So, no China. We were rerouted to avoid the Coronavirus. Actually a great decision on the part of Semester At Sea, because if we had gone, other ports would have refused to allow us to enter. So, we have 2 full weeks in Vietnam!
It was very cool coming up the river to Ho Chi Minh City . We started to see land around sunrise, and then as we came up the river through the delta, we saw mangroves and bamboo…chicken farms, fish farms and tons of urban sprawl.
Here are the words I wrote down as my first impressions of Vietnam:
Mangroves and palm leaves
Mountains as backdrops
Flatness of rice, shrimp and salt farms
Oyster culture and tiny net fishing boats
Tributaries merge and water changes in appearance
Cities of cement chick farms sprout up with clucking
Barges for sand and oil
Half finished bridges
4-packs, 6-packs, 12-packs of high rise apartment buildings
Skyscrapers dark against gleaming white complexes.
Our visits in Ho Chi Minh City included the Sky Deck on the Bitexco Tower, a really cool temple dedicated to the Goddess of the Sea (it had ceramic murals all around the roof and decorating the inside), the French Colonial architecture of the post office, opera and palace, and a “cathedral”, markets, and lots of street crossing. In Vietnam, cross walk or no crosswalk, side street or highway, you just walk at a steady pace across the street. Scooters do not stop for red lights. Most people just drive through. If you keep your pace steady, they avoid you….but NO SHARP MOVEMENTS! Google a video of it. It is nuts!
One day included a visit of the Cu Chi tunnels (Bill was a hero and went into the narrowest of the tunnels…I settled for the bigger one) where we gained a better understanding of the magnitude of the tunnel system and the deadliness of the traps. In the afternoon, we visited the War Remnants Museum, where information and graphic images of American soldiers carrying out their orders were presented along with more information and details and graphic photos of the aftermath of agent orange and the bombs.
Bill and I also made a side trip to Hanoi, Nimh Binh, Tam Coc and Mai Chau and Halong Bay.
In Hanoi, it was much the same big city atmosphere a HCMC. We checked out Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum, home, cars, and influence everywhere. We need to read a biography of this guy. We spent some time walking around the lake and in old town. In the evenings, we saw the water puppet show and a bamboo acrobatics show. Really interesting how they changed the bamboo poles into structures to represent a bridge, a house, a trellis for plants and tree supports….as we traveled around Vietnam, we actually saw those structures in use.
Mai Chau was really beautiful. To get there we had to go up and over mountain passes with hairpin turns in a bus (there were 15 of us in our group). At one point, as we went from narrow roads to narrower and narrower roads, the driver realized he was lost…and we had to back up!!!! But Mai Chau is on a river that is wide as Lake Memphremagog, full of and surrounded by islands. We took a boat ride and saw fish farms, and stayed in a wonderful eco-lodge on the lakeside. Highlights of our stay there were our meals at a local family’s home, the evening dancing and karaoke entertainment by the hotel staff and of course the peaceful surroundings. Oh, I forgot…the locals “entertained” us with their karaoke singing echoing across the lake, too….. ;)
We also spent a night on a ship out in Halong Bay. It was cold, and we had no sun, but we had no rain either. The limestone karsts that seem to sprout up out of the sea everywhere are awesomely beautiful and mysterious! The trip took us out of Cat Ha harbor (where 50 boats are allowed to go through each day) instead of out of Halong Bay harbor (where over 200 boats are allowed to go each day!) If you looked off the side of the ship, you felt the solitude….but if you looked off the bow or the stern, you felt like you were in a parade. We both jumped in, kayaked (saw some beautiful coral growing and a star fish), squid fished, enjoyed a rowboat ride through some caves and relaxed out of the craziness of the city.
If you want to see more photos, check out our individual facebook pages as we did have internet this past week as we traveled.
Next up….Vietnam #2: Mekong Delta and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia