2010 Hong Kong to Athens -Vietnam

April 9, 2010
We left from Hong Kong on schedule during a light rain. It has been overcast all day. Our airline flight was long but uneventful. We arrived last night in Hong Kong on schedule at 11:30 PM, retrieved all our bags, the hotel car was waiting, and off we went to the Marco Polo. We were given a newly renovated room on the 15th floor overlooking the harbor, where our ship was originally going to dock. Sounds great doesn’t it? Well the paint smell or new carpeting smell or whatever it was started the allergies. The Chinese sleep on mats on the floor or cinder block and the new mattress equaled that firmness. When you sat on the edge of the bed there was absolutely no “give”. So all the arthritis aches started in the middle of the night after all the “a-choo-ing” from the allergies. Then remember the renovation part? The hotel is still under renovation so the hammering started at 9 AM. Thank heavens we only spent one night in that very lovely hotel.

So we are now comfortably ensconced in our shipboard stateroom; smaller than we remembered, but everything is stowed away. That includes my two suitcases full of clothes. Now I have to remember
where I put everything. Tomorrow is a sea day and they have bridge on board. Yeah!

April 11,2010
After an enjoyable day on board we arrived in DaNang, Vietnam, a newly developing port. It is
surrounded by lush green mountains and there is a large store of sand(!) at the port. The beach along
one side of the bay is white sand. We boarded our tour bus to drive to Hue, a province in the middle of the country where the Imperial Palace of the 1000 yr Nguyen dynasty and the largest pagoda in the country. Our guide was Lan, which means orchid. The families often name their girls after a flower. On our drive, Lan spoke of the history and customs of Vietnam. April through September is the dry season. The rainy season is November-March the rainy, when there are typhoons. Cows are used for transportation and water buffalo for work. Vietnamese products are seafood from fish farms, black pepper, rice, cashews, and coffee. There are 84 million people in Vietnam, most are farmers but the grown children are moving to cities to seek jobs. The country is trying to develop industry and is building roads so people can access the cities more easily from the countryside. Vietnam is 1000 KM from north to south. The people eat fish, chicken, pork, and rice noodles. They bury their dead in caskets which are kept at home for 4 days, then taken to the cemetery for burial. Six months after the burial they go back and decorate the graves. The richer the family, the more decoration.
Foreigners cannot own a house in Vietnam. Vietnamese families after they live in a house 5-10 years they can sell it. Most families live in long narrow houses, 3 generations together. They share the living area, kitchen, bathroom. The boys sleep together and the girl sleep together. The parents share a bedroom. Housing has become very expensive, $40-60/ sq meter in Hue. Hue is known for its good university and hospitals. Only 30 % of the people have health insurance. The poor do not get medical care, they buy medicine at the pharmacy but are reluctant to go to the hospital due to the expense.

There is no income tax, but there is a property tax and business tax. Young workers in coffee shops which are very popular make @$50 per month. Electricity, water, and petrol are very expensive. 19,000dong = $1.00 We are accosted by sellers, everything is “one dollar”, hats, fans, postcards, packs of incense. Every family owns 2-3 motorcycles. They buy China motorcycles for $300 but like Honda motorcycles which last longer and have better mileage but cost $2000. Children go to school ½ a day, either morning or afternoon. The women shop 2x a day. The big meal is at lunch followed by a siesta for 45 minutes. If you work for the government you are only allowed two children. If you are privately employed there is no restriction. Religion, 20% are Buddhist, 10% are Catholic, 10% other. The rest worship their ancestors and Ho Chin Minh who freed the nation from foreign domination. The government is called a Socialist Republic and they vote every 5 years. You must be 18 to vote and get a drivers license to operate a motorcycle.

Our guide talked about her wedding. There were 400 people invited, 350 people by her parents and 50 of her friends. Pictures are taken 3-4 months before the wedding and are displayed at the wedding. Money is given which is all turned over to the parents to help pay for the wedding. The amounts are carefully recorded because the same amount must be given to those who are not yet married at their wedding. Lan was concerned because her fellow tour guides gave her a lot of money. They are not yet married and she will have to give an equal amount at their wedding! Her family is Catholic so they do not believe in fortune tellers but her husband’s family does. Her father-in-law consulted a fortune teller who, based on the lunar cycle, told
them on which day to get married. Consequently, there were many couples who got married on that day and all the venues were very busy.
Lan had been sent to a convent by her parents for her education. When she decided she didn’t want to say in the convent and wanted to get an education to become a tour guide her parents were very upset. She took her first small group of tourists to her home to meet her parents so they could see that they were nice and would stop worrying about her. Now that they see how much money she makes and that the tourists are nice they are encouraging her younger siblings to do the same! Before she married her husband, who is not Catholic and comes from another town, he had to agree to let her continue to work as a guide which she enjoys very much. He is a construction engineer.

