Blogs from Dong Nai, Southeast, Vietnam, Asia

We were instructed that the only way to get from HCMC to the national park was to catch a bus and then jump off in a village and get a moto taxi into the park. This went swimmingly (pun intended) until we arrived at the village drop off, got fleeced by some moto taxi drivers and the heavens opened. Chars driver had 2 eyes looking opposite directions and Jacks must have been pushing 90 and had lost his marbles. We had a long and complicated "conversation" about which bungalows we wanted taking to and after we thought an understanding had been reached we set off in the pouring rain. Shivering with the rain stinging our faces and our two dipstick drivers obviously ignoring what we had said, we ended up at a river crossing in the ... read more

SPOOKY The best Vietnam movie remains the first one made, it starred John Wayne and is called “The Green Berets”. The real star of that show is not John Wayne though. It is an AC-47 gunship that they called Puff the Magic Dragon. Fifty-three AC-47 gunships came into service during the Vietnam War and all of them collectively were called Puff. Spooky was one of them. The gunships came about in response to a pressing need by troops on the ground for accurately placed concentrated firepower in close air support missions. The project designers came up with the venerable old Douglas C-47 as a stable gun platform. It was a slow moving, sturdy old plane that could stay on station for hours. Three miniguns were mounted in the cargo bay to fire out the ... read more

Right so judgment day was here, I woke early at 7am, not as early as hoped, but definitely a best effort yet for early rises since arriving inAsia! Getting out of Ho Chi Minh was fine, I had done intensive studying of the maps before I had left and was quite familiar with the roads. The roads were hectic and manic, there was an abundance of traffic but I had grown to feel comfortable on them. I believe this is mainly due to shops extending onto the pavement forcing you to walk on the road, so if you are on the road I felt a lot safer with a set of wheels. A great bonus of joining the cycling community is that locals are so perplexed to see a tourist on a bicycle all prior desire ... read more

Am Morgen des naechsten Tages machten wir uns auf den Weg zum Nationalpark Cat Tien. Marco beeilte sich noch zu einem Bankomaten um Geld abzuheben, bevor es in die Einoede ging. Dieser war auch bald gefunden, doch bestand dieser trotz richtiger Eingabe darauf, dass der Code der Bankomatkarte falsch waere. In einem kurzen, aber emotionalen Kampf der Sturheit gewann nach dreimaliger Eingabe die Maschine und Marcos Karte wurde gesperrt. Inzwischen schrieb die nette Frau an der Rezeption fuer Michael die genaue Busstation auf vietnamesisch auf einen Zettel. Ziemlich sicher, so eine weitere unangenehme Erfahrung mit den Bussen zu ersparen, machten wir uns auf den Weg zu unserem naechsten Ziel. Zwar sind wir nach gut 4 Stunden tatsaechlich in Bao Sau angekommen, doch stellte sich bald heraus, dass die Dame an der Rezeption sich geirrt hat und ... read more

Our last day in Vietnam was nice. Matthew and I woke up early after a fitful sleep (partially, I think, because I had seen a gigantic spider before bed and knew the room was open to bugs), and a while later Thu and Micah joined us. We had excellent ramen for breakfast (with shrimp and scallions!) and a good cup of coffee. During the day a bunch of little things happened. I got to pet my favorite dog a lot. He doesn’t really have a name – they called him “black” because of his color – so I asked him what he wanted to be called and he liked the name Frank. I think it was appropriate to name him after Sinatra because this dog has beautiful blue eyes. And he’s so friendly! I really wish ... read more

We decided that in the future when we return to Vietnam, we will make sure that the trip involves far less travelling. Between the trip to see Grandpa (a three-hour-each-way drive), the trip to Nha Trang, and the trip to Thailand it feels like we haven’t seen family in Dong Nai enough and we’ve spent about a bazillion hours in the car. By day eight, I had finished four books on the trip – some rather lengthy – and was glad that I packed a few more to last the remainder of the journey. Our last day of the Nha Trang trip was spent in the van. At least a good (read “long”) nine hours was spent on the road. Thankfully, this was actually two hours shorter than the trip from Dong Nai to Nha Trang. ... read more