Hello MISS SAIGON!!!! YOU GREAT CITY???

As part of spending our last day in Hue, central Vietnam, we visited the largest Pagoda, had lunch on the balcony of a Lonely Plant recommended Cafe owned by a  gentleman who cannot hear or speak.  He was a delight. The food was terrific--fish and rice, of course, one of  Tom the fisherman's favorite choices, and a few vegetables & a lovely coconut ice with chocolate sauce. I expect the latter was for westerners.  Only cooked veggies and peeled fruit are OK (safe) to eat here.  We watched activities of the town from above and hope to include a few photos.  Thanks again, Randi, for the book. It has been a great help to us every day on this trip.

Sacred Turtle

I forgot to mention that our hotel room was #  714 in Hue.  For a while we were trying to recall why that number sounded familiar. We had 2 homes in Maryland with 704 and 702 in their respective addresses and live now @ 419, but then we finally realized it is our current phone number area code. Daaaaaahhhhhh! As I have done all my communications via email, internet, etc., living a different sort of life here, and not made a phone call in nearly 4 weeks it took awhile to catch on. Oh well.

Workout bars for monks. we never saw them as we heard dishes being washed while at the pagoda.

Woman selling various types of rice in the market. She asked me to take her picture.

On another logistical note.  Spell check corrects the words by the local language, so you may find I have a few errors. In Nepal, I did not bother often, in Hong Kong nearly every word was highlighted as incorrect  Chinese and similarly for Vietnamese here so I just gave up.  You will have to accept any errors until I learn how to change to an English dictionary oversea, which I probably will skip as I would rather be sightseeing.

One day at the War Remembrance Museum, a memory of the French then American Wars here from the Vietnamese point of view. Yes, there are a few graphic photos but we had seen many of them on TV every night during the 60s & early 70s.  Then, yesterday we visited the tunnels in town called Cu Chi (pronounced COO CHEE) where the townspeople defeated many American soldiers by hiding underground. It was an incredible place. There are a few tunnels "enlarged" for those who cannot fit into original ones. Tom went through a couple.  There were visitors from Malaysia, China, Spain, Australia, Holland, USA, and many from Vietnam in our tour group. Most interesting comments by several folks. One retired air force officer from Malaysia said that America's presence was important then to prevent many parts of Asia becoming communist nations.  But, he added, our government just did not know when to leave Vietnam--we waited too long, he said.  Is there a lesson here?

In front of War Museum

A monk looking out on city of Saigon on tour of the Royal  Palace. 

Trap door to tunnel demo

Special Ho Chi Minh sandals that leave reverse footprints when you walk to confuse the enemy.

Newly planted rubber plantation.  Each tree has small cup attached near the bottom. 

 Photo from tour bus, sorry, a bit out of focus.

Terrain where tunnels were built.

Oh, I forgot to mention that our hotel room in Saigon overlooked the street that becomes a Night Market around 6 pm everyday. The stalls with all the merchandise are set up each nite. Here's one of many new experiences. Do you ever hope your children only ask for dogs or rabbits as pets?  What about Fighting Cocks?  Well a guy across the street had roosters whom he washed every morning but they also started to crow around 4 am.  I  am sure his mother is just thrilled to have such lovely pets on the premises. We could see the roosters on their top balcony from our room but the photos aren't too good.  Although we never looked for a Cock Fighting place in Saigon, we did have the fights going on ourside our window in Hue.
For those of you who have not traveled to Asia and parts beyond, drinking water is an every moment problem. We need to carry water to drink in plastic bottles at all times that cannot be refilled.  This creates a huge recycling problem for our planet. Some areas are doing a good job; many ignoring the problem.

Driving up to Da Lat area. Notice Catholic statue, as area here was first developed by French and Portuguese missionaries.

Today, Sat, (Friday in USA) we experienced the countryside via 7.5 hour bus ride from Saigon to Da Lat, a popular Vietnamese & French vacation spot in the mountains. It is nice to get up a bit where it is cooler & less humidity. The "Easy Riders" motocycle tour guides were offering rides immediately as we disembarked from the long bus ride.  You won't find me on a bike on these mountain roads.

Cooling off

(PS I like to think that the second beer for dinner won't add any body weight when we are sweating so much while eating dinner at the humid night market.   This theory is likely not valid, so all the lovely beers from Everest to Festival to Tiger to 333 will continue to show themselves nicely.  Darn!)

The food is fabulous here too!

Please send your comments. BYE!