Ho Chi Minh!

The first few days in Ho Chi Minh City have been better than expected! It is not to loud and very  sunny compared to Hanoi which is the capital of Vietnam and I don't know why because it is much nicer here!

I woke up at 7:00 and mom and Dad had already packed so I went out side with my soccer ball and juggled for a little before a mini-bus came and picked us up from the side walk (by this time mom and dad had come out with our bags) and put our bags it the back of the bus which was really hard because it was tiny and was filled with some briefcases. There were a few people on the bus (which meant it was full because it was a mini) but not many people were traveling with so many bags. We got to the bus station and there were like 2 buses and a lot of people. One even drove away but more came so the bus we went on was not as full. I took my ticket from dad and got on to the bus and walked to the 21 seat and sat down.

We stopped and all the passengers streamed out and got some food from the Vietnamese restaurant. But unfortunately we don't speak Vietnamese so we had to go to a little shop with fruit and popcorn and eat that.

We did not want to go to Ho Chi Minh city yet though because we had a night in Ben Tre' first. So they just let us off the bus and we got picked up by a taxi and we were pretty close to Ben Tre' any way so we hopped in a taxi and drove to our hotel.

Ben Tre' was nice and quiet. We rented bikes and went around an island and saw a lot of coconuts and a fish sculpture made out of a tree! We were tired and when we got home I stayed and Mom and Dad went out to get a little lunch and then came back. Our hotel was nice and we enjoyed it. There was a TV so I was content. My bed was a mere mattress with 1 blanket and a fan pointed right at me and I was freezing!!! In the middle of   the night I got up and moved the mattress out from under the fan. After that I was cold but I fell asleep and woke up the next morning.

We went down stairs and had breakfast at a little cafe and I got a beef rice thing and  bacon. Then we rented bikes again and did the same thing we did yesterday except we took the littler paths and the rickety bridges. We stopped once and got water from a little store in the middle on no where. They had some cold water and before long we were off again. We went to the other side of the island and saw the coconut candy factory and got a sample. It was too sweet. That is why there were so many coconuts every where. We got back to the hotel and mom and I rented a Chaly. It is a 50cc bike that is smaller (for me!!) and for the first time I could ride comfortably! The bikes mom always gets are a bit to big but I can still ride them. So we rode that for a little bit and then came home and got onto a mini bus to a bigger bus then we rode that to another bus that took us to the city of Saigon then a taxi to our hotel called Saigon Star and plopped our stuff there and walked to the park which was next to us and then went to a cafe and had mongo smoothies. The next day we got up and went to the south Vietnamese former Presidents "White House". The bomb shelters were cool but the other bed rooms were not. We saw the landing pad where the people from the government lifted off in there helicopters to escape the north.

We also went to the war museum and saw the "jail" and all the pictures about Agent blue or red or something. They also had a big jet and tanks.

We took a taxi to a really good ice cream shop called X-CREAM. They had really good ice cream and then we walked to the market and shopped around and got some presents and I got 2 soccer jerseys for $10 with matching shorts. Then we took a speedy motor bike taxi with a funny driver and got home in "a record time"!!

I fell asleep and woke up to room service.

Mom and dad ordered some fries and beef and the guy brought it right up! I never had room service so I was astounded and ate the dinner and went back to sleep.

The next morning mom rented a motor bike, I wrote this post and dad read. After that stretch of boring mom drove us to a cafe and we had some good smoothies.

