Vietnam - Blogabond

Day 15: Saturday, December 26th, 2009

9th cruise day: Hue, Vietnam

Our first day in Vietnam! We pulled into port before 6:30am and passed by many small fishing boats in the harbor. The view was beautiful as there were beautiful, tall, green mountains near the pier, which we later learned were the mountains separating Vietnam and Laos. The captain said they were late docking because the pilot boat met them late, but they quickly got immigration officials on board to clear us. Hunter and I ran into two of them in the hallway and they were SCARY! They were dressed in their green military uniforms and looked ominous as they weren't smiling. We grabbed a quick breakfast and then packed up for the day for our tour of Hue and the Perfume River Cruise. We met in the Cabaret Lounge and were released for the bus 10 min early.

We were in the B2 tour group that had less than 40 people. Our shuffleboard partner-in-crime, Jim, was on board, and we finally introduced ourselves as we keep running into each other throughout the cruise ship. We had a very pleasant tour guide who spoke a lot of English, but was difficult to understand sometimes as she couldn't pronounce “c” or “r” in her words. She was a petite young woman, probably no more than 30-ish and was originally from Saigon before moving to Hue. She told us a lot of interesting facts about Hue and the Vietnamese and proved the benefit of taking an organized tour instead of going off on your own.

Our tour started with a bumpy bus ride to Hue. The guide said the ride would take one hour, but it was more like 1 ½ hours each way. The main road leading out of the pier was a dirt road and we passed by more scary looking police at booth stations exiting the pier. The bus ride to Hue took us past many small villages, which were really just one road with shanty tin-roof houses (with sand bags holding down the roofs) . There were small boxes that looked like oversized open-faced mailboxes that were shrines where family members would pray for deceased parents and grandparents. Then each village had multiple large shrines which were places to worship 3rd and 4th generation ancestors. Only 2 generations of family members could be worshiped in the home. It is difficult to know who is related to who across all these villages, so once a year in the beginning of the new year, all relatives make a pilgrimage to the large family shrine, at which point you look around to see who you are related to, so that, as our tour guide said, “you don't fall in love with your relative,” The villages were very rundown and looked very 3rd world. In between villages were acres and acres of rice paddie fields with workers plowing the field. Even though a few rich farmers can afford motorized plows, most of the farmers we passed on the journey were literally plowing their fields with a wooden plow pulled by 2 water buffalo. The water buffalo were everywhere! We don't know how the farmers keep track of them as they wander into the roads and munch on grass growing in the cemeteries. The bus stopped once off the side of the road so everyone could get out and take pictures of the rice farmers plowing nearby. There was a small boy on the road, balancing on one foot on top of a water buffalo, hand outstretched for money. Another little boy in a ragged t-shirt walked up to people, poking them, begging for money. We saw little kids everywhere, and so many of them! Our tour guide later told us that 5 and 9 are very lucky numbers to the Vietnamese and each farming family tries to have 5 or 9 children. Only 20% of children go to school and the rest help their families on the rice paddies. We also think the parents exploit the children for money and we saw several mothers parading their babies and young children in front of tourists begging for money. It was very sad.

We also passed eucalyptus trees in the fields and learned that eucalyptus oil is a very popular remedy for pregnant women. The rub it on their bellies all during pregnancy and for three years after the birth of the child. Kem never said what it was for, (prevents stretch marks or promotes fertility!) but said the men hate the smell but the women wear it anyway. I'll have to look for a big bottle to take home for Liz! We also learned that the Vietnamese want at least 1 son with their huge family and if after 9 children they don't get any sons, they blame the wife and the husband is allowed to go out and have an extramarital affair with another woman to try to produce a son. Nice thought – after giving birth to 9 children you still have to watch your husband dally with another woman!

The mountain range was so beautiful and a great backdrop to the wide murky rivers carrying the motorized dragon boats and fishing boats and sand boats. The trees were tall and green, although we weren't in the “jungle” area that you hear about when talking about the jungle warfare of the Vietnam war. However, Vietnam was exactly like what we pictured and we don't think much changed in the 40 or so years since the start of the Vietnam War. There is a lot of road construction being done on the route to Hue, and even in the city, but instead of Caterpillar bulldozers and forklifts, the construction is predominantly done by men with shovels and pointed hats – and sometimes working barefoot! At this rate, the construction will never be done! Our tour guide told us that one of the fancy hotels in Hue took 10 years to complete because the sponsors kept pulling out and the government delayed the project many times in hope of finally getting financial aid from Unesco and other agencies. The hotel opened just 1 month ago and looked very nice – it had a lot of French architectural influences to it, which could be seen in many buildings in Hue. Kem also talked about corruption and said it is EVERYWHERE. Each time we crossed a bridge, we were stopped by policeman who made the driver turn over $10 or $20 USD as “payment” for crossing the bridge because we were a large van with many passengers. That money, Kem said, goes straight into their pockets. The chairman of the city makes only $500 USD per month on his government salary but takes home a total of $10,000 USD per month when you factor in all the bribes and special payments he receives from his dominant position in the city. The average city resident (60% of the Hue city residents work in the tourism industry) take home on average $300 per month. Government employees take home an average of $500/month while rice farmers earn only $50-$100/month.

