Vietnam

Tuesday, February 9th

We arrived in Vietnam this morning but no where near a city. We left the ship at 8:30 for a two hour bus drive to the city of Ho Chi Minh (the old Saigon) which is the heart and soul of Vietnam. We took the ship’s tour for this trip because of the long drive to and from – 2 hours to get to Ho Chi Minh, 3 hours there and 2 hours for the return trip.

The streets, where much of the city’s life takes place, are a jumble of street markets, shops, pavement cafes, stands-on-wheels and vendors selling wares spread out on sidewalks. The city center is situated on the banks of the Saigon River, 37 miles from the South China Sea and approximately 1,100 miles south of Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam.

How do I begin to describe today’s adventure? We stopped at the Ben Thanh Central Market in Ho Chi Minh for an hour of shopping. That was crazy! Booths were set up next to each other with no space between. There were rows upon rows. The Vietnamese people were sitting on the floor eating. It was unreal. As we tried walking up and down the very narrow isles, the sales people would grab our arms to show us their wares. Bill began negotiating with them and they were clickety clacking their calculators converting to US dollars while Bill was slowly trying to keep up with them while converting back to Vietnamese Dongs. Crazy! At the end of all this negotiating we were sure they got the best of us, especially since Bill, as we were leaving their stall, gave the salesgirls US dollars just to see a smile on their faces. It was hot and stressful but very interesting. We bought a few things but there was so much to see that we just didn’t know where to look or what to do.

Our next stop was much more civilized. We went to the Tay Son Lacquer Factory – lacquer is a popular Vietnamese export. It was so interesting to see how these lacquer pieces were made. We bought a couple of souvenirs there – one is a picture made of crushed egg shells and lacquered. We both really loved it. It’s in black and white.

In Vietnam motorbikes outnumber cars by about 100 to 1 – dashing and darting in every direction without regard to human safety. Just crossing the street we were taking our lives in our hands as motorbikes darted in front of you and behind you. We saw many, many instances of entire families on one motorbike – dad driving, toddler standing in front of dad, mom in back cradling the baby. Our bus driver blew his horn at least 50 times and we had many near collisions. It was unreal!

We are so fortunate to live in America. The conditions here are horrendous. We’ve decided not to get off the ship on the next stop which is in Phu My and Danang. We will hang around by the pool and do some laundry. We have seen enough of Vietnam although today was very memorable and we are glad we took the tour. Our Vietnamese currency is gone anyway plus many U.S. dollars.