29. Da Nang (Hue), Vietnam

Da Nang (Hue), Vietnam

River Traffic

At the most narrow spot in Vietnam (30 miles wide) is the harbor city of Da Nang and not far away is Hue, the old Royal Capital of the last King of this country. We paid a visit to Hue,

Fishermen in Strange Round Boats

naturally taking a bus. I never really noticed how I don't like sitting on a bus. The seats are narrow, the legroom poor at best. People bump into me when I sit in the aisle seat to be able to stretch my legs somewhat.

 

Moated Citadel

It took 2 ½ hours to reach The Citadel, the old Palace in Hue, a moated, wall fortified complex that must have been impressive in its day. Unfortunately most of the original buildings were destroyed during the last war.
There was close, door to door fighting at The Citadel for 25 straight days leaving the Palace mostly in rubble.

Shell Holes in the Walls
From the Fighting

Efforts have been made to restore some buildings but those restorations look and feel like modern antiques. Read fake. I was disappointed. The original splendor can be felt but can not be seen. The layout of the Palace on a map


One of the Original Gates



showed me how it used to be but very little is original. The complex is large, spreading over an area of some 5 square miles. But we were given only about 50 minutes by the tour operator to explore and it was way too little time.

Renovated Section

Ceiling in the Renovated Section

All I had time for was to walk the new antique section. So what can I report about The Citadel? That it is a ruin?

Decoration Over the Arch

It sure is not what I anticipated. I was told it is a representation or even copy of the Chinese Emperor’s Palace, but I can not really say because there was not enough time to explore and there was too much destruction.

 

Naturally we had to visit a temple. This one, the

Thein Mu Pagoda

Thien Mu Pagoda, was actually very different and interesting. Again, not enough time was allowed to see items in detail and to relax while wandering around the site.


Carving Inside the Pagoda

A seven story, octagonal brick pagoda stood near the entrance and even though I asked people, I never found out its significance. The location of this monastery, right on the shore of the Perfume River, was picturesque. Vivid colored dragon-boats sat at the shore line waiting for tourists.



Dragon Boats

The buildings were set in a park-like setting, nicely landscaped and trees were expertly trimmed and formed into bonsai shapes. You guessed it, not enough time was allowed to explore in depth.

The Most Venerable Thich Quang Duc

This monastery had a car in storage we all know well from an old newspaper picture. It was in the news all over the world. Remember the Vietnamese Monk who set himself on fire in the 1960’s to protest the Government's policies?  He was protesting the Government's discrimination against Buddhists and their violation of religious freedom.


The Monk's Blue Car

In the background of the picture is the blue car he used to get to the place where he set himself alight. The monastery was displaying the actual car he used. It was an odd model car I have never seen before.



Silk Embroidery

 


We stopped for lunch, stopped at a pearl seller shop, stopped at a silk embroidery factory, stopped at a “factory” selling incense sticks and straw cone hats.

Silk Embroidery





Working on Embroidery

Making Cone Hats





We had time for all of that. We were given no time however for the reason we took this excursion, to explore the antique places. I felt a bit like being used to buy stuff in Vietnam to help the economy, rather than educating myself about Vietnam; like I intended to do when I started this trip.



Mausoleum of King TuDuc

King TuDuc's Crypt

Our final stop was the burial site of King TuDuc. His mausoleum sits on a hill inside a Royal park amid old looking buildings. When I asked if the King’s body is really inside the mausoleum I received the response that nobody really knows where the king was buried. What? So we climbed stairs, looked at walls of  old stones, saw monuments erected, walked for miles in fairly hot weather to find that there is nobody really buried here? Never was buried here? Not my idea of the real thing. I felt used and mislead on the whole trip.



Another 2 ½ hour bus ride back.

What was informative was the fact that this was the 2^nd day of the New Year’s Festival. The roads were packed with travelers. It is customary for people to go home at this time of year and honor their dead, honor their ancestors and to bring back gifts for their living relatives and to eat, drink and be merry; and, to invite the spirits of the

Yellow Flowers Bring Good Luck at New Years

dead ancestors to participate in the festivities? All along the bus trips, looking out the window, I saw hyper activity. Traffic was tremendous. Yellow chrysanthemums were being sold to bring good luck and fortune for the coming year, the year of the goat. In some shopping areas there was a field of yellow. Bargaining was tried by many but the prices, because of the holiday, were higher than usual. Two potted plants sold for about $10. - US. This is a lot of money when your monthly income is just around $300. - US on average. These pots are placed left and right of the house entrance to allow good luck to enter. The yellow color represents the color of gold. So let gold or good fortune flow in this house, is the message to the spirits.

