Vietnam
Vietnam December 2024
Our OAT group landed at the Ho Chi Minh City, formerly known as Saigon, airport for a three-day stay. I don’t know what I expected – bombed-out ruins? starving families begging on the streets? Instead we found a prosperous-looking, clean city with a skyline of skyscrapers and traffic jams to compete with Bangkok. Population: ten million.
Ho Chi Minh City is named after the famous leader of Communist Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh traveled around the world as a young man seeking the ideal system of government for his native country. He spoke 7 languages. He even spent some time in Boston. He worked at the Parker House. At one time he had visions of Vietnam under a system of capitalism. However, the U.S. government declined to offer support. Whereas Communist China did, under the leadership of Mao Tse Tsung. The U.S. decided to support South Vietnam in their war with the Communist North believing in the “Domino Theory”: if South Vietnam was conquered by the Communist North, other neighboring Southeast Asian countries would shortly follow.
Cu Chi Tunnel tour
Way back with the Indochina war, The South Vietnamese began digging a 25-mile network of tunnels in and around Saigon during a span of 25 years. Think Gasa. The network served as an efficient base of operations for the Viet Cong. It included living spaces, kitchens, meeting rooms, and medical facilities. As you will see in the attached photos, the entrances were camouflaged so they were difficult to detect. To enter them, one had to be young enough to be flexible and not too large around the waist. Living conditions were not comfortable. One had to watch out for snakes, rodents, scorpions, centipedes and other vermin. The rainy season was especially bad for health.
The series of tunnels in Saigon and other parts of the country was vast. American soldiers would drop a grenade through an entrance hole, and believe that they had destroyed the tunnel, not knowing that the damage was miniscule compared to the size of the tunnel system. The VC would also set booby traps with explosives or punji stakes – sharpened wooden stakes, sometimes coated with feces.
Taste Tour Via Scooter::
Apprentice guide, Scuci, a university student. Grandfather was a spy for the Viet Cong. Scuci is a proud Communist. Nine of our tour group elected to go on a motorized gastronomic tour of the city. Scuci was my personal guide. I hopped on this Vespa-like scooter behind Scuci,, and our group took off. We wound through traffic at what I thought was a rather fast pace. I was holding onto the rear frame of my seat for dear life. I would have really preferred to put my arms around Scuci, but I didn’t want to become too emotionally involved. We made around eight stops at various restaurants and street food shops. The food? Hey, it’s Vietnamese! What’s not to like?
A Day in the Life of an OAT Tourist In Vietnam:
Explored the Mekong Delta. Started out the day at a “Hammock Café” – a few chairs, mostly hammocks. Drank Vietnamese coffee: strong robusto coffee with sweetened condensed milk. By the way, Vietnam is the world’s second largest producer of coffee after Brazil.
Then down the Mekong on a rice boat. Stopped at a farm. Farmer explained how he and his son dug the irrigation system. Then a guided tour of the farm showing the two major crops – jackfruit and pomelo. Then back to the house to sample. Jackfruit is the size of an elongated cantaloupe. Pulp texture soft and a bit slimy with a mild sweet taste. Pomelo is like grapefruit.
Farmer’s wife made sweet rice cakes. She makes them every weekday, and sells them at a local school. We bought her entire batch of the day so she didn’t have to go to school.
Back onto the rice boat. Down the river to a dock where we met up with sampans. You will see in photos a pic of Anzie with her straw conical hat in the sampan.. They paddled down a very narrow canal to another dock. Mounted tuk-tuks from there to a chocolate factory, where we learned how to make chocolate from cacao. Then onto the tuk-tuks to a coconut candy factory. Watched the process; sampled the product. Then introduced to “cobra whiskey”. That’s right. A large glass jug that contained rice whiskey and an entire cobra snake. Some of us (me, of course) sampled the ambrosia. It tasted sharp and strong, like moonshine.
Next stop: a riverside restaurant. Main course was a good-sized, stand-up scaly fish. Our waitress doled out the portions. It was so good we ordered another one! This was one of five courses. .
Back onto the boat. At our next, and final, stop, we met our bus, which took us back to our hotel. We have to say how impressed we were with the logistics – busses, boats, sampans, tuk-tuks. Everything went without a hitch.
Back in Saigon, we visited the Independence Palace, also known as the Reunification Palace. It was the home and workplace of the South Vietnamese government, aided by the US. It was ordered to be built by Ngo Dinh Diem in 1962. It was the site of the Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975 that ended the Vietnam War when the North Vietnamese army crashed through the gates. Now a museum, it is a very important place and symbol for all Vietnamese.
There was a beautiful central park between the Palace and the Post Office. Notice the number on the tree. All trees in this park are numbered so that local people can report to the city if one of the trees has been damaged. But we also learned that young people dating would tell each other to meet at such and such tree at a certain hour. So it’s also a code for secret dates 🙂
We also passed by the former U.S. Embassy, which was the scene at war’s end of people escaping via helicopters landing and taking off from the roof. Anybody remember?
Next, we went to a hidden bunker. The entrance is a normal looking home on a little street surrounded by fruit markets. More than 2 tons of various ammunitions were hidden here. The museum showed how the ammunition was secretly carried through the streets, like in this photo of rolled up mats. The steps down were so steep and narrow, neither Anzie or I went down.
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After, we went to a nearby Pho restaurant for lunch and what did we see outside? A Kennedy fire hydrant! Chuck remembers a story during the late ‘60’s when he was working at Kennedy Valve that these hydrants were turned into ammunition. After they were installed, the community was overrun by the enemy. The hydrants were disconnected, sent to a foundry where they were melted down, and converted into grenades and/or other types of ammo
One evening while exploring our neighborhood we came upon the International Teqball Finals Tournament– go figure. Of course you’ve heard of Teqball. Neither had we. The game is a combination of Soccer, Volleyball and Ping Pong. The play area is the size of two tennis courts fenced in. In the center is a warped table – the size of two ping pong tables – curved upward in the center. Two players on a side bat the soccer ball back and forth using any part of their bodies but their hands and arms. Very peculiar! Check out the link attached. {Control/Click)
On our last night we had a parting banquet on the second floor of a restaurant overlooking the river. It was a delicious buffet accompanied by wine. Our guide, Lada, made a wonderful parting speech, in which she summarized the highlights of our tour. Anne won a flashy elephant pin when she correctly guessed the number of hotels we had stayed in: six.
We walked off our dinner on a beautiful pathway along the river. It was a carnival-like atmosphere: boats lit up with colorful lights, food stands selling all sorts of cuisine including insects, buildings colorfully illuminated. See photos