The bus ride pulled into the city of Hue, and we thought it was more like a larger town than an actual city, but it is the 3rd largest city in Vietnam behind Saigon and Hanoi. Hue maintained its pro-US sentiments and the tour guide made many disparaging remarks about the NVA and talked about the heroics of the US soldiers during the fighting in Hue. We passed several markets and street vendors selling scarfs and ceramics and china and touristy items like t-shirts and pointed hats.

Our first stop was at an embroidery factory next to the Century Hotel that later served us lunch. We were ushered into stuffy rooms where very young woman in long beautiful silk gowns were hunched over sheets of silk, embroidering patterns by hand. They encouraged us to take pictures, which made them seem like the workers themselves were on display. Throughout this whole trip, we felt bad taking pictures as every place we went, the tour operators treated the locals like items in a zoo, there for our amusement and picture taking. More on that later....the embroidery was gorgeous and so inexpensive! We would have loved to buy a framed print but have limited room. We later saw many much simpler patterns being sold in the markets for $1-$5 USD. We picked up the Perfume Riverboat cruise at the pier near the embroidery shops. On board, older women and men were eagerly ready to sell us silk pajamas, robes, and embroidery prints. Our tour guide passed around a binder that contained old photos of the wartime in Hue in 1968 and we saw American soldiers rescuing local people, wounded soldiers being helped to safety, and other pictures of the city of Hue during the war.

The riverboat cruise lasted only 30 minutes but gave us great views of the tourist dragon boats and of the canoes paddled by the locals. We also passed several sandboats, which were large flat motorboats with holes in the bottom from which a worker would shovel out heaps of sand from the bottom of the river. We learned that after they pay off the policeman guarding the river banks, a boat operator can sell a boatload of sand to construction companies for $10-$50 per boat. Unfortunately, this drains the river of the rich sand that allows the microorganisms to survive and which used to give the river its fragrant perfume smell. Now the river is just murky and smelly in a not-so-good way.

As we pulled in to the dock to end our tour, we passed a canoe boat with a very old woman, hunched over, covered in wrinkles, wearing a pointed hat, just like you would see in the old pictures of Vietnam. She paddled right up to the side of our boat and tried to squeeze in between our boat and another dragon boat, as the passengers on our boat shouted “look out, you are going to crush her!” She then tried to leap from her boat onto our boat, trying to get up so she could see us and beg for money. Our boat driver kind of just pushed her boat aside, preventing her from climbing up. She was so desperate for money she was willing to crush her boat!

The perfume river boat stopped at the Thien Mu Pagoda, also known as the Temple of the Heavenly Lady Pagoda. We got a lot of good history on it and then proceeded further into the temple area to see the monks. Each family tries to send one son to the temple to become a monk, either for financial reasons as they can't support all their children, or because they think it is lucky to have a religious son. The monks start as early as 10 years old and get special haircuts to show they are novice monks until they pass all exams. Our tour guide pulled over one novice monk and made him answer questions for us and pose for pictures. Again, we felt like we were at a zoo gawking at unusual things and felt very bad for the monks who were trying to go about their day, interrupted by picture-snapping people.

We continued the tour by driving back across a white bridge that had its own lane for motorcycles as EVERYONE rode motorcycles instead of bikes. We then went back to the Century hotel for a big buffet lunch of lots of kinds of rice and noodles, beef satays, pork and different shrimp dishes, with a few cakes and fruits as desserts. They basically ran out of food once our tour group got there – the last one out of many Princess tours that stopped there – and we got the bottom of the barrel. Surprisingly the food was good and luckily didn't make us sick! We had free soft drinks, waters and beers, and the waters all came with protective plastic wrap over the top so you know it was unopened. I kept flashing back to the movie Slumdog Millionaire where the restaurant waiters refilled plastic water bottles with tap water and then resealed the caps with glue. I felt much safer that there was unbroken plastic seal covering the main plastic seal. There was a wedding going on in the hotel with a beautiful young bride and the guests were all dressed in fancy outfits.