Everyone is Bringing Home Flowers

Nobody cooks for the 8 days of the New Year’s Festival; most people just eat sweet snacks, drink lots of beer and go to a restaurant for dinner. It is an expensive time of year, celebrating the arrival of a new Zodiac period. The travelers and the family who welcomes the travelers pay dearly. The gifts, the food and drinks add up to a large expense for all. Yet most celebrate and most would not miss this Festival. It is an ancient tradition and we were smack in the middle of it all. This was the real life of Vietnam but unfortunately I only saw it through the windows of a moving bus, there was no time to stop and see real Vietnam life, we had to get back to the ship. The tide and our ship wait for nobody. 

28. The Mekong Delta, Vietnam

The Mekong Delta

Mekong River



The Mekong River is the 7^th largest river in Asia and its source is in the Himalayan Mountains, in Tibet, some 4350 km (2703 miles) away.  In the Delta of this river the ancient empires of Funan and Chenla were recorded in the chronicles of the Khmer but there is evidence that people have inhabited this huge swamp for millennia. It is a very fertile area for a variety of agricultural products (coconuts, pineapple, bananas, mangos and much more). Having so much water available makes the Mekong Delta a natural area for the production of rice. It is nick-named “The Rice bowl of Asia”. Almost 50 % of all of Vietnam’s rice production comes from the Delta.

Mekong River

 

The Mekong River fans out into 9 different rivers creating this huge, fan shaped delta area. This fan is the basis for the belief in the 9 heads of the dragon in the mythology of the ancients. Each one of those 9 rivers has ever smaller and smaller splits and all are littered with Islands, creating a maze of waterways from very big to very small.

We took an excursion to see this Delta in a more myopic way. Technically speaking, HCMC is already within this

Rice Fields in the Delta

Delta but we wanted to see the rural picture. We took a bus and drove for about 2 hours, away from HCMC, away from our cruise ship’s pier. On the bus ride we passed rice farm after rice farm. We passed and saw smaller towns where modern life had not yet arrived. We saw from the bus a bit more of the traditional life of Vietnam.

 

Vinn Trang Pagoda

We stopped at a 150 year old temple (Vinn Trang Pagoda). Stopping at a temple is almost a must do, when visiting any town in Asia. I guess, subconsciously, the locals want to make sure that you are blessed and protected while visiting their town. We really have not had a tour to a town yet where we did not stop at a temple along the way. This time, it was the Temple of the ‘Happy Buddha’. Alongside the road we see an extremely large, glaringly white, sitting Buddha statue, laughing. He was not really a Buddha but was a

The Happy Buddha

Monk and is depicted as an obese, bald man wearing a robe, prayer beads and carrying his few possessions in a cloth sack. He represents contentment and happiness. There are equally large standing and reclining Buddha statues as well, also all in white. The pagoda next to the statues was filled with icons in gold and silver, along with flowered decorations in anticipation of the Chinese New Year Festival. This year we are switching from the year of the Horse to the year of the Goat.
 



Reclining Buddha at the
Vinn Trang Pagoda

Vinn Trang Pagoda



At the Vinn Trang Pagoda

Whole Gilled Elephant Fish

After the temple, it was already time for lunch. We visited a great restaurant and had a whole, grilled elephant fish which was served for our table of six. The fish was grilled and we ripped the fish into pieces with our fingers and rolled the meat, along with greens and spices into thin, tissue like, rice paper wraps. Then we dunked those wraps into a 

Very Tasty Spring Rolls

secret sauce and the total elephant fish disappeared this way in no time. Thinly sliced cucumbers and jackfruit were served with this meal; next came small, meat filled spring rolls. 

Rice Paper Crust Filled With Sticky Rice

Then a large ball was served, as large as a bowling ball; it had a rice paper crust and was filled with sticky rice. Simply yummy! We all competed to get the biggest piece of this ball and stuffed our faces. Fresh, king sized shrimp were served too. The serving lady peeled them for us, delicious. A lime, salt and

Shrimp Dipped in Lime Juice, Salt and Pepper - Yummy!

pepper mix was served with the prawns. I never ate shrimp like this before but it was good. A clear soup with fish and vegetables finished the meal. A total feast!



Our Dragon Boat

Then we boarded a “Dragon Boat” to ply a different area of the same waters, the same Mekong River, the same Delta as our ship’s pier. Being in a much smaller boat, low in the river, gave us a different view. Our boat had a motor, though. 

The dragon boat took us to a large island within the Mekong River. The island of Thoi Son, I believe. The main Mekong River here is three miles wide. The island was 2 miles long by 1 mile wide. On this island, we visited a coconut candy making 

Shredding Coconut for Candy

shop. The candy is somewhat like toffee but filled with coconut flakes. Delightful! This served as our dessert.