Then mom and I explored and found a street with a lot of animals and looked at some dogs, cats, snakes, lizards, birds and a monkey! You could get a cute dog for $11. We gazed at them till we got tired of the little barks then drove back to Saigon Star. (PS our camera broke so we can't post any pictures.)  JM :)                    

Bougainvillea of Ben Tre

We loved Ben Tre--it is a small town on the Mekong Delta--just 2 hours south of HCMC. In hindsight, we could have stayed here for several days. We found it to be an excellent town to experience Vietnam and all of it's splendor...active markets with good prices, very friendly people, a superior traffic situation conducive to exploring by bike or motorbike, surprisingly good food at our Hotel-Kach San Huong Vuong, wonderful weather and fabulous exploring in bright sunshine, bougainvillea and whispering palms. Of course the tributaries of the Mekong bustle with boat traffic and the tour boats will take you along the canals as well. The network of bridges and the gestures and expressions of surprised locals seeing us there were amusing indeed. Our trip is winding down and our final blog will be from Ho Chi Minh City, a.k.a. "Saigon"-- of days gone by. BTM

sugar cane juice on the rocks

One of our lasting memories of Vietnam will be the sugar cane juice that is sold by street vendors for .20-.25 cents! It is super cold and filled with ice so it is very refreshing on those 35 degree C days after bombing around Vietnam on our bikes taking in the sights. When you come to Vietnam don't miss it! We are now in HCMC and on our last few days of the trip. Today we will see the "Reunification Palace", the "War Remnants Museum" and the famous Ben Thanh Market in District 1. Last night we had a raucous dinner at the Ngoc Suong Restaurant... serendipitously...we were attracted to the chaos... it was described as "the place that well-to-do Saigonians would recommend for the best seafood in the city".... I thought maybe there was a wedding going on as we passed by, but it was just the regular wednesday night crowd of families and boisterous outings with friends. We were intrigued to see the buckets of ice cold beer that they bring to the tables full of cans consumed during the meal. So many things to see when you are a stranger in a strange land. Ciao--BTM

Haircuts and Ear Trims

Just one small slice of life in Vietnam.  Yesterday I had been cruising the streets of small town of Ben Tre, in the Mekong Delta, looking for a barber.  Twice I had gone into a shop where women worked. They looked shocked and gave the Vietnamese sign for NO (the hand motion you use to screw in a light bulb).  Then I passed a solo barber who was flourishing his scissors like an artist.  His open-air shop was 8 x 10 feet, and led to his family's home.  While I waited for his one customer to be done I watched the passing traffic.  I counted at least 200 bikes or motobikes for every car or truck that passed.  In the countryside two wheels rule.

When it was my turn for a haircut I tried, in sign language, to indicate what I wanted.  The barber didn't speak a word of English.  I tried to show I wanted only a trim for my hair and my beard. So much for my sign language abilities.  He gave me a major haircut and was on his way to taking off my beard before we negotiated a severe trimming.  I would bet I was the first foreigner ever in his chair.  He was on a side street in a small town.  His scissors were snipping a mile a minute, even when they were nowhere near my head. At times three or four passerby hovered a few feet away asking questions, or making comments, just watching the unusual procedure.

By the time I was done I had received a major haircut, a major beard trimming, and had my neck, forehead,  and cheeks shaved.  It's common in Vietnam after a haircut to have your ears cleaned.  When in Rome...  So he took out his long, somewhat sobering tools, switched on an old flashlight, and started excavating my eardrums.  With pride he placed little balls of earwax on my arm.  He also shaved my ears. Total time elapsed - 1 hour, 20 minutes.  Haircut and beard trim - $1.50.  Ear cleaning 50 cents.  He bowed and gave my hand a hearty shake when I left.  I think he'll be talking about this hairy foreigner for some time to come.

Getting here

Most of the days that we get on a plane and fly 4 hours are hard a bit but when you are in Vietnam with people all around you yelling in there language it is a bit harder.

The first time that was hard was getting to Vietnam. I woke up at 3 in the morning and picked my bags up from my room where I had put them and had a really amazing breakfast (compared with the ones we have here) then get driven to the air port by Nathon who is our house-sitter which was really nice at 3am. We got there and checked our bags at the desk, said good by to Nathon and got on our flight to Chicago and (still tired) got to our next gate and waited for 2 or 3 hours till our next flight. I passed the time by playing games and Skyping. The plane came and we got on a deadly flight (aka 15 hour) to Hong Kong. It was a 747 and it was huge!! There were a lot of people! We were in the middle of it all and out of the 15 hours I napped 4. I was about in a coma when we made it to Hong Kong and got out to Chinese people yelling strange sounds and smoking. I looked out side and saw at least 800,000 motor bikes because it was the international airport. 9 in 10 people have at least 1 motor bike in Vietnam because cars are expensive. People still have cars though. Then we waited at least 3 or 4 hours it the airport and played soccer with a mini world cup ball I got for Christmas, got fast food from the Hong Kong fast food (which was delicious...) and played rummy 500 with cards.

