're going out for a dinner somewhere close by and then we'll all get to bed early. We have a van and driver scheduled to pick us up at 8 am to drive us about 4 hours or so to Mui Ne on the coast for the weekend.
Having trouble uploading pictures so we'll do that later.

Ho Chi Minh City

We weren't able to post sooner since we had no charger and were afraid that we better save computer power for essential communications. That is all now resolved so we've got some catching up to do. We better start our long story of the last few days at the beginning.
Saturday December 29th
Zack picked us up at home at 2:30 pm for what we all had thought would be the usual maximum 2 1/2 hour trip to the Ottawa airport. Due to the snow and really slippery driving conditions we didn't get there until 6 pm which was still in lots of time for our flight. By the time he got back to Beachburg, Zack had spent 8 1/2 hours driving in very bad conditions. Not much fun for him but he got us where we needed to go.
At check-in, we discovered that our flight to Toronto at 8 pm was delayed until 9:30 pm which would mean that we'd miss our flight from Toronto to Frankfurt. We were told that there was a direct flight from Ottawa to Frankfurt leaving at 7:30 but it was full and there was no way we were getting on. The check-in lady said to go to Toronto and sort things out there since that was a major hub. We were told this twice.
So we went through security, got a bowl of soup and then hung around. We watched the Frankfurt flight board their plane late, which didn't seem to impress most of them. I had given up on getting on that flight but Anita decided to ask one more time. A different Air Canada guy said, "Why didn't you come to me sooner? There's lots of room." He ran to make sure our bags could get on the Frankfurt plane and then ran back and issued boarding passes to us. We ran to the gate and somehow I managed to strain my hip flexor which has been giving me problems for the last 6 months. We were so happy to be on our way while everyone around us was so unhappy because the plane had been delayed several times already and they were all 4 hours late for their connections in Frankfurt. Since we didn't have to go to Toronto it ended up that we got to Frankfurt an hour ahead of schedule.
The flight was a bit uncomfortable as my hip seized right up but we didn't really care since we would make our other connections. Due to waiting for de-icing it took awhile longer to get going but we got to Frankfurt after a 7 hour plus flight. We had 3 1/2 uneventful hours in Frankfurt before boarding our Thai Airways flight to Bangkok. Our plane was an Airbus 380, only a couple of months old and the biggest passenger jet made. It was huge, 2 complete levels and all very nice. Thai Airways provides excellent service. It was over 10 hours to Bangkok and more time zones. We left Frankfurt in the afternoon local time and got to Bangkok about 6:30 am Bangkok time on Monday. So we missed 12 hours of Sunday due to time changes.
Monday, December 31st 2012
After walking about 2 or 3 km through the Bangkok airport we found our gate and boarded our Thai Airways flight to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) about 7:30. We arrived at HCMC a little after 9 am and got our visas, which we had arranged beforehand by email. That took only 20 minutes or so and we got through customs with no problem. We were probably the last ones to get to the baggage carousel and our backpacks were nowhere in sight. We were told that the plane was completely unloaded so our bags had never gotten on. We went to the lost luggage and the lady checked our tag numbers. She discovered that our bags were sitting in Toronto. I guess they got sent there on our originally planned flight and hadn't been with us at all since we left Ottawa. She arranged to get them flown to HCMC on later flights and sent to our hotel when we arrived.
As tired as we were, since we had slept only about 2 /12 hours since Saturday morning, we were really excited when we met Dylan at the front door of the airport. He was all happy and smiling and so were we. He got a cab for all of us to our hotel near the backpacker hotels area of HCMC. Dylan had reserved a room for us at the Ngoc Minh, which is a modest hotel up a little alley off a main street, as a lot of these little 2 star hotels are. It's just fine, family run, clean and reasonably priced. We have a decent size room with ensuite bath, breakfast included, for $25 per night. We all went out for lunch at a nearby restaurant, bought some flipflops and shampoo, since we had only our carry-on daypacks with toothbrush, computer and money, and then went back to our room and slept for 3 hours.
That evening, Dylan brought his girlfriend Kasumi to meet us. She's a sweetheart. Knowing that we had no other clothes, she brought Anita a few items of hers to help out. That night was New Years Eve. We went to a big restaurant where each dish is cooked by a different team at all these stations along the sides. It was great.
After dinner, we walked back to our hotel right through all the crowds at the New Years festivities. They have a huge party with music on a couple of big stages in the park, food booths and just general craziness. The moto (motor scooter) traffic was totally insane. We learned how to cross the street filled with thousands of motos by just flowing across at a steady pace while the motos veered around us. This ain't Combermere.
By around 11 pm, we were tired and went back to our hotel to sleep.
Tuesday, January 1st, 2013
We felt great after a good sleep and breakfast on the rooftop patio. Dylan came to our hotel and we made a plan for the week. Dylan has a school presentation to do Friday morning as part of his MBA program with the Universite Libre de Brussels which offers post graduate business programs here, so we picked that day to go to Cu Chi Tunnels. We decided I should buy a custom-made suit where Dylan has had 5 made to wear to work. So off we went to Nam Silk where we picked out fabric and I got measured in a hundred different ways. Dylan did the negotiating for us and in the end I am getting a custom made suit, 2 custom made dress shirts and a tie for $150 US. It should be ready later this afternoon. Then we went to Tuan Travel and reserved a bus trip for Friday to Cu Chi Tunnels. The trip by bus, with guide, runs from 8 am to 2:30 pm and takes us about 50 km out of town to an area where nationalist resistance fighters eventually carved out about 200 km of tunnels through their wars with the French and later the Americans. It should be interesting.