Our impressions: Vietnam is a third world nation trying to emerge. Roads are substandard, traffic consists of trucks and motorcycles, and a few bicycles. Families of four ride on the motorcycles, various size packages and deliveries are strapped to the cycles and bicycles. Order onsists of staying to the right-mostly, passing whenever and wherever, no lights, honk and go. Housing is narrow brick houses with high ceilings, wide French doors across the front and back. Many are two story, with another family living upstairs, sometimes with a balcony running around the outside. Families run small businesses in the front of houses, no zoning. It reminds me of Honduras but with different architecture. The countryside has rice paddies with water buffalo and “scarecrows”. Scarecrows are sticks placed in throughout the rice paddies with plastic bags tied to the top that blow in the wind. Most homes have electricity.

Because of their 1000 yr history with china the temples and palaces and citadel looked like miniature Forbidden Cities, only yellow tiles instead of orange. The architecture, thrones, furniture were the same as China. The pagodas all have the same architecture, colors, and tiles. The writing at the emperor’s mausoleum was in Chinese characters and the area was guarded by the stone lions and stone soldiers. The officials were called mandarins. There was the Perfume River around the citadel which was lovely and had boats similar to the emperor’s barges in China. In the morning we went to a Buddhist Temple where the Buddhist priests still live. Children as young as seven live there. The children go to the local school in the morning. If the family is poor they are supported by the monks from contributions from all the Buddhist temples. If the family can pay, they do to support the child.

Our trip back was eventful in that we blew a tire on the bus. The driver stopped the bus, on the road, so watching all the motorcycles and trucks blow their horns and go full speed around was interesting. It took awhile for another bus to come, negotiations to go on, and all board a smaller bus to return to port. This is when you are thankful you took the ship sponsored tour because you know they will wait. The temperature was predicted to be 91 and it was all of that. The people from Canada and colder climates were really uncomfortable. We were well supplied with water, thank heavens. It was just like summer in South Florida but no breeze until the afternoon.
It is interesting that the people of Vietnam are welcoming tourists including Americans. The new generation is just learning about the war. The country was communist after the war. Production of rice plummeted, the economy was in shambles. So the government tried letting the people earn the money and go back to being able to build houses on the land. In one year, production dramatically increased and Vietnam has now outpaced China in production of both rice and cashew exports. They have allowed foreign companies to come in the economy has made progress although the top is still Communist and the government controls the media. The internet is allowing the people to see other viewpoints.

4/13/2010
This morning we sailed into Saigon harbor. Along the Saigon River delta it looks like the Amazon; Wide, muddy, vegetation growing to the water, flat, fast current with branches and limbs floating by. This is an industrial port, not a cruise port. However, there is now a tall bridge that permits the cruise ship to dock closer to downtown. The industrial park port where the cruise ship used to dock was difficult for the tourists, because 50,000 people are employed in the park and the traffic jam going in and out made it difficult for the tour companies to plan. There is barge traffic on the river. Most barges are operated by families who live on board and transport sand, rice, and other products up and down the river. The problem lies in the fact that
the children do not get an education because they are never just in one place. The government is trying to encourage the families to build a small home to come home to  each night so the children can be left to go to school. There are also people who volunteer to go on board for a few hours and teach the children so they can learn how to read. The boats have eyes painted on the front bow on each side. Evidently there were once large octopi that would come up river and attack the boats. The king told the people to paint the eyes on the boat so the octopus would think they were another fish and would not attack. The custom is still in effect.
The population is 8 million in the city proper, more that come from the outskirts to work in the city. There are 4 million motor scooters registered and traffic is a zoo. There are lots of cars and trucks besides the scooters,
bikes, and busses and it is honk and go. There are traffic lights that count down the seconds on both red and green and everyone goes when it starts green no matter what is in front of them. We were amazed that the cars all looked new and had no scratches on them. The cars are Mercedes, Lexus, Toyota, Honda. There is a growing very rich class who have invested in real estate which is booming. The apartments are sold before
they are built. The new villas are going for a minimum of one million US dollars. The house style is narrow and deep- 4 meters wide by 30-40 meters deep, one family per floor.
There is the wet and dry season here and the temperature is the same year round. It is 95 today. They have no typhoons so build the homes of bamboo and palm roofs. There is a huge demand for sand for concrete and steel using the resource of coal for the office and high rise condos. However, this is no comparison to Beijing or Shanghai for a modern looking city.
We took a ride in a pedi-cab today through the streets of downtown Saigon. It is definitely a third world wholesale business. We went through Chinatown, the spice market, garment area, toys, kitchen, “home depots”, as well as the upscale commercial strip of car dealers (where they service the cars at the side of the street), hotels, and shopping mall. The tour company gave us an envelope with a 20,000 duong bill (=$1)to tip the driver for the two hours of pedaling the bike. The drivers look for more! Jack gave them each another $2.
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