Southeast Asia - Vietnam - Fifth week
Rick went with Luke to take photos and a video of Luke in front of the temple. Sophea and Let were coming in search of us to say good by and joined them at the temple for photos. Our taxi arrived at 9 AM and we had to say our last good-byes to our Buddhist teachers and friends. They clearly befriended Rick and demonstrated that strong connection in their farewells. It was a touching and telling time, which Luke noted with appreciation.
Back in Phnom Penh, we spent Saturday afternoon working on our weekly blog post, walking the Central Market, and cooling/resting. The monks are my trainers...they taught me to use AIRDROP. Went to eat western at Samaky restaurant down the street with Anna and Luke and had a great conversation thereafter. A soft bed at 10, compared to the hard pads at the monastery, and reading til sleep.
Day 34. 2.5. Sunday in Phnom Penh sightseeing
Best sleep in a month...exercises and western-like breakfast with unlimited coffee (only 1 small cup daily at the Wat). Read at leisure and fixed the log. Off to the Russian market for walking and looking. Bought some copies of US money for 2$ and handed them out at the mall, watched a TukTuk driver card game, and arrived back at the hotel. Nap time and repack to get everything in. Walked slowly again at 5 for about 1/2 mile with much pain in SI and hip. Then we had another western meal at Samaky restaurant- hamburger and pizza- wow. Repacking. The Super Bowl is tomorrow morning.
Day 35. 2.5 Monday
Following the Super Bowl by iPad. Paid for 3 days stay at the Golden Gate for $26 per nite for $78 total-well worth it as the cost includes breakfast. Time for a walk up the Main Street near our hotel. This is a beautiful street but we must walk in the street because motos and cars are parked on the sidewalk. We finally found Lucky’s grocery and stocked up. Right SI is very sore when walking but other parts warm up without pain. Wires overloaded the poles all over. Rested with little to do..a good change producing boredom. At 4 we walked in the downtown park and thru a Wat close to our hotel. At my intro the monks said “hello”. Ate again at Samaky for chicken nuggets and spring rolls. Afterwards we strolled a store with Ben and Jerry’s pints $16.50 & Haagen Dazs $10.95-we didn’t buy! We have been observing the dense traffic; for every car there are 75 motos and 2 TukTuks. 1/2 the cars are full size 4 door pickups and the rest are the largest luxury brand suvs on the market with a few Versa/Prius mixed in. Back to organize and pack for 8am departure for Vietnam.
Day 36 2.6 Tuesday to Ho Chi Ming City - Vietnam
Up especially early for breakfast, did banking, text’d with Nook, and got on with the next stage of our tour. My senile skin burst again. Now that we are acclimated to 90+ degrees and humidity, very little drop in temp to the 80s feels cold. We were picked up by a taxi at 8:30 and left on the comfortable bus as scheduled at 9. Cambodia was flat and dry with lots of grazing cattle of new dairy like varieties. We crossed the Mekong and immediately the area was wet and rice fields were very prominent and lushly green. We picked up and dropped off riders along the way. We crossed the border at 12:30 with no problem except we had to haul our luggage along to get x-rayed. There was lite traffic until we were in the suburbs of Saigon. Then we were greeted with flags posted for miles down the median on light posts. Then all traffic was turned loose - no TukTuks, and helmets on everyone, no huge SUVs, millions of Motos swarming. Before central city the motos had their own lane separated off, but in the city it was moto-confusion. All the cars were the size we would consider medium and smaller, like medium Toyota Rav 4/Highlander and Honda Civics. On the road in I saw dogs stuffed in a cage on the back of a moto. I believe the dogs were going to the market to be sold and/or slaughtered. There was much more grass and trimmed bushes-trees both in the medians and around houses with less debris. The housing and shops were similar to the size and frequency in Cambodia. We arrived 1 hr late but our transfer person was waiting for us and got a taxi to get us to the hotel- Sanouva Hotel at $59 per nite, but well worth it by comparison to our last digs. We are trying to figure out how to change money..$1=22700 dong.. trying to figure the real cost. We were tired so we ate at the hotel and then walked the very busy street both ways from our hotel. No ice cream was to be bought but Marnie got some high test coffee. Success x 3.