We were supposed to have an hour and a half for lunch and more shopping at the embroidery factory, but most people finished their shopping early and so we headed out by 2pm, a half hour ahead of schedule. This gave us time to stop at the busiest food market in Hue, which was unbelievable. We passed by market stalls selling fully chopped up pigs – they sold platters of giant pig ears and calfs with the black hoof still on the foot/leg! We also saw pig intestines, pig hearts and so many kinds of fish, all chopped up and sliced open so you could see the insides. You should see the kinds of photos we got – it was truly disgusting from our point of view, as we would never buy food like that – just sitting out exposed to the air for all those hours – and the food parts were so unbutchered and distinguishable that you felt as though you were buying an actual body part of the pig. But these are delicacies to the Vietnamese and they were buying this stuff in bag-fulls!

After the eye-opening trip to the market we drove to the Royal Ruins to see the tomb of the second king of the last Vietnamese Dynasty. We couldn't see the actual tomb as the stone wall that enclosed it was locked since a fire broke out there several years ago as a result of teenager negligence lighting a camp fire nearby. But we saw the beautiful imperial grounds with waterways for the king's canoe. The lush park-lake hectare was a great contrast to the dusty impoverished streets of Hue. On the walk from the bus to the imperial grounds, we had to walk down a dirt road which was bordered to the left by a barbed wire fence. There were mothers and children on the other side and the little boys climbed through holes in the barbed wire with platters of bananas singing “have a banana. Won't you buy our bananas?” and the mothers held up their babies with distended bellies begging us to buy the bananas to help their babies. Everything was on sale for one dollar – as soon as you got off the bus there were old 70-ish year old women selling coins on a chain for $1 dollar. We again had that impression we were walking through a zoo just gawking at people. It was not a pleasant feeling.

The sightseeing aspect of the tour ended at 3:45pm and we started our bus ride back, which didn't take an hour as the tour guide planned, but more like 1 ½ hours. We avoided collisions with wooden log-bearing trucks more than once although Hunter didn't think we would make it home alive. There was constant horn honking as our bus driver swerved into the on-coming traffic lane in order to pass the truck or motorbike in front of him. It was a ride to remember! We got back to the ship with 10 minutes to spare and were the last tour bus.

We are glad we did the Princess tour as our guide was very informative about Vietnamese life and we got some basic sightseeing in. The city of Hue is not impressive and we really weren't interested in the pagoda or imperial tomb, but the drive through the small towns, and seeing the boats on the wide murky rivers surrounded by the mountain range was worth the trip. Vietnam has not changed very much in 40 years and we can't wait to see what Saigon looks like!

The rest of the night was uneventful. We quickly showered and attended the entertainment show, which was scheduled tonight before dinner at 7pm. It was the comedian, Mike Newman from Ireland, who was probably in his early 70s and did a basic comedy routine with some raunchy humor but mostly puns. We then ate dinner with Connie and Tony and had beef short ribs, before heading to the Tahitian Lounge for Wii Sports night with Chantal and Ian. Only our new friend Jim was there playing (playing Wii for the first time!) and so Hunter got to play a lot of rounds of Mario Kart. Everyone was having such a great time that we past the ending time and other cruise passengers had to send over a waiter to ask Chantal when they were finishing so the dancing could begin! I was wiped out and hit the pillow as soon as we got back to the room.

Monday, December 28th, 2009

11th cruise day: Ho Chi Ming City / Saigon, Vietnam

After a fitful sleep, and dozing after the alarm went off, we got up by 7am and I decided I was stronger in the knees and could make it through the day. Laying in bed was not comfortable as all I could think about were the stomach pains, so I decided I would rather be distracted by the sights of Saigon.

And so our adventure began early in the morning with a 8am bus ride departure to Saigon. We had decided the day before to cancel the “shopping excursion” tour we had pre-booked and instead to book the shuttle tour which allowed us to do Saigon on our own, since we didn't want to spend an hour touring an overpriced toy lacquer factory. After speaking with people on the ship, we were comfortable we could navigate Saigon on our own. And so back to the bus ride -- the roads were paved highways, but the paved roads were full of potholes and loose pebbles and rocks, so the ride was pretty bumpy. Luckily the air conditioner worked well so we were comfortable and slept most of the whole way. We stopped once for a bathroom break at the half way point since the coach buses in Asia, although very comfortable with reclining seats, don't have restrooms on-board. At last we got to the outskirts of the city, and the traffic began. There were lots of buses and construction vehicles on the roads as construction was everywhere!! But unlike Hue, this construction was being done by bulldozers. We were amazed at how many bulldozers there were....really, the construction was everywhere on the outskirts of the city – and then even in the city itself as new tall skyscrapers are going up.

We were surprised to see an actual skyline of Saigon. We had set our impressions of Vietnam on the city of Hue, and we were unprepared at how huge and modern Saigon had become! We were expecting dusty roads and a lot of short, older buildings in the French architecture, but instead we pulled into a huge bustling city that had just as much activity as New York! There were new, gleaming skyscrapers that were mega-complexes of restaurants and high-end shops. Signs for new skyscrapers even taller were located at construction sites around the city. There was just as much traffic, but it was always moving – we never saw the standstill gridlock of New York. Our first impression was “wow – look at all the motorcycles!” Our tour guide on the bus told us there are 4 million registered motorcycles in the city alone. Luckily, these riders all rode helmets, but they still rode dangerously. We saw a family of three all packed together on one bike – dad and mom, with mom holding a baby covered in mesh netting! A lot of people wore face masks to keep the dust out of their mouths. The surprising thing about the traffic was that there were very few traffic lights or stop signs which made crossing the road impossible! Saigon traffic makes Jaywalking a must-have survival skill. Since we've spent lots of time in NYC, jaywalking wasn't a problem for us, but in the beginning, we tailed a few locals as they ran into the street amidst the on-coming motorcycles and small vans and we figured if the cars stop for them, they'll stop for us too! You literally had to walk into on-coming traffic or else you would be stuck on the corner forever! There were many large circles in the city which helped the traffic continue moving, but those were the most difficult ones to cross!

The shuttle bus dropped us off at a shopping mall directly across the intersection from the famous Rex Hotel. We got a map from the tour guide and planned out our route. It was very hot and humid, reaching 91 degrees. We walked two streets over to the famous Dong Khoi street (formerly known as the Rue Catinat or Tudor Street) and came face to face with the National Theater (very well maintained) and the Caravelle hotel. Dad had given me a photo taken in 1965 of him in front of the hotel and we set out to recreate the photo. However, our tour guide had told us that the hotel had been completely rebuilt, and so it was. It is now a huge complex, with a tall tower of rooms that probably went up 20 floors. Attached to the base of the hotel, off to the left of the lobby was a huge Gucci store. And across the street, diagonal from the National Theater was a flagship Louis Vitton store! Imagine that – Gucci and Louis Vitton in Saigon! We saw the original pavement in front of the hotel, and tried to imagine the old outline of the hotel. After picture taking, we retraced our steps and walked down Le Lui street, past the Rex Hotel to the Ben Thanh Central Market.

The Ben Thanh Market was the ultimate flea market. Out of all the market shopping we have done in Asia, this was by far the most jam-packed market. Stalls upon stalls were arranged in a giant square, with handfuls of rows running up and down the middle of the square. There were so many stalls that the aisles between them could barely accommodate two people walking side by side. You had to shove your way through and avoid the women carrying platters of food and soup back from the attached food market. It was much cooler on the outside ring of the market so we did most of our shopping at those stalls. But we did venture into the middle of the market for some of the jewelry and shoes. And so many shoes!!! We didn't know that shoes were a specialty production item in Vietnam but there were mounds and mounds of shoes at these stalls. Mainly many fancy flip-flops and dress shoes. Meredith bought a pair and said it was the most comfortable pair of flip flops she's ever owned. The best part of the market was that everything was inexpensive. Unlike China, where the prices start very high and you have to bargain them down by 50-75%, at this market, the starting price was so reasonable you felt guilty bargaining! And most of the shops were “fixed price” so they wouldn't bargain at all. However, that didn't stop Meredith, who wanted to bargain out of principle! We got some good deals, and thought the quality of the goods being sold in the markets was just as good as department store quality, unlike in China and Hong Kong where the markets sold only junk.

