Highlights of Vietnam and Cambodia
Day Four – 20 January 2015
Weather: Sunny, 22
I couldn’t sleep after 5 am. The problem is that I checked the time on my cell phone and then dropped it.
Like dropping a book flat on the floor in a library. I probably woke everyone in the cabin to the left, right, above me and across from me.
I’ll blame the cabin above me if anyone mentions it.
I went up on deck to check out the stars but there were too many lights to see much. This bay is the parking lot for the ships at night. Guess it ensures an oil tanker doesn’t run us over at night. I went back to my cabin to pack up my back pack and returned to the sun deck to watch the sunrise. It looked a lot like the sunset, just in a different part of the sky.
At 6:30, one of the staff came up and did a short tai chi session with about a dozen or so people for about 20 minutes. The ship had started to move by now and was snaking its way out of the ‘parking lot.’
Since the area is a UNESCO World Heritage site, the government asked that all the boats be painted white. There are hundreds of them. Every nook and cranny has a boat going in or out in every direction. No traffic cops or nothing. Boats big and small go where they want. The bigger you are, the more leeway you get.
We pull into another bay as we are having our continental breakfast. It’s not what we would call continental. It was a full breakfast. When we were done, about 15 of us got on the tender to visit the Surprise Cave. It’s a limestone cave located about 150 steps up the side of one of the pinnacles.
I love caves!
Some were dissuaded by the suggestion that the climb would be hard. It wasn’t. If you can climb to the third floor on the stairs, you can climb to the cave. The nice part is that you can get a nice view of the bay from the stairs. With the sun behind us, it lite up the bay nicely. (The other pinnacle that you can climb for good views is not far away but the view would be into the morning sun and would be hazy).
The cave is impressive. Not as large as the cave in Slovenia but many more formations.
At one point, Thom said that if he appears heartless at times, it’s because he left his heart in the cave and then he pointed to a hole in the wall that was shaped like a heart.
(I knew he wouldn’t say he left his heart in San Francisco. His rental car is there, in the impound lot somewhere).
There was another formation with obvious connotations. Thom asked what it was and no one would say.
He said he knows what it looks like then hesitates and says “a cannon!”
Well, yeah!
He even pointed out the hole in the wall on the far side that it was shooting at.
I missed some of his commentary as I adjusted cameras for night mode for some people. Worthwhile to experiment with your camera before you leave. The night mode made a tremendous difference to their photos.
It took us about 30 minutes or so to walk through the cave and down the steps to the wharf where the tender took us back to the ship. Then it was time for the brunch. Tempura veggies, egg noodles, cheese, sticky rice. There was a fair selection of fish items too. I think I’m good till supper at 4 pm.
I was back on the sun deck to take more pictures and watch the massive pinnacles float by. At one point, we came up behind another cruise ship that was going slower down a narrow passage and our boat beeped its horn like a scooter. The other ship shifted to the right and we passed by.
At 10:30, we emerged from the pinnacles and headed to the pier. The staff got together and the cruise manager did a farewell speech and then five of the staff did a dance for us. You can watch the video.
We were off the ship by 11 am and on our way back to Hanoi. At 12:30 we stopped at a ceramic factory for a short look-see.
It was a great chance to get to the bathroom and stretch the legs. And you could sit with the girls painting the ceramics and do some painting.
Just outside the shop were a bunch of kittens but they ran off before I could get a picture. There was also two hedgehogs in a box. Two of us wondered if they were smooth or prickly. I touched one to find it prickly…and it hissed at me.
Then I suddenly had to go to the WC again.
We were back on the bus before 1 pm so we were ½ hour ahead of schedule. Always good on a day when you’re catching a flight.
Thom gave us some information about the history with China. He said it was once considered Vietnam’s big brother but that China didn’t like Vietnam’s close relationship with Russia and in 1968, Vietnam asked China for support in the American war. China gave them an ultimatum to cut all relations with Russia in return for support but Ho being the guy he is, wanted to be friends with everyone and refused. They maintained their relations with Russia and China wasn’t their big brother anymore.
The Communist system is more flexible here as I noted. Out of more than 90 million Vietnamese, only 4 million are Communist party members. Becoming a member actually isn’t that easy. It requires that one be recommended and it makes it easier to get a government job.
Thom told us that his father fought for the South during the war and spent 3 months in a re-education camp. On his return, he moved south and was one of the first to plant coffee in the area and he was appreciated for doing so. He also led a farmer’s association and his work has gotten him off the ‘blacklist.’ So much so, his son was able to become a policeman.
About 2:30, we pulled into a town that had, of all things, a massive church on the hill above it.
We walked up the hill and Thom said it was a Catholic village and that the funds to build the church came from other Catholics in Vietnam as well as from foreign donations. This one, however, is also a Buddhist temple. Thom wasn’t sure how the Catholics felt about that. The Buddhists were not happy.
The village used to be bigger but after 1954 when the French left, a lot of the Catholics moved south. About 200 families remain. There is also an orphanage next door. From the back, the church looked like a church with a lot of statues around it but when we walked around to the front, it looked more like a temple.
We tried to get inside but all the doors were locked.
From here we carried on to Hanoi and passed the airport on the spiffy new highway. Our transfer had told us the airport only opened two weeks ago. It’s now the largest one in Vietnam but the one in Saigon is being renovated and will be the largest in Southeast Asia when it’s done.
We drove 20 minutes beyond the airport to a cultural village.
Actually, it’s a house owned by an artist and it has carved statues all around with a water puppet theatre, pagodas and more, including a restaurant. This is our dinner stop.
By 4:30 we sit down to eat and everyone is kinda looking at their watches given that we have a flight out at 7:15. Thom said we’d be on our way by 5:30 and sure enough, they managed to serve a huge meal in less than an hour. They served it the same way as the other restaurant, coming out with small platters that we shared between us at each table. Spring rolls, chicken, fish, rice, noodles. After a while, you just want to say stop! LOL
From here, we headed to the domestic airport for our flight with Vietnam Airlines and Thom said we were permitted to have 44 lbs but that if our luggage was overweight, he suggested we just smile at the counter agent. We took a couple minutes to repack our overnight bags into our luggage (as this was the first time we saw the luggage since yesterday afternoon) and then we checked in. I didn’t notice anyone flashing a smile.
I traded seats with a man who’d been here as a C-130 pilot in the war and he wanted the window seat to watch the approached into Hue, a flight he’d done many times before. It was too bad it was dark out. We took off on time and the flight took 50 minutes. It was quite bumpy and the plane hit the runway like a ton of bricks. The man watching out the window said he’d gone some distance down the runway then just flared and brought it down. I think I heard Thom say the pilot was a trainee.
Then he said the flight only cost $70. Wonder if I could pay double next time and get a pilot with more than ten hours. Heh.
We collected our luggage and had to show our luggage tags as we went out into the small Hue airport. The city is generally pronounced like “Way.” In the north, they call it “Hoi.” It was the capital from 1802 to 1954 and belonged to the south in the war and was only 75 miles from the border. In the Tet Offensive, it suffered a great deal of damage.
It was about a 20 minute drive to our hotel, the Imperial, in the centre of Hue. Everyone was spent and by the time we all got our rooms, we were ready to turn in.
The room is quite nice and the shower was great. The room has all the amenities including a nice little box for the bathroom stuff.
By 10, I couldn’t stay up any longer. Thankfully, we don’t have our sightseeing until 8:30. Not that it matters. I’ll likely be wide-eyed and bushy-tailed by 5 am.
Go to Day Five
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