Sunday, December 12th Siem Reap, Cambodia We left on a 90 minute flight from Hanoi to Siem Reap, a city of 120,000 people. Even though Siem Reap sees approximately 2 million tourists each year visiting the temples of Angkor, the people in this area are among Cambodia’s poorest. From 1975 to 1979 the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot, set about restructuring and transforming Cambodia into a peasant dominated agrarian cooperative. Residents, especially those in Phnom Phen were forced to march into the countryside to work as slaves for 12 to 15 hours per day. Millions were executed. April 17, 1975, the official date of the Khmer Rouge rule was designated as Year Zero. The Khmer Rouge rule was brought to an end by the Vietnamese on January 7, 1979. Unfortunately Pol Pot died of natural ... read more

Saturday It’s raining, hot and humid - feels like you are standing in a shower with your clothes on…however, nothing will stop the fearless tourist. Today we visited the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum where Ho Chi Minh’s body is on display in a glass sarcophagus. Our group was “treated” to full ceremonial honors as we marched up the mausoleum steps behind a military honor guard carrying a floral wreath in honor of Ho. Once inside, we processed around the body which is housed deep inside this monumental edifice. Ho Chi Minh died in 1969. Contrary to his wishes to be cremated, his embalmed corpse was stored underground until after the end of the war, and this mausoleum complex was finished in 1975. “Uncle Ho,” as the people refer to him, is transported to Russia for three ... read more

Thursday, December 9th This morning we left the hotel at 6AM for an early flight to Hanoi. After a short bus ride, we transferred to a ferry that delivered us to our junk boat, the Bai Tho Junk, on Halong Bay. This junk has 18 private cabins and would serve as our hotel for the night. Ha long means “where the marble dragon descends into the sea.” Within the bay, about 3000 vegetation covered islands rise up from the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. Legend says a great dragon lived in these mountains. As the dragon ran to the coast, its flailing tail gouged out valleys and crevasses. This area has also been named a Unesco World Heritage Site. This afternoon we boarded small sampan boats for a visit to the Cua Van floating village. ... read more

Tuesday, December 7th This morning we set out on a four hour drive from Hoi An via Danang to Hue. As we passed through the Marble Mountains we stopped at the Xuat Anh Marble Carving factory. Touring the facility, we saw workers chiseling, grinding, and polishing marble pieces without any protective eyewear or breathing masks. Workers earn less than $5.00 per day at this factory - a very good wage though for the Vietnamese laborer. We bought a marble fisherman for our yard and are having it shipped home as it won’t fit in our luggage (let alone meet the 50 lb. or less luggage weight requirement). As we drove along China Beach, we saw the round boats used by local fishermen. These boats have flat bottoms making them fairly stable and less likely to get ... read more

Sunday, December 5th We took an early flight from Saigon this morning. The airport gate area included a diverse market where one could buy anything from liquor, to male aphrodisiacs, furniture, leather goods, or frozen seafood. Also available, one could buy a frozen coiled snake - mmmm, a delicacy? We arrived in Danang, Vietnam’s 4th largest city with over 1 million people. The Cham people originally occupied this area of south-central Vietnam, but suffered numerous wars with the Cambodia and Vietnam from the 11th to 14th centuries. The Vietnamese were eventually victorious. Originally Hindu, the Cham converted to Islam in the 16th and 17th centuries before migrating to Cambodia. We visited the Cham Museum in Danang whose collection includes stone carvings of the gods Brahma (the creator), Vishnu, (the preserver), and Shiva, (the destroyer and reproducer). ... read more