6 March: After a short nap at Fran’s house, Betty and I along with Fran and Charlotte were picked up by a van arranged through Wayne
Bernikel. Jerry and Linda were already on the van. It was 12:15am and very foggy. We arrived in Minneapolis with time to spare.
7 March: It was a long flight with stops in Denver, San Francisco and Hong Kong. Betty was able to lie down in 3 seats and get some sleep, but I only cat napped. The leg from California to Hong Kong had four full length movies. Total Flight time was 27 hours. The pilot “greased” the landing in Saigon and we were in Vietnam. We breezed through immigration and customs without a problem. We were met at the airport by “Thi” our tour guide for the next three days. He and the driver, loaded our considerable baggage in the back of a very modern van. It was a 20 passenger vehicle so there was plenty of room for all the luggage and each of us had a separate seat. “Look at these wires” gasped Charlotte. Hundreds of electric and phone wires were drapped along the street, some hanging as low as six feet from the ground, others much higher and a mass of black spaghetti in between. At each street intersection this confused mess was hanging on one hidden pole and drapped out in all directions.
First impression of Saigon was hot, humid and busy; mopeds and small motorcycles everywhere. Horns never stopping.
9 March: Toured CuChi tunnels and Tay Nihn Temple. Had lunch in large restaurant near the temple; Dinner at Chateau again – not nearly as good as the night before.
10 March: Flew to Dalat. We were met by our tour guide, Hei. We stayed in a quaint old french style hotel (Hotel Novotel) – very nice. Toured Dalat. Dinner in the hotel annex across the street. I lost my Tilley hat before the tour. Dalat is very beautiful; we all loved it.
11 March: At breakfast the cute little waitress, returned my hat. It had been found in the lobby where I left it and was secured behind the bar. We bussed several hours through the mountains to Nha Trang. Stayed in the Saigon Yasaka Hotel which was very nice. Our balcony overlooked the South China Sea, hundreds of Bonzai were everywhere especially near the 11th floor pool. We ate at Lac Canh Restaurant and grilled on our table – great fun. (Betty) – on the way out we saw the dishwashing which consisted of a lady sitting on the floor with a pan of water washing our silverware – we all said – just keep walking – don’t look.
12 March: We arranged a special boat tour for a fishing and snorkeling day. We had lunch on an island, rested then went fishing and exploring again. Returned to the island (a VinPearl Resort in development) for an outdoor seafood bar-b-que. Then night cruise back to Nha Trang.
13 March: We bussed 40 min south to Cam Ranh Bay airport then flew to Da Nang, where we were met by our tour guide, Phoung, and bussed to Hoi An. Had a tour of the old Hoi An city, nice. Saw silk worms in action, ordered tailor made formal shirt for my “Dress Uniform” and tux.
14 March: Jerry, Steve and I arranged with our guide, Mr. Phong, to take a special trip to see Chu Lai, Jerry’s old base. Plus we went to the Champa Tower (11th century) and to the MyLai Memorial. Very emotional!
15 March: Drove along the coast over mountain pass to Hue. Saw the citadel, a folk dance show and Pagoda. We took a boat ride on the Perfume River to the Century Riverside Hotel. Had dinner at Tropical Garden Restaurant with live folk music.
16 March: Visited two kings tombs (seemed that they must have bankrupted the country to build these elaborate memorials to themselves). We flew to Hanoi, met our guide “Dan” at the airport. Checked in the Rosaliza Hotel. Charlotte, Fran, Betty and I walked along the lake and through the “old city”. We tried to find the French restaurant recommended by our guide but couldn’t; we found the “Wild Rice” instead. It was wonderful! Later, we found out that during this same time in the afternoon and evening, Jerry and Linda, Steve and Jennifer were doing much the same thing. They found a place along the lake where Linda could have a hamburger.
17 March: Bussed from Hanoi to HaLong Bay through small villages and rice paddies. This seems to be a poorer area than Hanoi or southern Vietnam; more bicycles, lots of workers in rice paddies and fields. A small truck had run over a moped in the middle of the road just before we passed by it. In HaLong we boarded a junk to cruise HaLong Bay for the next 24 hours. Two Austrailian couples (Fred and Lorraine and Robert and RoseMary) were already aboard. Our guide/translater on board is Loi. We cruised through hundreds of karst islands protruding vertically several hundred feet out of the water. The weather is foggy making for an eerie atmosphere with these ancient limestone islands all around us. This area is a World Heritage site designated by UNESCO and is very popular. Over 500 junks take visitors from all over the world on 2-5 day cruises to see this amazing place. At various sites along the way we stepped from the junk onto a smaller bamboo dingy to explore a cave, climb a peak, see monkeys or a lagoon. The dingy was towed behind the junk when we were underway.
The meals were great, mostly seafood and almost endless courses. We all ran a tab for drinks, charging them to our room.
18 March: Another foggy day, the islands appear to be stacked one behind the other with hundreds all around us as we glide quietly along threading our way through them. After a side trip to see the monkeys, we started the slow trip back to the docks at Ha Long. Just outside the harbor, our boat ran aground. Another tour boat tugged and pulled ours for about 20 minutes until we floated freely. Soon we were saying good-bye to our crew and loading on a launch that would take us to the dock. There, we said farewell to our cruise guide, Loi, and linked up with Dan again. During the four hour bus ride back to Hanoi, Dan told us lots about local Vietnamese customs and history. As with all our guides, Dan is a fountain of information. His father was a North Vietnamese Army (NVA) soldier during the “American” war. Dan told us of the hardships and bombing that his family endured.
