Vietnam Day 11, A day to ourselves in Old Saigon

Our last day in Saigon was just a little bit of unplanned magic. We didn't have anything we needed to accomplish, so we decided to go check out the Vietnamese history museum. Here's a thing you really should know it's closed on Monday. But, if you show up at the front gate at certain times with money, you might find that a cruise ship has just dumped all its excursion passengers there. If that's the case, asking nicely will get you in the door, despite your not having looked at a calendar in the last 10 days. The museum covers early civilizations in Vietnam and has really cool stuff from the countries early history. Right next door is the zoo, and since it was less than $5/person, we decided to check it out. Cages with concrete floors are just not cool, but preservation and educating children is, so it's kind of a tough call on whether this was a good experience or not. We ended up having lunch (again) at the barbecue garden, since we'd had such a nice time the night before. We also had to make our way back to a place we'd had do a little laundry for us, since the hotel wanted some ridiculous amount per item. We thought for sure that the place we'd stayed in Danang was overcharging us, but it turns out they had the cheapest prices of the whole trip. Our flight out of Vietnam was scheduled for very late that night, so we mostly just hung out in the city for the rest of the afternoon and got ourselves ready for one more stop. Our flight to Seoul was pretty uneventful, although it was on a nicer plane than we'd come to Vietnam on.

Vietnam Day 10, Flying Solo

W woke up on day 10 not feeling very awesome, so I took one for the team and decided to go solo on our tour for the day. I'd paid for it, and after 10 days of spending every minute together who wouldn't like a little peace and quiet. On the docket for me: a trip to the Cu chi Tunnel complex , and and a stop at the Cao Dai Holy See. We started with a good solid drive out to the Cao Dai holy see, a place and religion that even for the purpose of this writing, I don't fully understand. All I took home from my visit was that their building is pretty spectacular, the all seeing eye is important, and Victor Hugo is one of the three important saints. We watched part of the mass, which was mostly singing, praying and drum and gong playing, while wearing brightly colored robes and hats. It was a cool thing to watch, but I found it difficult to get much out of the experience, while trying to talk about it enough so as not to disturb what was happening. After that my guide for the day took me to the designated tourist hole for lunch. This was by far the worst meal I ate on the trip, and I spent most of the time thinking I was glad I hadn't dragged W with me. After that we were off to the Cu Chi Complex. You start with a movie in the language of your choice that tells you about how the noble Vietnamese lived in the tunnels fighting off the evil imperialist Americans with their vastly superior weapons to maintain their independence. Being on the wrong side of history kind of sucks. You get to see some of the improvised weapons and traps made from whatever was available, and you get a sense for just how well the complex was hidden and how they managed to keep it that way. I spent some time crawling through one of the tunnels, and it was hard work. for a guy of my stature, and I wasn't carrying any fighting gear. A nasty Sarasota style thunderstorm blew through while we were there, and didn't seem all that interested in leaving, so I ended up kind of soaked for the ride back to Saigon. When I got back I found W and described my adventure, while she told me about her adventures getting a mani, and a shampoo, while I was out crawling through a tunnel and dodging lightning. I was almost a little jealous. For dinner that night we decided to try the Barbecue Garden, after having passed it several times in our travels. It was easily one of the best meals of the trip, and we had a lot of good meals. You cook your own stuff, on a gas powered cooking plate in the middle of your table, and the stuff was so good we'd eat what we had and order something else. the beef short ribs stuffed with cheese are something I'm going to have to try to figure out for myself. After dinner we wanted to go check out a recommendation from our favorite Aussie Paul, the Sheridan's Irish House. The directions we got there weren't spectacular, but when we did actually find it, it was worth the trip. It's a nice place to grab a real beer in a place where all the beers are lite on alcohol and flavor. After our beer we made our way back to our hotel for a night of rest before our last big day in Saigon.