Painted Eyes on the Bow for Protection
From Water Monsters

 

Being on the Dragon boat (our boat had eyes painted on the bow for protection from the water monsters) now gave us a new perspective. Fishing boats do not have these eyes painted at the bow as the fishermen believe the eyes will scare away the fish. Superstition is still a great part of life here. While 10% of the people are Catholic (a left over from the French occupation) and 5% are Taoists, 65% worship their ancestors and believe in strange ways. Tombs of a farmer’s family

Blue and White Boxes are Family Tombs
in the Middle of the Rice Fields

are erected smack in the middle of the rice fields, for example. They are large structures, painted green or bright white. They look like concrete caskets and will interfere with the planting and harvesting. I guess that is done on purpose so as to remind the family, when working in the fields, around the graves, of the ancients. Marriages are blessed according to the zodiac signs and the constellations. It is an old society, mostly based on agriculture, the beliefs run deep and this society has very different viewpoint from the Western point of view.

Wobbly Sampans

Next we visited a small canal that meandered into the island, using this small canal to paddle through lush jungle. We had to climb into perilous sampans; small, narrow boats for a max of 6 people, 4 passengers and 2 rowers. Well, not rowers like in a rowboat but one person in the bow, using a paddle as in a canoe, and another in the stern with another wooden, thin paddle just using muscle power. The channel we navigated through was muddy with jungle-like vegetation. It was very narrow but in the shade of palm and

Dense Jungle Almost Prevents Passage

coconut trees. We had to sit very still and in the center of the sampan in order not to tip it. It was a wobbly affair but for me new and interesting. This small excursion along the hidden canal, with bushes and plant life literally crowding around the sampan made it visually clear how hard it must have been for soldiers to do battle in this swamp. Thatched roof and walled houses (huts?) were hardly visible in the bush just along the canal. Ambush perfect for guerrilla warfare. The stink of the water was not bad but it was there. We were 

Snake and Tarantula in Whiskey Bottles

only paddled around a bit and glad, after a while, to stand on solid land again. Yet this small trip on the canal was memorable. After climbing very carefully out of the sampan, we walked past a store selling snake whiskey and special tea. Real snakes were in the bottle and some tentacles were visible in the whisky bottle, too.

At a honey seller we were offered local honey and bee pollen. In addition, small 

The Bee Keeper

dabs of Royal Jelly was offered to put on our skin. Royal Jelly is the liquid bees feed the queen of the hive. To collect just a tiny jar full takes weeks. Very expensive and rare stuff, this Royal Jelly food. Also given honey in a glass which was filled with tea and bee pollen was put on top.



Putting Honey in a Glass Which is Filled With
Tea and Bee Pollen is Put on Top. Very Good!

 

It started to get late by now, we needed to get back to HCMC, so it was back onto the Dragon Boat, then back on the bus and another 2 + hour ride back to the ship. We arrived at the cruise ship in the dark but it allowed us to see Saigon at night, too. HCMC is so full of neon lights and scooter traffic. It is controlled chaos, especially in the dark. Lights on some of the bikes are missing,

Ho Chi Minh City Lights at Night From Our Ship

people riding the opposite way on the side of the road, narrow streets, double parked vehicles, dim street lighting; Life in Vietnam. Chaotic! It works for the people living here and it is the Vietnam way of life. Very different from what I am used to.

Ho Chi Minh City Lights


 

27. Ho Chi Minh City. (HCMC), - Saigon- Vietnam

Ho Chi Minh City.  (HCMC)

This is my first time in HCMC (formerly Saigon) and I can only compare Vietnam to the other Indochina countries I just saw. Coming off the ship, entering the downtown area of Saigon (HCMC) is like entering a modern town. Three or four story stucco houses, inspired by the French style which was so predominantly used in the past, spread as far as the eye can see. These are interlaced with the latest glass and steel,

Downtown Skyscrapers

very modern skyscrapers which are growing like mushrooms, sometimes in dense groupings. HCMC is growing in leaps and bounds. Roads are widened and replaced, parks are planted, green spaces created and the whole of it looks very busy and teaming with life. In fact the growth is so fast and furious that I wonder if having McDonald’s, Starbucks or Lotte World Dept. Store is really something to strive for. The more difficult part for Vietnam is not to copy what is current, but to create a new city that would leap-frog what is now common all over the world, including transportation. I am being told a subway is being built at the moment but is a long way in the future since most of the ground in HCMC is or was swampland.



A mono rail might have been a better way, no?



