Apr. 22, 2003
After breakfast, one of my friends and I took a taxi to Bangkok Airport in order
to go to
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. It was a 1-1/2 hour flight.
At the airport, my friend's
friend's nephew met us and we took a
taxi to the Tan Hai Long Hotel. It cost $19 per
day, included
breakfast, and was very nice. We cleaned up and the three of us went to
dinner. After that, we went to the Club Number One bar. My
friend and I didn't like
it because it was too loud, although they were
playing English-based music. After
finishing our beers, we left and
caught 2 motorbike taxis to another bar -- 777.
Unfortunately, the drivers
were dishonest. My friend's driver robbed him with the help
of 3
other Vietnamese men. Mine took me way out of town. Fortunately,
I realized that
something bad was happening and walked away, catching a
ride from a different
motorbike driver. I got back to the hotel at
12:15am and decided to stay there for the
rest of the night. My
friend knocked on my door about 20 minutes later and told me
his story.
Welcome to Vietnam!
Apr. 23, 2003
After eating breakfast in our rooms, my friend and I decided to research taking
tours.
We found ones that would take us to the Cu Chi Tunnel area, the
Mekong River area,
and around Ho Chi Minh City. (We met a very
helpful man in one of the travel agencies
and my friend invited him to
join us for dinner later that night.) When we returned to
the
hotel, my friend's friend had arranged for a taxi to take us to the Cu Chi
Tunnels.
Cool! After we cleaned up, we took the 1-1/2 hour ride
there. It was very interesting.
(Refer to several pictures on the
"Pictures" page.) First, we watched a video that
explained the tunnel system. Some of the most famous of the Viet Cong
fighters were
teenage girls. Then, we crawled through a few
tunnels. (There were large spiders and
bats in them.) I
could barely fit through even the largest tunnel, which was part of their
strategy. My friend's friend informed me that the majority of the
Vietnamese people
were happy with Communism and didn't want the Americans
there to combat it. After
returning to the hotel, we rested,
cleaned up, and then went to dinner on a river boat with
my friend's
friend and the gentleman that we met at the travel agency. After that,
we
went out to a couple of bars.
Apr. 24, 2003
After eating breakfast in our rooms again, my friend and I went to a tourist
company
that we signed up for the day before to spend the day on a Mekong
River boat trip. We
arrived at 8:15am and rode with 6 other people
in a minivan for 2 hours to the boat dock
(in My Tho). The other
people were from Australia, The Netherlands, and Austria.
Here are some
of the interesting things that we saw and facts that we were given --
1) Fish nets are seen strung from near
the river bank to approximately 20
feet out into the river, supported by wooden poles.
The fish get caught
in them when swimming downstream.
2) The river has 2 high tides per day. The guide could not explain how
this happened.
(Does Vietnam have 2 moons?)
3) The river is dredged of sand which is used to build houses.
(We reached the Mekong River at 11:00am.)
4) The river is, on average, approximately 80 feet deep and 400 feet across.
5) We went to an island where a family-owned company produced coconut candy.
6) We went to another island that had a bee farm. Even though the bees
had stingers,
as long as we didn't bother the queen bee, we could pick
up the bees and they wouldn't
sting us. We had tea with honey
in it from one of the boxes.
7) We nearly had to walk to the next island because of the high tide and the
boat almost
could not pass under a low bridge. We spent one hour
there waiting for the next low
tide. Afterwards, we took a 30-
minute ride across the river back to the minivan.
8) On the way back to the travel agency office, we stopped off at a small zoo.
While riding on the bus, the tourists from The Netherlands informed me that the
women
who wear long, white dresses and either white or light-colored
slacks are single women.
I discovered later from my Vietnamese friend that
this was incorrect. Women wearing
this clothing style are students
in either high school or college. Girls wearing long,
white dresses
and dark blue slacks are students in junior high school.
We took the 2-hour ride back to the travel agency. We walked back to the
hotel and
cleaned up and rested for the next 1-1/2 hours. Then, my
friend and our 2 Vietnamese
friends went to a karaoke bar/restaurant.
We spent the next few hours eating, drinking,
and singing with 4
women that joined us.
Apr. 25, 2003
I got up at 10 o'clock, cleaned up, ate breakfast, and packed my suitcase for
the return
trip from Ho Chi Minh to Bangkok. My friend and I
checked out of our rooms and we
waited for our 2 friends to meet us in
the lobby for lunch. We rode motorbikes (as
usual) to a Vietnamese
restaurant. After that, I rode with one friend to visit a pagoda
and to buy a conical hat, the type used by people when working in the fields
picking rice,
vegetables, and fruit. (Note: A pagoda is different
than a temple. A pagoda honors
Buddhist priests whereas a temple
honors Buddha -- God -- himself.) We returned to the
hotel, I
cleaned up, and we took a taxi to the airport. After arriving in Bangkok,
my
friend and I checked into the Dynasty Inn hotel (again) at about
10:00pm. We unpacked,
cleaned up, and went out to a few bars.
We had a late night and had a late-night dinner
at a restaurant
within a store on Soi Five.