Wednesday, March 7, 2018

Day 22 - Wednesday, March 7, 2018 - Phu My, Vietnam

Phu My is the gateway port to Ho Chi Minh City of which Saigon is a part of. The city is divided into districts and when our guide would say we're going into District #5 or 1 or 3, I'd have a flash back to the movie, Hunger Games, which involves the use of districts.

Our tour today, which I didn't organize, met our guide, Nguyen Tri Dung (www.saigonprivatetour.com) and our shuttle bus just outside the port gate around 7:30am. And I should add that our entry card was stamped by Vietnam officials dressed in green military styled garb who were waiting for us just before the gangway. No words were exchanged and they weren't really smiling.

It was about a 90 minute drive to the city from the port. The port we are docked at is an industrial port with container cargo handling facilities as well as several scrap steel processing buildings. There was also a flour mill. There's literally nothing of tourist interest for miles from the port. Some form of transportation would be needed just to get to basic shopping.

Most of the route into the city was on an expressway (toll road and it seemed that our driver didn't know how to maintain a speed consistent with the traffic flow, so we were constantly being passed.

As one approaches the city, the first thing that impressed me was how clean it was compared to Cambodia, Thailand, or Indonesia. The second thing was the sheer quantity of scooters and small motorcycles, All of them seem to be doing a dance that they've learned from childhood. Lanes are just a suggestion. It's not uncommon to see left turns from the right lane AND passing through another direction of traffic like threads being woven into a tapestry. Traffic doesn't flow especially fast, but it does keep moving.  

Our first stop was at the Rex Hotel for coffee (my wife and I had Coke Lites as we don't like the taste of coffee. The Rex hotel was the site used during the Vietnam war from which the daily casualty counts were broadcast and many of the war correspondents stayed there.  

Without going through a blow by blow narrative of all of the stops, we visited the principal sites: Unification Palace, City Hall, War Remnants Museum (definitely presented from the North Vietnamese perspective and lots of captures US war materiel was on prominent display), the Heavenly Lady Temple in Chinatown, a lacquerware factory, Notre Dam Cathedral (interior was closed for renovations), lunch at the Pho 2000 (former President Clinton ate there in 2000 when visiting the country and our guide gave Chelsea and her protective detail a city tour), a major market which was one of the cleanest we've ever visited with two kinds of vendors: fixed price government vendors, and negotiable independent vendors), General Westmoreland's villa, and a few embassy's. The famous American embassy featured in the helicopter evacuations at the end of the American involvement was razed a number of years ago. We could only see the compound wall.

Our guide really liked to take a lot of photos of the group or couples at various locations and those he posted on Facebook throughout the day. All too soon it was time to head back to the ship where we were let off the bus at the port gate around 4:45pm for a 5:30pm all aboard time. It was a wonderful 8 hour tour for $36 per person!  

Some might be thinking, how do the Vietnamese accept Americans. The average age of Vietnamese is about 31 years and the war ended some 42 years ago, so there's not much memory of it. Sure the War Remnants Museum paints a pretty one-sided view of the war, but my opinion is that their graphic presentation on the effects of Agent Orange was totally appropriate. It's nasty stuff and our veterans are even suffering the bad side effects of it.  

For a socialist country, capitalism seems to be thriving. There seems to be a pride of ownership in the way that things are kept clean in comparison to what I saw in other countries. That's the end of my soapbox comments.

We had to walk about a quarter mile to the ship where there was a welcoming committee along with the Welcome Back to the Volendam. I don't recall ever seeing that in any port on any other cruise. It might have had something to do with the number of guests who did overnight trips to other locations and were rejoining the ship.

Back on board (no excitement there today!), the Captain announced that the people we left behind a few days ago had rejoined the ship. They had wanted to do some private touring, but didn't let the ship's representatives know. While eating dinner in the LIDO, the lines were cast off, and the Volendam backed away from the pier and swung the stern around clockwise so that we could sail down the river and out to sea in the dark. A couple of tugs guarded the busy river waterway which the Volendam executed its turnaround maneuver.

Since the evening entertainment was Frozen Planet Live, we opted to watch the movie, Victoria and Abdul, which we had previously seen in the theatre back home. It was good to see it again and pick up on more of the nuances.

Tomorrow we have a projected noon arrival in Nah Trang and a countryside tour planned (again not organized by me). For the adventures that await, you'll have to stay tuned.

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