Our flight arrived and we got onto a 1 hour flight to Hanoi. The police checked our papers to see if he wanted to let us into Vietnam. He did so we caught a taxi to hotel Tung Trang. The driver was crazy and I did not get a good first ride in a car in Vietnam.

All in all traveling to Vietnam is wicked hard and I am excited to come back but I fear the plane ride!! because it is so tiring!!  :) JM                                  

Can Tho Kids Soccer

Jesse and I love playing 'football' (called soccer in the US), and it's a fantastic way to meet local children and adults and get great exercise.  Fortunately, all the men and some of the women in Vietnam and Laos are football fanatics, so we keep our eyes peeled for dusty fields, wide street corners, or decaying local stadiums where we can scare up a game, and we rarely are disappointed.  Here in the Mekong we've found a fantastic new venue -- outdoor centers with 4-6 small astroturf fields where men and boys play almost all day long.  We've found two such centers here in Can Tho, and have joined many fun and sweaty games in recent days.

Yesterday at 6:30 am when I went for a run I stopped at a nearby center and watched some 25-40 year-old men playing.  They had 11 players, and when one man saw me he motioned for me to jump in and make it an even 12.  We played for a sweaty hour and had lots of laughs.  Jesse has made 14 new friends his age, and at 5 pm every night they jump on any unused fields and start a pick-up game.   There are night lights so they can play quite late.  Here are two videos from Jesse's game last night.  In one video, the kids are trying to select teams, and Jesse is showing them the Laotian technique he learned of having one team wear half-body shirts, and the other have full-body shirts.   See you on the field!  Duncan

A new type of video--an experiment in video!

Scuba Diving on Phu Quoc Island Slideshow: "TripAdvisor™ TripWow ★ Scuba Diving on Phu Quoc Island Slideshow ★ to Phu Quoc Island, Can Tho and Ho Chi Minh City by Jesse McDougall. Stunning free travel slideshows on TripAdvisor"

This is an application we found while reading other people's blogs. We decided to have some fun and try it.  BTM

Day 2 on the Mekong Canals

The Ho Chi Minh Statue at the waterfront in Can Tho

finding "Vui" --a capable skipper navigating the narrow canals

canals of commerce

pulling up the water lily-type plants 

freshly painted boats with the eyes in the bow seeing the waters ahead

all morning we saw people doing their wash in the river...not sure about the water quality but they do apparently have a plumbing system running through these areas. They do not drink any of the water but wash with hit...

 When we were on Phuquoc Island we made the acquaintance of a lovely couple who had just come from the Delta area. They told us to seek out a woman named...."Vui" at the base of the Ho Chi Minh statue in Can Tho City... Vui was their private and local guide one day. They had such nice things to say about their experience, we decided to find "Vui"ourselves. On our first day we went to the Ho Chi Minh statue on the waterfront where people gather to meet their boats to take them to the floating markets. When you're a white tourist in Can Tho you really do stick out like a sore thumb! Upon our arrival, multiple lady guides came to us hoping to be our guide..."hello, hello...do you want to see the flo-ting mah-ket?" so all three of us gently kept saying... "we're looking for Vui"..."do you know Vui?". "We were hoping to find Vui...?" We gave up for that day and decided we'd book a tour another day. Well... the following afternoon when we were down by the waterfront again perusing the markets, we were met by two beaming women saying..."This Vui, this Vui...I'm Vui sista' we met yesterday... I'm Vui sista'... you look-ing for Vui..." So we had our match!!! Today we finally had our day with Vui and explored the smaller backwater canals of this area around Can Tho. Vui indeed was a wonderful guide who had learned some meager English from a few books and from talking to tourists--but "no school..." She's been running her little boat and meeting tourists for 24 years. She bought her new boat and engine 9 years ago for $250. One highlight of our day today was the fruit orchard where we again enjoyed pineapple and saw some crocs' and a monkey who loves pineapple! BTM

Can Tho

Can Tho is the biggest town/ city of the Mekong Delta.