Day 37 2.7 Wednesday relaxing in old Saigon
Up late and to breakfast in the lobby. We then walked the five stories of steps to our room (5th of 10 floors) and prepared to walk 3 blocks to the Ben Thanh market. We bought bandaids for my senile skin problems. After our walk we went to the large market and haggled to buy nothing. Thereafter we went in search of the local park. Interestingly, the street the park is on is lined with buildings and only at the end of the block can one enter the park; it did not take more than half of the total block..what a disappointment. With much stopping to sit/rest we made it back to our hotel for a rest. Feeling guilty for not taking in more of our upscale surroundings, we went back out in the heat and tried to find a quiet place to sit and observe the world according to HCM CITY. On our earlier walk we had observed a lady wearing a traditional Vietnam hat and carrying her wares on a stick, eating her lunch while sitting below her stick and surrounded by her wares. After halting walk and several seatings we found no solace. So in fits and starts we made it to the city park with less noise and no sun, but there were few people to observe-no happy medium. One of our observations is the classic woman moto driver profile. Mask covering face with sun glasses on. Hooded shirt with hood up and helmet over it. Elbow length gloves over the shirt. Reverse full length skirt to cover her legs and clothing. And high heels. She will be speeding down the boulevards with the rest of the Motos. Afternoon nap in ac is in the cards. Dinner at a specialized pizza place..very good 4 cheese pizza. Prep for departure tomorrow at 8 am.
Day 38 2.8 Thursday starting our VN tour
Up at 6 to workout on the top (10th) floor, to breakfast, and then the tour at 8. We rode with the driver and guide named Nam in a Toyota Innova (mid sized suv). Nam graduated from the military academy of South Vietnam in ‘70 and was an officer in the army. Once the US pulled out and within 2 yr the south gave up, he spent 5 years in a re-education camp (prison camp). We rode over an hour almost to the Cambodian border to get to a temple of Caodaism (Vietnamese: Đạo Cao Đài, Chữ nôm: 道高臺), a religion we had never heard of. (village of Tay Ninh and the Great Cao Dai Temple) It is a conglomeration of, a place to worship, a mixture of Buddhism, Confucius, Taoism, Hinduism and Christianity. We took a walk around the grounds and interior and stayed for part of the noon mass (1hr) in the huge space of the temple. The symbol is the left eye, the flag is yellow, blue, and red and the chief priests’ vestiges match the colors. The tall white figures in the front are high priestesses. The service was made up of men and women praying in unusual ways (with hand motions and bowing similar to a catholic ritual with Buddhist hints) and there was a ceremony for the dead relatives. We then went cross country toward the VC (Vietnam Communist) tunnel system for munitions storage and hiding the troops only 40 miles from Saigon. On the way we passed field after field of peanuts, a major crop of this area, since rice does not grow here due to insufficient water. Next we passed thru grove after grove of rubber trees so we stopped and learned how latex is harvested from the trees. The trees mature in 7 yrs, will produce for 30-40 years and are a very lucrative crop. We then arrived at the grounds where the Vietcong had 450 Kms of underground storage and living quarters. They farmed during the day and dug by hand at nite, dumping the dirt in the nearby river so no trace of their activity was seen above ground. We observed the way the entrances were hidden and what it was like underground. Then the tedious trek back to HCMC lasted 2.5 hrs in horrific traffic. Exhausted, we ate at the hotel and crashed. We figured it out today...Uber here is a service for one person at a time on a moto. We woke in the middle of the nite to news from Nook re BU and trying to figure out currency and tips.