After a nice lunch we spent some time at a big flea market type place (totally crazy) but we needed another nap so we rested for most of the afternoon. In the evening Dylan, Kasumi and Dylan's friend Mr. Brian (as his students of English call him) arrived at our hotel with a couple of bottles of wine that we drank on the rooftop patio. Then we went by taxi to the Barbecue Garden, an outdoor restaurant where a gas grill is built into each table top and you cook whatever you've ordered yourself, sort of like a BBQ fondue only not a fondue. It's cheap to get around the city by taxi since the meter starts at 12,000 dong (VND, Vietnamese dollars) and often a 10 or 15 minute drive ends up at maybe 30,000 dong. Since 20,000 dong equals $1 Canadian, that's only $1.50. There's not much incentive to walk. After a taxi back home we had another good night of sleep which was only broken once again by a neighbourhood rooster crowing at 6 am. Although we're in the middle of a city of 7 or 8 million, there are free range chickens wandering along the side of the smaller streets and alleys.
Wednesday January 2nd 2013
Before Dylan arrived to be our tour guide for the day, we walked around the neighbourhood and through a local market where there are lots of people selling meat, vegetables, clothes and you name it along with little food stalls where people sit on little plastic stools and eat. There are lots of people all over the place crouching and cooking food to sell or crouching and eating. Ladies walk around with a carrying pole across their shoulders with a little BBQ in a metal pail on one end and food to cook in a pail on the other end. They stop and set up quickly wherever they think they'll get some business and sell food. Lots of people eat street food for every meal, it seems.
When Dylan arrived, we took a taxi downtown to the Metropolitan tower where he works on the 10th floor at the Canadian Consulate. He showed us around a bit and while he checked his email and stuff, we walked over to the main post office and by the big Catholic cathedral. The post office is a beautiful building.
After we had gotten some bandaids for Anita's swollen mosquito bites on her feet, probably suffered at the BBQ Garden the night before, we went to the War Remnants Museum, which has many photographs and artefacts depicting Vietnam's struggle against French and American imperialism. The descriptions definitely have a Vietnamese government slant and tone to them but there are lots of quotations from American government leaders that we don't often hear in Canada. In the 1950s US president Eisenhower really did say that it was cheaper to supply arms and equipment to the French to enable them to quash nationalist resistance in their Vietnamese colony than to risk losing a stable source of tungsten and tin that America needed from the region. As usual, imperialism is more about money than about ideology. As we all know now, the American war, as it's called here, was ot about stopping the threat of communism. And although Vietnam is a one party so-called socialist republic, it definitely doesn't seem communist. It seems to be a rigid one party state where each individual has to look out for themselves. Canada seems much more socialist. Here there seems to be vast disparity between the rich and the very, very poor. So Vietnam has a lot wrong with it but communism isn't one of its sins. And also, as usual, there is a difference between government policy and the people's attitudes. So far, they couldn't be more friendly and able to get along with each other in less than ideal conditions. There's no road rage despite all the crowding and chaos, which seems almost unbelievable when you're in the middle of it.
The War Remnants Museum also had many photographs of school children during the war who continued to go to school with their straw hats on for protection in case of bombs and with their first aid kits. They all knew what to do in case of an air raid but schools kept going. It seems like the Vietnamese people were determined to fight for generations and set themselves up to carry on through anything for their independence. The Museum had many very powerful displays about the effects of the defoliant Agent Orange on both sides, about massacres and torture that occurred and generally about the horrors of war. It's not nice to go through the Museum. However, it's worth seeing.
After getting over the emotion of the Museum we cheered up and went for lunch. After lunch we went to Independence Palace, also known as Reunification Palace. The original was bombed in the early 60s and the replacement is a big example of typical 60s style. For $10 in total, 3 of us went in and got a guidebook. Plus at the front door, there was a lady who gave a free one hour tour of the whole thing from banquet halls to meeting rooms to the gambling room, the movie theatre, the rooftop nightclub, the rooftop helipad and the basement bunker. In the 60s and 70s this is where the South Vietnamese president lived. There is a famous photo of North Vietnamese tanks breaking through the front gate on April 30th, 1975. This is also where a South Vietnamese pilot, who was really a North Vietnamese secret agent, refused his orders to bomb a North Vietnamese position in February, 1975 and instead bombed the rooftop helipad of this palace. He was shot down but not killed and still lives in HCMC at the age of 66.
After another late afternoon nap, Dylan, Kasumi and Dylan's friend Jay came to our hotel and we had wine on the roof again. Then we went to a modest local restaurant for dinner. During dinner people, including little children, kept coming in to sell stuff like flowers, cigarettes, gum etc. Then it was back home for another good sleep before the rooster crowed.
Thursday, January 3rd, 2013
First thing we did was send Josh a happy birthday email. We'll celebrate from here. We went for a short walk and when Dylan arrived we taxied downtown to Saigon Square to look around. Then we walked down to the Opera House which is the scene of some of the action in the movie "The Quiet American". We walked all the way back and bought some pho (rice noodle soup) to eat on the rooftop. After lunch Dylan went to work on his presentation for university tomorrow and we're catching up on our blogging. That's it.
Tonight, Dylan and Kasumi will probably guide us back to the big restaurant we went to on our first night. Eating in restaurants is really reasonable. The BBQ Garden the other night cost 713,000 dong for all 5 of us. That's about $35 for a feast. Other restaurants have all been less so far.
We're caught up.