Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), Vietnam

            Today, Saturday 19 Oct 2013, was a very busy day.  After awakening to our alarm clock at 5:00 AM followed by a quick breakfast, we headed down to the Wheelhouse Bar for our tour.  Although we had agreed to meet our friend Lenata at 6:30 AM, she wasn’t there.  We later found out that she had set her alarm too late, making it impossible for her to get to the Wheelhouse Bar by that time.   Although we waited for a few extra minutes before getting our tickets, she ended up on a different bus.

Even from the ship, we could see no buildings anywhere on land; the port seemed in the middle of nowhere, though for the first time on this cruise, there was a cruise ship already beside ours in the harbor.  Since it was a long bus ride of nearly 2 hours from the port to the city center, there was a long line of busses waiting for ship passengers.  We boarded our bus around 7:15 AM.  Our tour guide, Crang, soon announced that the bus was equipped with Wi-Fi, and he provided us with the access code.

At first, we drove through the Mekong River Delta, where we saw fields of rice.  Next, there were lots of rubber trees.  Since the liquid from the rubber trees is harvested at night, workers on these farms have high incidences of malaria.  We passed a military cemetery, in which only North Vietnamese soldiers are buried; South Vietnamese soldiers are buried in a separate cemetery.

Although we thought at one point that our bus was stopping to pay toll for a toll road, we soon realized that vehicles other than motor bikes had to stop to get weighed; then, possibly paying a toll, but we’re not sure about that.  Even though there were very few stoplights, there was not much open road where the bus could travel fast; instead, we drove through several villages on our way to Ho Chi Minh City, and we passed more and more shops and people buying and selling along the street. 

About half way to the city, we made a pit stop so the passengers could visit the “Happy Room.”  In these public places, most (if not all) of the toilets are not “Western,” meaning the shallow toilet bowl is at floor level.  In the ladies’ room, if someone spots a Western toilet, then most women line up for that one – making a very long line, so that sometimes the bus has to wait longer.  The men’s and women’s restroom entrances are often so close that it can be confusing; at this first stop, a man from our bus was following Sally in the restroom right up to the stall.  Obviously, he had made a wrong turn!

Our guide told us that the most popular means of transportation in Vietnam is the motorbike, and we quickly saw that they were all over the road; we saw very few automobiles.  He said it costs about $18,000 US to purchase a motorbike, although we later wondered if we heard him correctly since so many people rode them.  It was interesting to watch people on these bikes, often riding two on a bike, and occasionally a family of three on one bike.  (A few times, we saw two young children on one bike with their parents, one in front of the man who was driving, and the other between the man and the woman!)  Where there is space, two lanes on the right side of the road often are reserved for motorbike traffic, and there is much more traffic there than where the larger vehicles travel.  Despite the heat, many of the bike riders cover most of their bodies, especially the women.  Long sleeves, covered faces, and gloves are common – to protect them from the hot sun, our guide told us.  They often wear face masks as protection against the carbon monoxide or smog, or also if they have colds. On the other hand, quite a number of them ride with only flip-flops on their feet.

At the Reunification Hall

 Our first stop was the Reunification Hall (formerly, the Presidential Palace of the Republic of South Vietnam).  A Chinese-built tank displayed on the grounds is the same model as the one that crashed the gate of the palace in 1975 to end the 19-year Vietnam War.  (This was where American helicopters landed in great haste to retrieve the last remaining diplomats and staffers before the Viet Cong invasion.)  Inside, numerous propaganda-type photos were displayed on the walls, including one with the caption “GI’s were herding Vietnamese peasants into concentration camps in 1965” and another showing dead bodies following the My Lai village massacre.  Not air conditioned, the palace was extremely hot and humid, especially the basement, where the former President’s bedroom and some other rooms are located.  Although our guide said Vietnam is hottest in April and May, due to the very high (99 percent) humidity and heavy rains, we westerners were grateful to step back on the air-conditioned bus if only for a few minutes!

