We were picked up at 7:30 and headed north. Our tour guide was a veteran who served as an officer in the South Vietnamese army for two years after he was drafted out the university at 18. Two years later the war was over and he then spent two years in prison. After that his choices were limited and as he put it he became part of the “working class”. He is a devote Buddhist who believes in reincarnation, so I think he is more accepting of his life knowing that if he lives this one well, the next will be better. The first stop was a Catholic church that was bombed and strafed and has been left as is to document the war. We then stopped at several battle sites, Khe Sanh and what had ... read more

This was our day to get a little exercise and visit several Hmong villages. Our morning adventure was a 3 KM trek that took us to the Cat Can Village and a lovely waterfall. We started off by walking down innumerable stairs from the peak of Sapa to the riverbed and waterfall. All along the way women are trying to sell you needlework bags, hats, wall hangings, eyeglass cases, wallets…. You name it. They either carry their wares in bags or baskets of have small stalls along the path. Much of the needlework is similar in design and quality even though it is hand done by many different people. Everywhere you look women and girls are constantly doing needlework. While the men work the rice fields the women do needlework primarily for tourists. Our guide explained ... read more

Who would have guessed that Jack would find the best terrine pate he’s ever had in Hanoi? It beats the US, it beats Italy, it even beats France. Since I hadn’t been feeling well last night I had an exciting breakfast of tea and toast and we decided to play it safe and opted for lunch in the café of the fanciest hotel in Hanoi, the Metropole. Lunch was wonderful and the neighborhood was almost quiet with the level of scooter horns at a dull roar. Our guide explained to us that it is wedding season and the exterior of the Metropole is a favorite backdrop from brides; which is why we saw more than a dozen couples being photographed. There was not a single bride that could hold a candle to how Jess will look ... read more

Day 3 Another hazy day, after breakfast we had a 40 minute trip to a local beach and then it was back to the boat to cruise back to the dock. Hazy or no, the rock formations are spectacular. I can’t omit a brief description of Paradise Junks and their superb branding. Every uniform, every placemat, every bottle of water had their logo. The service level was as good as it gets and parked out front of their building was a brand new Rolls Royce and a brand new Mercedes. Since there is a 200% tax on imported automobiles Jack estimates it was over $1,000,000 of cars. Since the operation runs like clockwork, it would guess it is more than moderately successful. The drive back again was slow going on the same 2 lane road with ... read more

I started the day with a breakfast of pho (pronounced fa) which is chicken soup with rice noodles, cilantro and lime. If I’m going to be in Vietnam, I want my stomach to be here as well as my head. We had a full day of walking around Hanoi – the Military Museum, the History Museum, the Ethnology Museum and the Hanoi Hilton. It was the basic “what you have to see” tour day during which we kept seeing the same people over and over. No surprises. The Military Museum had a lot of “captured” US equipment that Jack was convinced was stuff that was abandoned when the US left Vietnam. At the Ethnology Museum, they had real houses of the minority groups, that we disassembled and reassembled on the site. Included were 2 tombs ... read more