Vietnam

Hello y’all. Welcome back. 

The last several days, Karen and I have had lots of fun visiting Vietnam. 

When visiting a new county, we have a process. Before leaving the ship, we review our daily itinerary, weather, pick out and load up the appropriate backpack/sling/purse/fanny packs, then run through our checklist ensuring we have our currency, bug spay, suntan lotion, and two dozen other must-have items. Most importantly, we run through our language routine, ensuring we can pronounce, remember and read the important words and phrases we’ll be needing throughout the day. 

This one was a tough one. While western characters are used, many, many of the letters in the Vietnamese language have up to 4 different special characters that slightly change the inflection of the characters and the meanings of the words. Of all of the places we’ve visited, this has been the hardest language to nail down the pronunciations of the handful of simple phrases. But as they say “practice, practice, practice…”. 

So, Vietnam has two seasons, hot and very, very hot.  We arrived at the very beginning of the second season, and it lived up to its name. To stifle the heat, their tradition is to (believe it or not) drink coffee. It turns out that back in the day, coffee plants were imported to Vietnam, but the plants couldn’t handle the extreme heat. Eventually, a hybrid was developed that took. (Our guide tried to convince us that the hybrid was part rubber tree, but I don’t think that is true…) At any rate, their society ditched their (Chinese influenced) tea, and started drinking coffee, and man-o-man do they drink a lot. 

Because the hybrid coffee is so bitter (nasty stuff really) they mix their coffee with (what else but) condensed milk. As we drove down the roads, we could see beach after beach, that eventually gave way to villages. Along the road was shop after shop which were not much more than a little motor bike parking lot, and a large covered patio, with a coffee counter and a dozen or so shady hammocks. The guide explained that, the locals usually have to drive for several hours on their motorbikes each way to get to the city to work. As the heat took its toll on them, they would park, pay 50 cents for a cup of coffee, drink it, and take a 30 minute nap before continuing on to work. (And do the same thing in the evenings on the way home.) 

Also, when they arrive at work at 8:00am, they will generally clock-in, then go to breakfast (and more coffee) returning to work an hour is so later. 

Guess what they do after lunch? The office/plant manager turn off the lights, and the workers roll out their little mats and take an hour long nap, followed by… you guest it, a cup of coffee before returning to work.

Getting off at 5:00pm, they repeat the (coffee/hammock) process on their way home.

Although they tend to be few and far between, restaurants and other businesses with air conditioning double or triple their prices. (Everything is very inexpensive here, but pretty much only foreigners can afford to solicit these air-conditioned establishments.)

All of the roads are pretty rough until you get into one of the few cities. There are 10 million people in Ho chi man city, but (due to the commuters coming to work in the city) 8 million motorcycles are on the roads on any given day .They have a cute saying here. “In one car, you can fit 4 people. On one motorbike, you can fit 4 people also.” But it does not have to be 4 people. Each breeding season, the locals take their male water buffalos, on the back of their motorbikes, to the opposite side of the Mekong Delta to mate with the females. Now we did not actually see a water buffalo on the back of a motorbike, but I am finding that I cannot unsee the visual that this story conjured up. I just had to share it with you. Hmmm…

Okay, back to our story. After traveling through the Mekong Delta, we arrived at Ho Chi Minh City, the most populous and business center for county.  The city (formerly know as aSaigon) has 8 million culturally diverse residents. They apparently all still refer to the city of Saigon “because it takes to long to say and write “Ho Chi Minh City”” (unless it’s an official document).

There are lots of fun things to do here. We spent our day visiting the downtown area. First stop, the Bitexco Financial Tower, where we could see the city from above. Next we wondered the streets, exploring the opera house and city hall before reaching our destination, the Post Office. 

Poor Sweet Pea spent the previous evening preparing post cards for mailing. The walk from the sky scraper to the Post Office was brutally hot. When we arrived, the postal worker informed us that our International Stamps (which we have used several times elsewhere over the last several months) were just “souvenirs“ and that we would need to purchase Vietnamese  stamps in order to mail our letters. Generally, this would not have been an issue, but unfortunately Vietnam was one of the few countries that we were unable to obtain currency before leaving for our trip. So with sorrow in our hearts, and sweat in our eyes, we toted away our letters as we melted down the smoldering sidewalks. 
🙁

Along the way we stumbled across The Cafe Apartments. This place was previously a downtown apartment building that was converted into a collection of popular cafes. Pretty neat stuff, but no AC, so no stoppy-stoppy for us.

In spite of the heat, we found our last (and perhaps coolest) destination easily . As we poured ourselves into a booth in the (wonderfully) air-conditioned Pho24 restaurant, it seemed that the journey would pay off.  Although eating soup on a hot day is not a particularly attractive undertaking, eating pho in Saigon was on my Bucket List (right below eating Sushi in Tokyo). Also, we were told that this restaurant had the best AC in the city.. 

Now, if you are not familiar with pho (pronounced”fuh”) you are missing out. Vietnam is not particularly well known for their culinary prowess, but this soup is the exception. Pho is a traditional Vietnameese soup that has gained significant popularity in the US over the years. It has rice vermicelli noodles in rich beef broth seasoned with soy, hoisin, and other spices creating a magical base. It is served so hot that it is literally poured over shaved lean steak, which cooks in the broth as you wait for it to cool off. Top with thin sliced onions, jalapeños, bean sprouts, lime, and a bit of Asian red chili paste you have one of the best soups ever to be invented. We greatly enjoyed every bite our wonderful lunch at this frosty venue rushing to the air conditioned motor coach for our return trip. All-in-all, a hot but yummy day!

The following day, we had a real treat, as our adventure took us to Naha Trang, Vietnam, home of the famous mud bath water park. 

After driving miles and miles past some of the most beautiful beaches, we arrived at TẮM BÙN THÁP BÀ Mud Bath Water Park. This place was cool. After enjoying an extended bath in the tun full of mud, we exited, meandering through their maze of caves that spray streams of water on you from every direction as you go. 

When we eventually come out at the other end, there were dozens of different pools to swim and soak in. Some were sea water, and others were fresh water. They were all different temperatures, and all had sunshine or shaded spots to rest in. Many had jets to work your muscles. (Who ever heard of an entire pool with jets. Amazing!)

My favorite part of the park were the multi-level waterfalls that you could sit or stand under. Depending on your location, you either got a little trickle all the way up to water falling on you so hard it beat you up. (One of the best massages I ever had, and no tipping required!) 

Refreshed, we returned to the ship, and bid farewell to Vietnam.  Next stop, Singapore, but that my friends, is yet another story.

Thanks for checking in.

– Mike
“That’s what fiction is for. It’s for getting at the truth when the truth isn’t sufficient for the truth.” – Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried