Steve and Cathy's Blog

A quick note to two.  First of all,we are having issues with the Internet.  This was predicted by the cruise line due to the area through which we have been passing, which, coincidentally or not, is Vietnam and China (you may connect the dots or not).  I have many more photos I would like to add to this post, but I can’t download them into the app I am using for this blog.  I will update this and other subsequent posts as soon as decent service returns.  Secondly, Cathy and I are leaving the ship on April 1st to travel into interior China, returning to the ship on the 5th.  So we won’t be posting or emailing during this period.  Thank you to everyone reading this blog. It is inspiring us to do as thorough a job on them as possible.  See you then!

We meet in Insignia Lounge at 6:45 today, as our ship is due to sail from Saigon at 3:00pm, and we begin our Mekong River Delta excursion with a forty mile drive to our first stop, including dealing with the morning commute in the city. We board our buses by 7:00am, and are introduced to our driver Khoi and our guide, the adorable and charming Lan, a young lady born in 1985 whose name means ‘orchid.’ She is quick to note as we start out that, if we are lucky today, our trip will be ninety minutes. If we are not lucky today, it will be at least two hours. Luck is mentioned quite often in Buddhist cultures.

The first leg is through downtown Saigon, and we have beaten the real rush, at least it looks like it. While we do see a great deal of new building, it still does not measure up to that of Bangkok, nor does their standard of living. Vietnam got a late start at a modern economy due to their eleven-year attempt after the 1975 Peace Accords to unify the country under a communist economic system. The age and condition of the buildings speaks to that.

Lan says that the city should be renamed “The City of Motorbikes,” and we immediately see what she is suggesting. In Saigon alone, the ratio of registered motorbikes to registered cars is five to one. Put another way, there are 2,500,000 motorbikes vs. 500,000 cars in this city of 8.6 million (a figure anticipated to grow to 13.5 million by 2025). On the main roads, cars and motorbikes are separated. Thank God, or half the people would be dead and the other half would be funeral directors. You would think that traffic laws only applied to cars, buses and trucks; that motorbikes were exempt.

It is quite a phenomenon to watch. Here are some of the rules: 1) There is no such thing as a lane in the section of road specifically for motorbikes. 2) Do not give any space between you and the motorbike in front of or beside you. 3) Speed limits are what the traffic permits. 4) Helmets are required. 5) Seat as many people as possible on your motorbike to improve stability. 6) Red lights at intersections mean: “slow down before you go through, turn left or right.” 7) Motorbike operators have the absolute right of way over pedestrians – just beep your horn and speed up. 8) Under no circumstances are you to allow pedestrians to cross the street in front of you. These rules most certainly must be strictly enforced by authorities as everyone follows them.

After working our way through the city, we get on to Highway 18, a major national north-south road in the country. It is still very busy, but it – in stretches – is a limited access toll road of four lanes. Lan continues to fill us in with information on different subjects. Here are a few:

• The Mekong Delta is a major rice-growing region for the country and is an important economic driver. Here in the south, they can grow three crops a year (in the north, just one). 75% of the rice is exported.
• Fishing and fish farms are also an important industry. Basa (a type of catfish) and tilapia especially, are exported to Australia and the United States.
• Dragon fruit and durian, among others, are fruits grown in this region.
• 1 million Chinese live in Saigon (recall that statistic of the number of Chinese mentioned in Bangkok as well?).

Lan is from one of the villages in the Mekong Delta, and her father is the number one rice grower in that village. She attributes that to the fact that he spends his leisure time chatting with and listening to other farmers and villagers where he picks up much good information to apply to his profession. Other people, she says, spend their time watching television.

As we pass many rice farms, we notice that sometimes water buffalo are used to plow, but more often tractors. Lan explains that water buffalo are used are almost always used in the north, but that down here in the south, “Japanese Water Buffalo,” their expression for tractors made in Japan, are much more prevalent.

We also notice some kind of interesting concrete structures are in the fields. Every one is different, and they are often very colorful and sometimes placed right in the middle of the rice fields. Our guide explains that these are graves. In the countryside areas here in the south, people are buried in either gardens or rice fields. There are three reasons for this practice: 1) it is inexpensive; 2) people prefer to be buried at home; and 3) it is then easy for relatives to find the graves of their ancestors when they wish to visit them.

She tells us that Vietnamese people are very generous and hospitable when you visit their home. Sharing what food you have is very important, and one would be very ashamed if there was none to be shared.

I have a note here that says that her father is a war veteran (South Vietnamese Army) and receives a 50% discount because of a war injury he suffered. I fail to note exactly what the discount applies to. Good job, Steve.

Two observations that we make: 1) Many people are wearing facemasks over their mouths, especially drivers. Yes, the air quality isn’t what it could be, but it’s certainly no worse than in our major cities. 2) (Stop the presses for this important news flash!) For the first time since we left Brazil, I am seeing American truck tractors. A lot of them, mostly Freightliners and Internationals. Conventional cabs, which you never see anywhere else other than where U.S. trucks are sold.

We actually make good time and arrive at our first stop by 9:00am: the village of My Tho, where we will visit the Vinh Trang Pagoda. The most outstanding feature of this very attractive temple area is a huge Happy Buddha statue. You cannot help but smile when you see it. There is also a small garden with some beautiful flowers (picture below). We spend about twenty-five minutes there wandering the grounds (and using the Happy Room) before boarding our bus for the short ride to the dock.

Our boat is a wooden craft about forty feet long, and there are dozens more just like it. Vietnam is developing a vibrant tourist industry, and cruising this area is a favorite activity among us visitors. Certainly a boat cruise is a big draw for Cathy and Steve.

Lan explains that we will be having a second guide on this portion of our excursion, and, after boarding, we are introduced to Mai (pronounced My). She explains that this is called the Nine Dragons River Delta so named as the Mekong River divides into nine tributaries as it reaches the East Sea.

Quick but interesting aside: the East Sea is what Vietnamese call the South China Sea. This is a good illustration of the relationship between Vietnam and China. Theirs is a love-hate one. The two countries actually fought a border war in 1980-81 in which the Vietnamese lost 100,000 soldiers. While China is the source of most consumer goods and is a huge export market for Vietnam, the relationship between the two countries is not cozy. In fact, many Southeast Asia countries distrust China, especially in light of China’s aggressive moves to establish military bases in disputed territory in the East Sea.

Okay, back to the trip. In the Delta, there is a six-foot tide, and there are certain dry times of the year (November through April) where the water is quite brackish, while during the monsoon season (May through October), the water is fresh. For that reason, people store rainwater in cisterns, while others depend on wells. Mai also tells us that the water color will also change depending on the season of the year, obviously a result of the amount of rainfall at a given time.

We travel to Unicorn Island, one of four Holy Beast Islands. Unicorns stand for luck. The others are named Dragon (for power), Turtle (for longevity) and Phoenix. We will spend a couple of hours and engage in several activities. We first stop at a bee farm and enjoy some delicious tea flavored with honey, the honey itself and are introduced to Royal Jelly, a type of honey that the worker bees made to feed to the queen bee. It is used for as an anti-aging moisturizing cream. This is where I took the photo of Cathy and Lan that is at the beginning of this post.

We leave this place and walk along a wide concrete sidewalk along the shore that serves as a road. I say that because occasionally someone on a motorbike will come buzzing down this sidewalk. I refer you to Rule 7 above. We must immediately jump to the side as the motorbike roars by, its rider practically oblivious to our presence.

Our next stop is at a small store where they give us samples of the coconut candy they make. The stuff is delicious, but we have failed to bring enough cash to make a purchase of some of it. Darn.

We walk further to another small pavilion where we are treated to five different varieties of fruits, four of which we had ever heard of, as well as some delightful entertainment. There was a band playing local instruments and four lovely women singers that sang local songs – plus “If You’re Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands.” Adorable.

We are nearing our final Unicorn Island destination, the place where we will board small sampans for a trip through some of the small canals that meander through the island. It was billed as a quiet journey full of tranquility and peace, and we heard later from a couple of friends that it was just that for them.

For us? Not so much. It was bumper boats. There are dozens and dozens of these sampans, each with two paddlers on each end. Each boat has four of us tourists in it. We board (very carefully!) and off we go. The boats are busy passing each other, and then there are the boats coming in the other direction. It is a delightful experience, to be sure, but it was anything but tranquil. The trip lasts about a half hour, and we emerge from the canals to a dock where our boat is located. We board our boat and our guide Mai continues entertaining us. She describes the local dress, with an interesting demonstration of the various ways to tie the scarf that men and women wear to protect themselves from the sun.

We arrive back in My Tho, and it is time to begin the trek back to our ship. But first there is a delicious Vietnamese lunch at a very nice resort/restaurant. This is a really good introduction to some of the seafood that local people eat. [There were eight of us at the table, so the food was served family style in four person servings. First course was fried fish spring rolls. The waitress put a platter in the center of the table with a big fried fish on it, along with a small plate of what looked like pieces of paper, and another plate with lettuce and other greens, rice noodles, and shredded carrots. We all looked at it and each other. Fortunately the waitress then began to make each of us a spring roll. She pulled some fish off the carcass and placed it on a piece of the rice paper, along with some noodles, greens, and carrots. We each had three small dishes in front of our plates, containing fish sauce, soy sauce and a slice of lime next to a mixture of salt and pepper. Steve put the lime in his beer, the rest of us squeezed it over the spring rolls. Next was a big bowl of a pho-like substance only with lots of different kinds of fish. It was really yummy but some of the stuff in it looked weird and had hard things in it so we all sort of left those pieces in the pot. Next came a big coconut with giant shrimp (with the heads) in it, which the waitress lit on fire! We all stared at that for a while. Then when the fire went out she peeled the shrimp and passed them around. There was also a plate of small crunchy egg roll-type things. Everything was delicious and strange looking. Dessert was a sticky rice thing that looked like a pancake. The waitress cut it up and we ate it. ]

Back on the bus for the final journey. As we pass by the rice fields again, Lan describes life in her family and her village. She does mention a generational issue that the rural areas are having. Young people (and this experience is world-wide) do not want to do manual labor, especially in the rice fields. “Teenagers do not want to work in the rice fields. That is only for women over forty, they feel,” she states. Again, we think,“that sounds all too familiar to us Americans, doesn’t it?.”

We pass by many little coffee shops, and, strangely enough, many of them have hammocks in them. Lan explains: there are many people who live up to 100 kilometers from their job in Saigon, and they travel by motorbike, which is exhausting. So there are the little roadhouses where you can stop for coffee or tea and a bite to eat, but these places also offer customers the opportunity to take a short nap before continuing their journey, which promotes road safety.

She also explains that these coffee shops have WiFi. In fact, if they expect to attract younger people to their shop, they must provide WiFi to stay in business. Sound familiar?

She also very artfully describes another type of retail business that she refers to as Happy Gardens. Along the road are these huts where couples can stop to … mmmmm … express affection to one another. There are little private areas where the couples are allowed to (as Lan puts it) T, K or H but not M L. I will leave that for you all to interpret as she did. Steve again has a mad crush on a young female tour guide. Lan is another wonderful ambassador for her country, and, because of her, our introduction to Vietnam has been a very positive experience.

Back in Saigon, our guide points out some of the old colonial buildings. We arrive at the dock right on time, despite some crazy mid-day traffic. The ship does indeed depart right on time, and our 20-kilometer journey down the Saigon River, despite the haze, reminded us again how economically powerful Southeast Asia has become. Yes, Vietnam is late to the table, but now that they joined the rest of the world, the people of the country will hopefully reap the benefits despite their political system. It will be interesting to see how things are in the former North Vietnam, won’t it?