At 7:00 in the morning I got up (in Phu Quoc) and got a baguette from the little restaurant at our hotel called The Beach Club. The Beach Club was not like an American beach club but it was nice and homey. We walked out with our luggage to a taxi and drove to a local slow boat dock and walked out the 1/2 mile pier to where the water got deeper and the boat could park. I was really tired and surprised that the boat that we were going to be on was wooden and was literally  a "local" boat. People were smoking left and right and it was crowded. Mom and I choose to sit up on the top of the boat which was cooler and not as smelly! There was a lot of fiber glass up on the top deck--so I got a lot of cuts on my bum! I was tired from waking up at 7 and I slept the whole time till we got to a town next to Cambodia called Ha Tien.

We got a taxi ride to the bus station and caught a few hour bus ride on a big taxi bus thing to Rach Gia. "The driver was crazy and honked 1000 times" but mom gave me a head rub and it was all good. We got to the next bus station in a bit bigger city and played soccer for we had 1 hour till the bus picked us up. We started to pick up a game of soccer but a cop was sitting there and made a big deal about not letting us play because he thought we were drunk or something. (I thought they liked soccer?)

The bus arrived and it was just like the last one. It said Can Tho on the back so we knew it was ours. We got on to the bus and got our seats. They were split according to the woman at the desk but she said we could get them together. We ended up doing just that and that was ok. The bus driver was crazy again and we had to endure honks. We saw a lot of lights on the side of the road for Tet--Chinese new year. The trip was bad but we got to the Can Tho bus station and caught yet another taxi to go to our final destination at our hotel. I was down for the count…sleep wise.

The next day we woke up and went to a restaurant called HOP PHO! and got a smoothie and then went to look for a place to rent a motor bike and finally found one and rented a Honda Dream ll (which is a terrible bike. We used that for 24 hours and got a new one that was much better.) We explored around till we found an astroturf feild(s) and got a game going and played till we got tired and got smoothies at the GOAL CAFE! (which were really good!!)

Mom and dad covered the last few days of Can Tho so I will stop for now (and I really want to play a new game I found called Corporation inc. online, it is awesome!!) :) JM                                    


    

The Cai Rang Floating Market-Can Tho Vietnam

"Hel-lo"..."He-llo..." "Hell-o"..."Hollywood!"

One big bike path around the Mekong Delta villages

The school kids heading home across the waterway

"Hello--hello-hello-goodbye--Hollywood!"

An intimate moment....watching...

a distinguished woman riding the old fashion-way. Too bad those days are gone!

Yesterday I had an adventure all by myself (since the boys were content to play soccer...again....all afternoon...) I took my little Yamaha moto across the Can Tho River on the commuter ferry (for bikes, peds and motos) and toured around the intimate, shady lanes of the villages across from the main city center of Can Tho. It was an eye-full! I cruised around dodging this and that for 10-15 miles and then returned across the river home. Here are a few photos for you to get the feeling of my travels. I was amused during my trip because everyone I passed would yell..."Hello!" "Hello"..."Hello"...as I wizzed by...especially at 4:15pm when the kids were coming home in packs of 10 from school. One person yelled..."Hollywood!" at me and I think he thought I was a movie star....having my Eat, Pray, Love-moment in Vietnam. Who knows what they must think when they see a white woman, with gray hair and blue eyes, on a motorbike driving around their rabbit-warren neighborhoods. It was like Watership Down on a motorbike! BTM

soccer in Can Tho

The Red Bridge Cooking School

Can Tho- the gateway to the Mekong Delta

These are seahorses, but I'm not sure why people buy them--for pets in their aquariums? I actually was delighted to see one when I was snorkeling in the islands to the south of Phuquoc--a bizarre species that is endangered here.

