It keeps on raining!

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Nov 16: Can To

Time to do a little updating. We have spent a lot of our last few days traveling, but let me start with Hoi An. This is a must stop for anyone traveling Vietnam. It is sometimes referred to as the Macau of Vietnam because it is an old city with lots of French history. The “Historic City Centre” has lots of French influence and is of course, very touristy. We enjoyed just wandering around the area. One day was spent doing this, the next we took a tour to My Son (Mee Sung) which was a temple area older than Cambodia’s Angkor Wat. Not much left of it thought after the Americans got through bombing it. They did leave a lot of vehicles, helicopters and such behind though. In fact, a couple of the jeeps running up to My Son were old American military jeeps. From there it was a short jaunt down the river and back to the city. The river is quite high due to the flooding that has been going on here, hopefully some of my pictures will show it. The next day was our travel day to Saigon. We originally asked our hotel to book the train but for some reason it didn’t happen; which was a good thing. The schedule we originally picked would have got us in at 5 am….instead we took the overnighter and arrived in Saigon in the afternoon. So we spent that morning walking to the beach (about 5km from our hotel), in the rain of course. Then dinner and to the train. Traveling by train is an interesting experience. When we took it to Sapa, we were with tourist; this time our compartment mates were an older Vietnamese couple who didn’t speak a word of English. They weren’t a lot of fun so it made for a long trip. On top of that we missed lunch because of the language barriers, not that that was a major disappointment.

Our hotel in Saigon is up a narrow ally, but all is clean. Only draw back is that we were on the 6th floor and no elevator. We are getting pretty good at climbing stairs. Nothing special here. We had planned on one night only but stayed two so we could get some bookings done and mail some surplus stuff home (like shoes, socks, and extra pants). When the cab dropped us at the Central post office we were more than a little taken back by the place. It is a tourist must see as it is probably the old original French post office from years ago. In fact, everything is still done by hand, including opening up Darrel’s carefully taped box and then retaping it. Sending this stuff has lightened our packs considerably.

Today we took the bus here to Can Tho, in the Mekong Delta. Our plan was to go exploring this afternoon but…it is raining again, along with lots of thunder. Best thing about this hotel is that even though we are once again on the 6th floor, it has an elevator!. First one since China. Hopefully tomorrow is a nicer day because we have a private tour of the Mekong Delta arranged. Up by 6am and out the door by 7.

Nov 17

Tour day today, and we actually enjoyed it. For a million dong (sure wish those dongs were dollars…we’d be real millionaires) we had an 8 hour boat tour of the river. Now, our understanding was that we would be in a motor boat…I guess a n open sampan with a motor is a motor boat isn’t it? We taken a little by surprise but went ahead anyways. It was a slow trip upriver to the floating market, but we did get to see a lot along the way because we stayed fairly close to one shore or the other, depending on which side was most interesting. Our pilot/captain/guide was a young woman who little to no English, so we spent the day communication through sign language. It was surprising how effective this was. After cruising through the first market we headed to a second one. Here our guide purchased a pineapple and some type of grapefruit for us; then she headed to another sampan and bought us a coconut which was topped enough to put a straw into. The milk was sweet and delicious. Non of our imported fruit at home can begin to compare, especially the bananas.
Anyways, from there we headed to a rice noodle making factory…It is all done in the open and air dried. Would never be allowed in Canada. Next we turned up a narrow, mangrove canal. Pretty. While on the canal we stopped at a village and Darrel and I got out and walked along the village road which followed the water edge. This is one of the more ideal living areas we have seen in this area. Then later we stopped for lunch at a homestay. This was a disappointment because though the food was excellent, everything else about it was a rip off. They sat us down and offered us fruit. Next thing we knew we where getting messages, then it was dinner….to the tune of 500,000 dong. Of course, prices were never mentioned until the end. I think I’ll make note of this on Trip Advisor.
The rest of the trip was not as nice as the first part. The canal had now turned back towards the city and all the garbage from the waterfront building went into it. At times it didn’t smell very good either. But all in all, it was a decent trip and we are glad we did it.

Nov. 18th
After a walk to check out Can Tho's museum, which shut down for luch while we were there, we are now hiding from the thunder showers that this place seems to have every afternoon.
Nov 18th

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Photos

Hoi An
Japanese Bridge with a temple inside it

Hoi An
Market place, and yes, everything imaginable is sold here.

Hoi An
View of the old town.

My Son
If you look carefully to the right side of this pic, you can see the bomb crater that distroyed this temple.

Old USA army jeep
Now used to transport tourist..we wisely chose not to be one of them.

Cruise
This is where we got on the boat.

Hoi An
Night view of the dock..yes, the water is covering the side walk.

Comments

[Sue59]

Hello,
I just got caught up on your recent pics.. wow, but hey I bet its warmer there lol.. still no snow but sooooo very cold... for the past week.. -8 -9 and then when its windy well you get the picture.. but you folks look like you are having a great time.. so enjoy... and you sent some stuff home.. what do you have left... Janise did you go shopping??? Miss you both.. and enjoy...one month today is Xmas Eve.. :( you know me Janise.. take care and talk to you soon.. Sue