Thien Hau Temple

On our way to our next stop, the historic Thien Hau (Buddhist) Temple in Chinatown, we saw a vehicle elaborately decorated with gold and carvings giving the appearance of a coach out of fairy tales, which turned out to be a Buddhist funeral car.  (Later in the day, we actually saw a portion of a funeral using the vehicle.)  Since the inside of the temple was filled with heavy smoke from burning incense, our guide warned passengers who might be sensitive to smoke to meet us outside the temple after this portion of the tour.  The inside of the temple was elaborately decorated, and a few Buddhists were performing religious rituals as another Buddhist occasionally beat one of the temple’s drums.  Because of the incense and also burning candles, Sally couldn’t help but notice those similarities with the Roman Catholic Church.

 

 Next, we enjoyed an excellent buffet lunch at the NHA Hang Him Lam Restaurant, with soup, too many choices of meat and other food, plus fruit and cookies.  With a choice of local beer, soft drinks, or bottled water, of course, we chose the beer. 

National History Museum

After another short bus ride, we arrived at the National History Museum. Just inside, near the entrance, was a giant sculpture of Ho Chi Minh.   We were led to a performance of Vietnamese water puppets, where a sign on the wall there reads exactly as follows, except in all capital letters:

The Vietnamese folk water puppetry

Was officially certified the performance

Year of 1121 under the Ly Dynasty

We took seats in rows on 3 sides of a rectangular pool of water with a curtain on the fourth side; although the water was very dark, we could see occasional bubbles and once caught a glimpse of a 5-inch long fish near the surface.  Suddenly, two “dragons” startled the audience by emerging from the water.  The dragons danced and then fought over a ball; a man figure came out to fish (and then fought the dragons); a woman figure joined the man in a boat as they tried to catch “fish,” etc., until they ended up with a stack of fish in their boat.  At the end, five people who had been operating the puppets came out from behind the curtain and bowed.

  Sally was reminded of the puppets that German children grow up watching, or at least they were doing so 45 years ago.  If we had been able to understand the comments made in Vietnamese at various points of the performance, some of the puppets’ actions might have made a little more sense, but some of it was still drew laughs from us foreigners, and it was all entertaining.

After that, we walked through several other rooms in the museum, where there were old statues (many Buddha images), prehistoric carvings and implements, and paintings showing prehistoric times as well as battles from the 9th century and 11th centuries (just to mention a few of the items we observed).  During this museum visit after the puppet show, the temperature/humidity became almost unbearable, as it had in the basement of the Palace.  A few times, Sally tried to stand motionless underneath one of the few ceiling fans, where the air was slightly moving.  We westerners were sweating profusely!

After an extremely short, cool ride, our bus stopped again to visit the Minh Phuong Lacquer Factory.  By then, Sally was worn out and stayed on the bus for the remainder of the tour.  For about 10 minutes, Jesse watched the craftsman fabricate and polish their wares and then he walked through the shop where numerous lacquered items were for sale.  After that, luckily he returned to the bus.  Suddenly, it started raining heavily, with the result that most of the other passengers were soaked as they returned to the bus – though our guide’s assistant carried an umbrella to shield them somewhat from the downpour.

On our way back to the ship, we made short photo stops at the Rex Hotel, the Ho Chi Minh Park, the Notre Dame Cathedral, and the French Colonial Post Office.  The cathedral was built in 1898 by the French, but several of us wondered why it wasn’t demolished by the Communists.

Our guide said there is a big gap between the rich and the poor in Vietnam.  Also, Vietnam is still a little behind technologically, so that they import their technical and engineering support from Korea and Japan.  On the way back to the ship, a man sitting near us asked our guide if there are any hard feelings today lingering from the Vietnam War.  He replied that the wealthy people in the south were originally from North Vietnam and were rewarded for their “service” during the war.

At 5:30 PM we re-boarded the ship and quickly cleaned up for dinner.  Since Sally was exhausted, we skipped dancing for the night and retired to our cabin.