Holy moley. It's day 100 of this crazy adventure. And I can hardly figure where I am these days. Physically. Yes, maybe. But, mentally, it's all starting to run together.
Had a lazy first day in Ho Chi Minh City. I didn't like the hostel I originally booked into. I think I got played and they opened a second location that is second rate because this place does not look like the pictures on the website. Since I had all afternoon until Dad arrived, I went on the hunt for another hotel and found a nice place with a twin room available. Yeah!
Thankfully, Dad arrived right on time, no problem. I had arranged for a taxi to pick him up at the airport, but I wasn't sure he would arrive without any problems. It was kind of amazing having him turn up in this strange traveling dream I've been living these last three months.
We had a nice first day wandering around the touristy area. It was nice to get his take on the crazy traffic and the even crazier powerlines. I have started to regain my enthusiasm for traveling.
We visited a nearby cathedral in the hotel district. It was unusual, given that there are not so many churches in this part of the world. It had an outside wall that functioned as a memorial of sorts. People could come and leave offerings and sit with their ancestors. There was also a tomb room, for lack of a better word, with shelves of ashes in little boxes.
I booked my flight to Amsterdam today. I'm very excited about visiting the Netherlands! Only two more weeks til I'm free of the heat.
We enjoyed a nap in the a afternoon at our new hotel. Dad is still adjusting to the time zone here. Then we had a great dinner at an upstairs cafe called Pho 2000. It overlooked Ben Thanh market as well as a main intersection. Afterwards we explored the night market. It contained the usual touristy stuff, along with a lot of Indian saris and suits. That's new. Apparently, this is the district where Indians come to buy their traditional clothes. Very interesting. And that must mean that there is a sizeable population of Indians living here.
On the whole, Vietnamese dress very western. And the girls are much less modest about wearing revealing clothing than the Taiwanese girls were. I've noticed they dress pretty much the same as we do in the US except for they prefer to be covered during the day from the sun. But at night, the cover ups come off. I wonder if they have Vitamin D problems from being so covered up.
When we returned to the hotel, we booked a few tours with the travel desk. A half-day tour of Ho Chi Minh City, a day tour to the CuChi tunnels, and a two day tour of the Mekong Delta - with a homestay. Looking forward to our upcoming tours.
We went to bed at 10:30 and the rains set in. Heavy rains. I guess it couldn't last forever. I've really had almost no rain at all during my entire trip. At least we're not out in it. Hoping it passes over by morning.
Day tour
So sunny today! We stopped at a small Buddhist temple, with several huge Buddha statues on the grounds. As luck would have it, a chanting ceremony was in session. I caught the last of it, but wasn't able to get pictures unfortunately.
The Cu Chi tunnels and Gao Dai temple were interesting but not really worth the whole day trip on the bus it took to get there. The tunnels were built starting in the 30s and 40s (Ithink) and larger and larger networks were built throughout the receding decades. The sheer scale of the tunnel system was impressive, and the actual size of the tunnels were so tiny my Dad almost got stuck, not even 4 ft high in some places and rarely more than two feet wide. Incredible. Rebel fighters lived undergrown in these tunnels for years, generations in fact. And the living spaces were not that large either. It must have been insufferable. They were supported by local farmers and kept the resistance up until finally all the foreigners had conceded and left. While Vietnam is a communist country with only one party, they are in fact an elected government. Almost like the US, you might say, where we have two parties that struggle to distinguish themselves from each other.
The Gao Dai temple was beautiful, but the religion behind it was indecipherable, at least from what the tour guide told us. I think the truth of the Gao Dai was lost in translation.
Half day tour Ho Chi Minh City
At the war memorial museum, I found it interesting to learn how many countries opposed us when we were in Vietnam. They had newspaper articles from all over the world and all throughout the war effort, many with Ho Chi Minh himself meeting with world leaders from around the globe, on behalf of his struggle and his people. It made me think, if only the Afghanis and Iraqis had such a mouthpiece as Ho Chi Minh to fight for them. But of course circumstances of the invasion and ideology are quite different.
After the horrific pictures of Vietnamese people born defective because their parents were exposed to dioxin, from the agent orange and napalm, I wonder about eating anything in this country. How long do those chemicals stay in the ground and effect the crops? And also, why are we not more worried about dioxins in our food supply in general. Did we use chemical warfare in our Afghani or Iraqi campaigns? So now those populations have the misfortune of a poisoned generation. I truly hope not. I hope we at least learned our lesson here as far as chemical warfare is concerned.
After the tour, we went to lunch at this upscale Asian Fusion place and then hit an upscale french bakery for dessert. There is a weird kind of retro music here in Ho Chi Minh. Yesterday, we heard the Mario bros video game theme song played as an actual song in a restaurant. I kid you not. It was the actual theme song! That was followed by Scott Joplin's Ragtime. So strange! Today, we're listening to remixed techno funk, followed by "you're the apple to my pie", "you're the straws to my berry", "you're the smoke to my high" girlie acoustic pop. Followed by 1962 "listen to the rhythm of the falling rain." Followed by piano only version of Richard Marx famous song. Some sort of Ultimate Upbeat Mix. It's almost psychedelic it's so happily delusional. What vibe are they going for at these places. Utopia?
Anyway, it's sure nice to have Dad here with me to share all this strange and unusual stuff.
So that was Ho Chi Minh. Now we're on to the Mekong Delta tour and afterwards we travel on to Cambodia.