We were happy to make it off Phuquoc Island yesterday on the "slow boat" to Ha Tien!  Ha Tien is on the border of Vietnam and Cambodia. This would have been a great opportunity to sneak into Cambodia--but we decided not to visit on this trip. Due to the Tet holidays we were unable to find an available flight to Can Tho nor a "fast boat" to Rach Gia.  This slowed our progress a bit...but Duncan realized that the slow boat was our only hope to make forward progress so we joined the locals and headed north on a "2 hour cruise". Jess' and I sat on the top deck and took in the view and Duncan stayed on one of the hard wooden benches in the cabin people watching. I would describe the boat as a retro-fitted, wooden, fishing boat about 50 ft. long. The boat was painted the popular bright aqua marine and had an old diesel engine. The boats don't really appear sea worthy, but the locals crowded onboard and there were a handful of tourists in the mix. We bustled along in 2 ft. seas at around 20mph.

Our new friends: from left--me, Adam, Alain, Dunc', Jess' and Kenny
these guys started the Alanis Deli and Coffee Shop on Phuquoc-my favorite coffee spot and Jesse's favorite ice cream spot. They worked for many years on a cruise ship out of Singapore and they speak excellent English. We wish them luck as they begin their new venture.

From Ha Tien the next phase of our trip was a harrowing bus ride into the Mekong Delta region--we arrived to Can Tho at 8pm and found our way to our river side hotel....where no one speaks any English. Our Vietnamese friend Alain from Phuquoc ( in photo above) helped us set up this reservation and there is no one else here--there are over 300 rooms!!! The room costs 400,000 VND which is $20 US. We're not sure why we're the only ones here? The room has all of our requirements however... AC, WI-FI, two beds and plenty of hot water. We usually stay in small, 2- star guest houses and hotels so this fit the bill. When we settled into the room--we discovered a second airing of the Super Bowl game on TV.We were psyched to crash and watch what turned out to be a pretty good game.

The Can Tho street side this morning. You can just smell the peppers as you walk by. They are soooo beautiful! I'd like to paint them...maybe I'll get the chance

Needless to say we don't order meat much...but we don't eat much meat in Vermont either...we commonly eat Pho however and there is beef or chicken in the soup

In this post I've included some photos of the riverside here. We wandered around today. We went to the market, rented a motorbike to get our bearings found good coffee and mango shakes... since we'll be spending a week or so here exploring various towns by bike or moto--Ben Tre, Sa Dec (where the movie "The Lover" was filmed) and the river markets for which this area is so famous. We were able to find some nice locals playing soccer today and we are well located to walk along the Mekong to enjoy the sites. Tomorrow we get an early boat tour down into the Delta to see the water markets.  p.s don't forget to double click on the photos if you want to enlarge the photos to see them better. BTM

Jesse and Duncan once again found some buddies to strike up a game. It was like 90 degrees on the turf! It seems hotter here in the Delta.

Soccer at Sao Beach

SCUBA

Today I went SCUBA diving!

Well 4 days ago mom and I rented a motor bike and I drove down town and we saw a lot of signs saying X-DIVE, RAINBOW DIVERS and others. These are all dive shops. We looked in to doing that and the next day we went to the RAINBOW DIVERS shop and talked to the guy at the front desk about SCUBA. He said 10 is the perfect age and I could take a corse called B-C-D. It is pretty much Day #1 for 2 hours learn and use the equipment at a pool at a hotel, then day #2 go out to two dive spots and go  SCUBA diving. We decided to do that and for mom to do the same but a snorkeling corse.

The first day I got up at 8:00 and got to the hotel by 9:00. The pool is nice and big and is warm. We saw the car pull up and the tanks get trucked out of the back and new it was them.   We talked about the masks and tanks then started learning to clear a mask under water, retrieve your fin and stuff like that. After learning everything we just went to the deep end and swam around to end our session.