Two-Wheeled Traffic Jam

No matter, I am but a visitor, asking myself questions. I say copying is not creating. I believe that to transfer old Saigon to a modern HCMC takes vision, art and a willingness to take risks. It is a gigantic step for any country to accomplish but well worth it when one needs to “modernize” most of the structures in the city. Skip the established, move towards the new.

At present, the traffic is being controlled by adding a 200% tax if you want to buy a new car. Does this stop people? No, there are too many cars already and the volume is growing. The 8 million population of HCMC have to get to work, there are no bus services to speak of. Nor is there tram service to use.

People here use mopeds or small scooters or motor bikes to move about. The size of the bike is controlled, too. The largest cc’s allowed is 200 cc. Millions upon millions of bikes literally scoot across the city every minute of the day. I have seen a traffic jam of just bikes a city block

long or more. The streets are full of motor bikes riding abreast and tightly packed with only inches between them. It is amazing that there are so few accidents.

To walk across the street is an art form here. It is impossible to wait for an opening in traffic, even at a traffic light, so one just starts walking across, albeit very carefully to start with and then only at a very steady and determined pace. No jerky moves by the walker; keep a smooth, steady pace, just keep on walking. The bikes will swerve around you, they will not hit you, trust them. They do know how to ride a scooter. Nobody really races; it’s a steady Eddy kind of riding. It is simply amazing to see.

A Mess of Wires

Electric wires, like in much of Asia, hang off telephone poles alongside the roads. Even in HCMC, they are bunched together in bundles and just strapped together with ties. It looks like a snake’s nest on every pole. I pity the person who has to fix a troubled connection. To modernize the whole electric network, to put all those wires below ground as in major cities around the world is a giant undertaking. At the moment only when new buildings replace old buildings do the supply lines for utilities go below ground. But

Another Tangled Mess

Saigon is changing, slowly but surely, from the old Saigon to the more modern HCMC.

Vietnam has 90 Million people and is over 3000 KM long. The whole country on a map looks like a snake or like the Vietnam people like to believe, a “Dragon”. Vietnam is a long, relatively skinny country with a large population. Most people are under the age of 40. The average income per year is US $3600. The mood of the people is positive and forward looking.

 
I know nothing about the “Vietnam”war. I was a new immigrant to the U.S. in 1968 and failed the physical when drafted to join the U.S. military services. My eyesight, before the Lasic surgery I had in 1998, was just too poor. So I should feel no guilt

Vietnam Swamp

being in Vietnam, yet I can not help thinking of all the poor men who served here; on both sides. I see the mud, the swamp, the impossibility of fighting and actually winning a war here. The Vietnamese, by the way, call this conflict the “American “war. Vietnam has been a war torn country for centuries. Vietnam’s history and land occupations flipped back and forth.

As a distinct group of people, Vietnamese don't want to be called, nor are they, Chinese. Nor are they Khmer or Thai. The Vietnamese are a separate ethnic group comprised of six groups who are joined under the name of Vietnam. The six groups that joined are the Vinh Phuc, the Ha Noi, the Bac Ninh, the Hung Yen and the Ha Nam. Joining these groups into one country took 1000s of years.

Read the history of Vietnam to understand Vietnam. Few other countries are so persistent in having their own identity; something the Americans did not understand when they fought their war here in the 1960/70s. Nor did or do the Chinese understand this point even today. The Chinese occupied Vietnam for over a thousand years, from 111 BC to 938 AD. From 938 AD on, the Vietnamese stayed independent regardless of attacks by the Khmer and Siamese before the French wrangled Vietnam’s independence away again in the mid 19th century. Later, while being attacked by the Americans, the Viet's again fought for their independence and finally succeeded on April 30, 1975 when they evicted the U.S. from their land.

More Socialist Than Communist

Never mind the political ideology for the time being. Vietnam’s original Communism already has changed to a more Socialist approach. All Vietnam ever wanted to be, is self ruling and independent. A high ranking Vietcong, when he shook Henry Kissinger’s hand once, said to him: “You should have read our history, Mr. Kissinger”.

China has tried since 1975 to take away land and invade Vietnam but has been repelled. Did you know that? Read your history books! After they repelled the Chinese they also had to repel the Cambodians, who, during the Khmer Rouge era, attacked Vietnam.

Warm and Friendly People

Vietnam has been at war with countries trying to annex them for over 35 years in recent history. Almost half of their GNP was spent on the war effort. No wonder Vietnam has a lot of catching up to do. But….

They are on their way to be a force in Asia and are doing great!

Carrying a Large Piece of Glass - Scary!



Bikes Transport People and Cargo



Looks Like an Old Army Vehicle