After a good time in the market, we decided to walk outside to get some air. We had been guzzling water in the market as it was so hot and sticky. We only had a total of 4 hours in Saigon before we had to head back on the long bus ride, so we couldn't see much but decided to walk the streets (and run across the intersections!) We found some more little items in the side stores and found it easy to bargain there. It was so hot and I wasn't feeling well so we ended our day by going in to the Rex Hotel and walking around (but you couldn't get up to the roof where the war correspondents would gather) and in the department store where the bus would pick us up – both were air conditioned. The Rex Hotel was beautiful inside, which wasn't surprising as it was a 5-star hotel. According to our tour guide, there are only 5-star hotels in all of Saigon. The department store had a marketplace inside of it, and they were selling old military cigarette lighters that had the location of the place and the year (ie. 1968-1969) but we didn't recognize any of the bases that were inscribed on there.

We were sad that we didn't feel better and have more time in Saigon, but we got the general feeling of it. Dong Khoi street, which was the main street in the 1960s, was still one of the main attractions of Saigon, but we didn't spend time walking up and down it as it was now filled with all International and American high-end brand stores, like Gucci. The streets were all decorated for the holidays. There were huge arches placed at the start of the busiest streets, sparkling Happy New Year type of signs. Santa Clauses adorned store windows and you could tell the city was in a festive mode. There were tons of tourists abound. Besides all the cruise passengers, we saw many small parties of tourists from Europe who were walking up and down the busy streets with guidebooks. Who knew that Saigon was a hot spot tourist destination? Everyone spoke very good English and Saigon is winning so far out of the cities we've visited on this trip for most accessible locals!

If it weren't for all the communist flags waving about, and some billboards with pictures of soldiers hailing the President, we would have thought we were in a large European city (it doesn't have much of an American feel to it because of all the motorcycles). Almost every building, and every street block had the two red and yellow flags of the star and the sickle/hammer. Coming in to the city, the bus passed by the American Consulate and then stopped in front because of traffic. Hunter and several other bus passengers took out their cameras to take a photo and the guards outside of the consulate were watching the bus windows closely and made wild gestures to us that no picture-taking was allowed. We couldn't believe that the guards would be watching tour bus windows to stop harmless photos!

The main streets had lane dividers that were filled with beautiful palm trees, which reminded Hunter of Savannah – sort of a dirty, built-up city with streets adorned with palm trees. The other thing that caught our eye were the massive coils of cable wire that were strung from each telephone tower. Rows and rows of wire were strung together, forming giant nests of wire. We hope one of the wires doesn't short or else it would be a mess trying to get in and repair one of those! We are guessing the roads and infrastructure are still too bad for all the wiring to be run underground and so it's just hanging there in the air.

At 2:15pm we met up with the other Princess passengers and boarded the bus and navigated traffic out of the city. We had some near-collisions with buses in the adjoining lane, but made it back to the ship unscathed and with 5 minutes to spare. Our tour guide was very nice and tried to teach the bus passengers some Vietnamese phrases and a Happy Family song, which was kind of weird. The tour guide was only 24 years old but had a much older face. However, his body looked like that of an 11 year-old. He was the skinniest man we have ever seen. In both Hue and Saigon, all of the locals are on the short side and painfully thin, like they look malnourished. It must be their genetic disposition and diet, but everyone looks so frail. And despite the presence of the high end fashion boutiques, we could not say that they were well dressed. In all other Asia cities – especially Shanghai and Hong Kong – the locals were dressed to the nines, wearing expensive clothes and fashionable shoes. But here in Vietnam, the clothes were cheap button-down cotton shirts and tiny tight-fitting pants, or loose cotton sheathes on the old beggars.

We got back to the ship by 4:25pm and everyone was supposed to be on deck by 4:30pm. At 5pm, the Captain announced to the ship that all paperwork was completed for our departure but that one of the Princess tours was stuck in traffic and wasn't yet here. It wasn't until 5:30pm that the small tourist van dropped off the last 5 passengers! It turned out to be the group that sits next to us during dinner.

We skipped the sit-down dinner again because the food was too fancy again and I didn't feel like eating, and it was a good thing, because we heard that one passenger got sick in the dining room from motion sickness and it was a mess. Hunter got some sandwiches and snacks at the buffet as soon as we got onboard at 4:30pm and then ate a cheeseburger from the Grill once we realized it was open until 6pm. I ordered a room service sandwich around 7pm and he got one around 8:30pm, at which point I was fast asleep. I was so drained from the day and had a lot of stomach pains, I just crashed! Hunter stayed up until midnight, watching tv with the volume low and typing on his netbook. I slept right through it all.

written by

mohicanfan on December 28, 2009 from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

from the travel blog: Beijing/Shanghai and a Princess Southeast Asia Cruise - Dec 2009

tagged Asia, Vietnam and Cruise

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