Day 2 we got up at 7:00 and (in a very tired fashion) got picked up by the bus to go to the boat. (I am never going to be able to wake up at 6:00 every morning to get the school bus.) We got to the boat and met every one and got into groups. Every 4 or less people got a pro diver. After that we started going to our 1st spot to dive. After 1 hour we got to the dive spot and got our suites on and jumped in--the water was really warm! We grabbed on to the anchor line and started to drift down. The bottom was sand and I hit it trying not to disturb the coral. We were down there for 1 hour using 200 bar air. There were crabs, fish, nudibranches (big word for slugs) and more. Some great coral was there too. Sea fans and brain cora are my favorite. After an hour we went up and broke the surface. Mom said she could see a lot too (even though the SCUBA divers went down 30 ft to the coral.) That dive was great!!

The 2nd dive was a bit low visibility but ok. We did the same but when we got to 15 feet my ears wouldn't pop so I had to go to 7 feet then have my ears pop and come back down. The rest was the same  but with more nudibranches and trash. The first dive was far better.

When I got back to the boat I was so tired and I fell asleep for 2 hours until we got to the dock. In the pictures you can see me with a snorkel--it is because on the surface we try not to use tank air and if a wave comes you don't drink it.







Over all I had a good SCUBA experience and you should try it some time--or again.  :) JM    

Images from Phu Quoc island

Jesse at the Night Market

an alter decorated for the Tet holiday--intermittently they pray to the alter throughout the day There is dragon fruit and mango in the dish in front. We eat mangos every day here. They are very plentiful in the markets.

Duncan and Jesse relaxing in the afternoon together

Yesterday we had a fun adventure. Belle and Jesse rode a motobike (with Jesse driving most of the way) 30 km south on Phu Quoc along dusty red dirt roads that ran 75 feet from the untouched beach lined with palm trees sprinkled with palm-frond houses that had been cobbled together by local fishermen.  I rented a mountainbike ($2.20 / day) and biked down and back.  Once we arrived we spent four relaxing hours on lovely Sao Beach, perhaps the most beautiful beach on the island.  I've never been to Fiji or Tahiti, but their beaches can't look much different.  Emerald green water. Palm trees leaning over soft white sand.  We played endless games of soccer, swam, and ate a nice lunch of fried squid, crab and fried rice.

Yesterday was the first day of Tet, Chinese New Year, by far the biggest celebration in the Vietnamese calendar.  Peddling my bike quietly through tiny villages and past hundreds of open-fronted shacks I noticed the following:  virtually all businesses and homes, no matter how rudimentary,  have two shrines -- one inside for household gods, and one outside.  Yesterday all of the shrines were specially tended with flowers, fresh fruits, drinks (water, beer, etc), candies, and incense sticks so the gods would bring good tidings to the heavens and bring back a lucky new year;  Even two rusted old cranes and one ancient dump truck at different construction sites were not forgotten  Each had been provided with beautiful pots of marigolds and bowls of fresh fruit to help bring a luck next year;  As I biked by people waved and called 'Hello!', for most that was the total sum extent of their English. When I wished them happy new year in Vietnamese, they laughed; two young girls, 9-ish and 5-ish, insisted I stop.  In their finest attire they shyly asked where I was from, and then sang me a new year song in Vietnamese.  I sang Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot.  An even trade;   Two km away I heard the booming of a drum from one village and rolled up to find a troop of sweaty young men going house to house wearing a 15-foot dragon costume, writhing to the sound of a barrel-size drum on wheels, helping scare away evil spirits; my last image was a head-scratcher. I passed a large sign (4 ft x 12 ft) in front of a farm gate.  Below the large Vietnamese words it read in equally large English -- "Food Services - Supply with Slaughter Crickets"  Any ideas??

Belle's driver...

Jesse getting his kite up, up and away

a fire we made from drift wood on the beach

These "water" crabs they used for the fried rice dish

This is a different crab--interesting looking isn't it?

Chuc Mung Na Moi - Happy New Year from Phu Quoc!  JDM