Back in Hanoi, we stopped for a tour of the “Hanoi Hilton”. Its real name is Ha Loa prison. This prison compound was built by the French during the colonial period then, of course used by the North Vietnamese to confine American pilots shot down while bombing the Hanoi area. As expected, the displays and explanations had a strong NVA slant to them. The torture, food deprivation, lack of medical care and other hardships were not addressed. Some pictures showed our airmen playing volleyball, basketball, smiling as they opened packages, etc. They were always in clean clothes, seemingly happy and in good health. There were a couple of pictures of John McCain. One noted that he was a U.S. Senator and was a candidate for president. Actually, it was not as “anti-US” as I had expected.
Back at the Hotel Rosaliza, Jerry and Linda were lucky and were placed in a suite. Steve and Jerry hustled out into rush hour traffic and bought a case of Heineken. Jerry and Linda invited us all to “party” in their suite. We missed dinner.
19 March: Our schedule has us touring the City of Hanoi today: The Ho Chi Mihn Mausaleum, a Fine Arts Museaum and much more. “Uncle Ho” is a very respected leader and very well like by people in both the north and south of Vietnam. This is a weekday so the line to go through the Mausaleum is relatively short, maybe 1 kilometer (.6 miles), our guide tells us that on some holidays it can be over 5 km (3 miles) long. No cameras are allowed, cell phones must be turned off, if wearing shorts, they must cover the knees and no talking allowed. “Uncle Ho” asked that there be no memorial and that he be cremated and his ashes spread in north, central, and south Vietnam because he wanted the whole country together. However, when he died in 1969 at the age of 79, the Vietnamese Communist Party leaders had him embalmed and built a huge Mausaleum (Russian architecture) within nicely landscaped grounds in which he is now displayed.
Unfortunately, Betty was not feeling well today. While waiting in line at the Mausaleum she thought it best to return to the Hotel. Even though, I know she could easily get back on her own, I joined her. We caught a cab and now I have time to get up-to-date on my journal entries. We plan to intercept the group for lunch.
Later – I thought I knew how to find the Wild Rice restaurant so we could link up with the rest of our group. But not, we walked up and down several streets in the area, we tried asking directions, nothing was working and the meeting time was getting close. As a last ditch effort we caught a cab. The driver did not know of the place so we had him take us back to our hotel. The good folks at the front desk called our tour guide’s cell phone to get the location of the restaurant. The guide told them he was running late and would stop by the hotel to pick us up on the way to the restaurant. Lunch was great!
In the afternoon, our guide planned a cyclo ride through the “old city”, then a walking tour of a large lake park, a shrine, the market and ending with a “water puppet” show. The cyclo ride was really interesting. Cyclo is similar to the older rickshaw but with a bicycle arrangement behind the customers’ comfortable double seat. A guy then pedals the little machine, pushing the two of us slowly through busy traffic. For about an hour, he carefully aimed us from one near collision to the next. We all enjoyed the ride and tipped our individual drivers well. During our walk through the lake park, Betty decided to catch a cab back to the hotel. She had really been looking forward to the Water Puppet show, but her stomach was demanding immediate attention. A couple hours later, we were placed in the front row seats for the puppet show and just as the show started our guide escorted Betty to the single remaining seat beside us. Perfect!
Happy hour was in Linda and Jerry’s tenth floor lounge again. We arranged for a hotel employee to get us some pizza and all was well.
20 March: Our schedule for the day was “open” for the morning and a visit to the Fine Arts Museum in the afternoon, then go to the train station at 5pm.
Betty and I decided to use the morning to see the attractions we had missed the day before. We took a cab to the Ho Chi Minh memorial, saw the presidential palace, Ho Chi Minh’s stilt house (he declined living in the palace while so many were living in poverty) and we visited the Ho Chi Minh Museum. As expected, he is revered by the Vietnamese, especially, those in the north. He is a national hero. We found it very interesting, however, both Betty and I had some pointed arguments with our museum guide. The war propaganda she had been subjected to conflicted with the propaganda we had received.
Back at the hotel, our guide helped us load our considerable luggage on a bus, we said good bye to the Rosaliza Hotel manager and the staff and made our way through Hanoi rush hour traffic to the train station. As with all our guides, we hated to leave them. We all seemed even closer to Dan. He must have had similar feelings, he had a special scarf, made by one of the Vietnamese ethnic groups, for each of the women in our group.
As we carted our luggage through the station and down the long platform, dozens of guys were trying to help us. Now, each member of our little group is perfectly capable of moving their own gear and prefers to do it themselves. However, these guys persisted in trying to get their hands on our bags so they could get a tip. They even followed us down the narrow aisle on the train. Jerry seemed to really attract them. He had three of them trying to squeeze all the luggage into a tiny compartment.
We have two 4-berth compartments for the eight of us. It is a bit tight but reasonaby comfortable. The train rolled out of the station at 6:30pm. About 11pm we were awakened for all the bureacratic harassement of a border crossing. First it was a passport check, then a baggage check, then we stopped to switch trains. Finally, about 2 am we were underway again, but were herded off the train again at 7am to “rest” in a station waiting room.