Vietnam Day 9, Why you should respect vietnam vets

When we were planning this trip, a visit to the mekong delta sounded like a good idea. Floating villages, unspoiled vietnamese countryside, getting away from the city for a while. It all sounds great on paper. It actually looks a little different in the execution. A small bus came to pick us up at our hotel, and that ride turned really weird when two old British guys got on with two young vietnamese girls in tow. It's hard to ride along with people that you can't really make eye contact with. We got out of our small bus and got into an already mostly full bigger bus, and we couldn't even sit together. So that was lame, and it was pretty damn warm on the bus. I sat next to a nice young lady from Japan, who was wearing jeans and a sweater. So I'm sitting there sweating my behind off, and she's wrapped up like it's a foggy SF summer day. It's a long ride down to the Mekong, You stop at a big Buddhist temple, and then you get out, ride in a few boats of different sizes, check out some coconut candy making, check out some honey making and then get back on the bus for the really long ride back to HCMC. We ran into some traffic too, and didn't stop to go to the bathroom on the way back. Which made the ride hot, long ,boring and uncomfortable. When we got back to Saigon, we got a shower and decided to treat ourselves to the Buffet at the Renaissance Saigon. We stopped on the way at the Saigon Beutiful shop (104 Nam Ky Khoi Nghia st dist 1 HCMC) and found some really cool purse for W. After some shopping, then we made our way to the Renaissance. Yes it says the dress code is casual, but don't actually take their word for it, Most of the other guests are European, and dress smartly for casual occasions. You will probably be the only grown man wearing shorts. The seafood at the buffet is absolutely fantastic. They have lobster tails and shrimp and crabs and oysters and clams on ice, and when you walk up to them, someone asks you how you'd like them done. Grilled, steamed, steamed with lemon grass., thermidor are among the many options. Same for steaks that are just resting on the ice waiting for you. We were seated at a table near the front of the restaurant, right near where the wine was kept. Since it's all you can drink (more juice from Chile) our location near the wine holder meant that we were constantly being re-poured. We really liked our waiter, and when he'd come to ask if we wanted more I finally trained him to know the answer was always yes. I got my money's worth that's for sure. So the lesson for the day is that our boys who came to Vietnam and had to fight survived absolutely garbage conditions. It's a hard country to be a tourist in, and friendly people welcomed me at every turn, I can't imagine being there on hostile terms.

Vietnam Day 8 Life's a beach

Day 8 was intended to be a lazy beach day, but if you're following along at home, you'll know we hadn't seen the sun since we arrived in Da Nang. Let's start with breakfast. My hope is that if I have lived a very good life, Heaven will have a Pho bar like the one at sandy beach. You get to hand select your meats and vegetables, and add as much or as little of the herbs and spices as you like. They have big pots of broth just waiting for you to show up and eat. Hoisin and chili sauce are also in plentiful supply. Let's just say it's a great way to start any morning. So as we were finishing our delicious breakfast, the clouds parted, and suddenly going out to the beach actually seemed kind of appropriate. We went far enough to stick our toes in the water. For the record you don't actually get to swim much there in the winter time, because the surf and the currents can be really strong. Since swimming was out of the question and none of the beach chairs were out. we decided to just sit around the pool deck instead. That was a far superior choice, since drinks and snacks were readily available. In the afternoon the resort runs a shuttle to Hoi an, so we took it to get some lunch, we ended up back at the Before N Now where for a change of pace we had some pizza, then we went back to the Be Be one more time to pick up W's stuff and then cought a cab back to the resort. We packed up, and for some reason our guide came with us to the airport, but we liked him so we didn't mind, and we were on our way from danang to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). The rule is you can pretty much call it whatever you like, as long as it's one of those two things, so have at it. We got in late but still had time to visit the Ben Thanh night market. We had a really fantastic dinner at a restaurant in the market as we tried to get used to the 10 degree warmer temperatures and the significantly higher humidity. It was finally our first meal in a plastic chair at a plastic table, which is how everyone else in Vietnam is eating. so it makes you almost a local. We settled in for the night at our really great room at the golden central saigon and crashed for another big tourism day to come.