Day 39 2.9 Friday 1/2 day tour
Up at 4:30 trying to figure out our money needs and to communicate with Kelzie. Bad news from Nook re schools. After a workout we went to breakfast at 7 and got picked up at 8 for 1/2 day city tour. Our tour guide’s full name is Nguyen Thanh Nam, who introduced himself as Nam. He rides a moto like people who own 8 million motos in the city of 12 million. We drove thru Chinatown which is home to the wholesale places of business which supply the stores and market booths that sell retail. Next we toured a Taoist temple, Thien Hau, which is the primary religion of the Chinatown people. We then went to the War Remnants museum with American fighting equipment outside and which focuses on the problems with and atrocities of the American armed forces. All the classic pictures and information were the same as provided by Ken Burns in his documentary on the war. On the way to a lacquer plant we passed the American embassy where the last evacuations took place from the now removed building’s tower. Then we toured a lacquer paint shop and store which employ craftspeople who are handicapped. The people use actual egg shells glued onto the lacquer for the basic picture. Then after several coats of varnish and much sanding the egg shell bits reemerge to form the picture thereupon. Since these people were on the losing side of the war they do not receive benefits from the current government of the 92 million population. In VN, 60% smoke and 70% are farmers. Vietnam has 62 provinces. We then went to downtown Chicago’s, or Ho Chi Minh, look-a-like. We saw the opera house, the hotel where the journalists lived during the war, the city hall, the French-designed post office, and the blocks-long flower show in the plaza from the city hall to the river. While downtown we changed $100 from cash and $200 from credit/debit. We bought Christmas goodies at the market. We arranged to store our suitcases and valuables tomorrow while we are gone to the Mekong River communities over Saturday nite. We shall go to the market and have another great four cheese pizza tonite at #pizza4Ps. Now our valuables are in the safe and our luggage in storage. We are watching the Olympics opening ceremonies in Vietnamese.
Day 40 2.10 Saturday to the Mekong for an overnite
Picture from our room... up at 6 for exercises and breakfast at 7 after turning in laundry. In the car heading for the Mekong at 8. We struggled thru holiday traffic in Saigon and got to the toll road and 120 km/hr. We stopped at a restroom break place and we were amazed how many gringos and easterners are visiting in Vietnam. In spite of the tourism they do not have many improvements and cleanliness. WOW what a day! We arrived at our boat at 10:30. We boarded our 40 foot long wood craft, with crude inboard motor and folding chairs to sit on, with 2 mum plants as decorations, and toured the floating wholesale market. The river was moving to high tide and the floating hyacinth were all over the water. The wholesale products each wooden boat was selling were displayed on a tall pole - watermelons were in season, but so were mum flowers for the TET celebration, pineapple, dragon fruit, mango, bananas, etc - which they have purchased from farmers along the Mekong and sell wholesale to retail stores and street vendors. People lived full time on most of the larger boats. Half the boats had inboard motors while the other half had motors on deck with long shafts for the prop plus a tube through which the prop forced water back up to cool the engine. Next we stopped at a candy making operation - making the thin skin (rice paper) that a spring roll is wrapped in, popping rice to make rice cakes and rice crispy, caramel candy from coconut-sugar and wrapped in eatable rice paper by hand, and peanut bars held together by baked caramel. Then we went on a river ride thru the middle of an island in the Mekong- 30 foot boat 18 inches deep paddled by a standing lady with crossed oars. I was very uncomfortable cuz of the low sitting with extended legs exacerbated my painful left hip and knee. I sure found out today how limited in mobility and strength I am in getting on and off the boat. 😟 Next we got back on our boat and drove some canals before getting to lunch. I photoed the front of some boats which had the eyes painted on - in the 18th century a large fish would attack a small boat to get the food and people, so they painted eyes and color on to make the predators think the boat was a larger animal that would attack them. Lunch started with a standing elephant fish which was the primary makings for a fresh spring roll, fried spring rolls and we thot we were done.. then came the pork pieces of meat, chicken soup, and a whole shrimp each... we reloaded to our boat for more sightseeing on the Mekong until 3:00. We then drove an hour to our hotel in Can Tho city. A market street is at the entrance to our hotel. All our events meshed and we never saw the transfer for payment at any of our events/places. Must have been prepaid or billable for 20 different vendors.
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