Day 1
Our first day in the city was spent exploring and searching
for more great meals. It took a couple
hours to get through customs and have our VISA’s issued, which gave us time to
talk to a couple locals who had been traveling internationally. The first great tip we received was to find
the “Secret Garden” restaurant not far from our hotel.
The first trick after checking into our hotel was to
navigate crossing streets while dodging scooters and motorcycles that do not
stop at crosswalks. Once you decide to
go, commit to the other side and do not stop, the motorists will move around
you based on your walking cadence. It was amazing to witness the sea of people
moving at different speeds, navigating around each other, all to a different
destination through merging traffic, on and off sidewalks to park or criss-crossing
what might be called lanes to go down the next street or alley. I found it beautiful and mesmerizing to
watch.
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| Alley way to Secret Garden |
The Secret Garden was exactly that. A small marking on a garage door, through an
alley of parked motorbikes, and up four flights of stairs in an apartment
building to a rooftop restaurant. We
arrived semi-early due to hunger from our flights from Thailand. The staff was finishing their dinner but
happy to see us and seat us with cocktails and menus. We ate an amazing fish soup with snapper,
incredible fried spring rolls, and a couple stir fry dishes. We were so happy!
After dinner we wandered the street nearby and found ourselves
near the capitol in “Uncle Ho’s Park”.
The park featured a giant statue of Ho Chi Minh in front of the capitol and
a long walking mall leading to the river.
What good fortune to find the ferry terminal for our ride to Vung Tau at
the end of the park.
It has been hot, between 90 & 100 degrees F, and very
humid (75%). We have mostly acclimated,
but we drink many bottles of water to stay hydrated. This already feels like a city we need to
return to and explore more.
Day 2
Coffee culture in Saigon may be more serious than Seattle. There are a couple Starbucks, but those are
easily avoidable just like home (still protesting over my Sonics) in favor of hundreds
of local roasters and shops. Coffee is
mostly served sweet and best with the common additive of sweetened condensed
milk over ice. Talk about a wake up and
very delicious!
After coffee and breakfast, we caught the ferry for a two-hour
ride down the river. It was beautiful
and full of traffic from large freighters and oil tankers to small fishing
vessels. The scenery was beautiful and
included new high rise housing units closer to the city, and lush green palm
jungles as we became more rural. After
exiting the mouth of the river the water was pretty choppy in open water until
we reached Vung Tau.
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| Traffic jam on the road to Dad's lighthouse |
Upon arrival in Vung Tau we found a taxi and showed him the
pictures Dad sent with us and he knew to take us to the lighthouse where my Dad
was stationed for a year during the war.
The road was barely wide enough for a car and a half and the drive that
included pulling over into ditches and overhanging cliffs to yield to oncoming
cars and again, hundreds of swerving motorbikes, was harrowing. But we made it and as we did the sky opened
with one or two of the kinds of rain Forrest Gump referred to in the
movie. Oddly, the first rain of our
trip.
Inserted from an earlier shared Facebook post:
My Dad is a retired Captain from
the US Navy. During the War he served two tours in Vietnam. His second trip he
spent a year in Vung Tao. Today we took a ferry down the Soai Rap river to see
where he worked. It was an emotional journey for me to take his Granddaughter
to a slice of his life over 50 years ago and it was an intentional and
important part of this trip for us.
Below are
photos from our time here and his time here starting with a picture from
Emily’s High School graduation a couple weeks ago.
The second is a picture of Mom
and Dad at Grandmas house in Prosser prior to his deployment.
I am grateful
to all my friends and family who have served our country and given us the
freedom to say what we think about our government, as well as the ability to petition
our government as I have the honor to do on behalf of the 380,000 students in
our Community Colleges in Washington State.
Thank you also
to my friend and former YAG student, Naveed Johnson,
who is one of the newest officers in the Navy having received his commission
this week.
Thank you, Dad,
for coming here so many years ago and thanks Mom for supporting us along the
way.
(The pics in
B&W are from a photo album he sent with us so we could find out where he
was.)
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| "That was my grandfathers war. Now we only look forward and we should be friends." |
After our stop at Dad’s lighthouse, our driver Tuan (who
spoke no English) offered to drive us to a place for a late lunch. There are many ways to communicate other than
the spoken word. We asked him to take us
to his favorite place and we ended up at a seafood restaurant near the
beach.
Outside the restaurant on the sidewalk there
were tanks of live fish, freshly caught from the sea earlier in the
morning. Inside the restaurant we were
happy to find ourselves being the only Caucasian tourists in the restaurant,
and our taxi driver helped us order with pictures from the menu. We had fried rice, and the most amazing
steamed grouper (Emily asked us to keep the head covered as she didn’t want her
meal looking at her), and local crab.
Washington Dungeness is still our favorite, but we have to say that this
was pretty incredible too. Tuan showed
us how to eat so we don’t look like the naïve tourists that we are. We bought Tuan lunch and showed each other
pictures of our families and friends on our smart phones. Tuan is married with three sons and has grown
up in Vung Tau. He is as friendly and
nice as the day is long. We finished our
lunch and he drove us around to see more sights before delivering us back to
the ferry.
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| Tuan |
I pause now to be thankful for modern technology as we had
our hearts broken to learn about the passing of our cousin, Bethany. She is the daughter of Aaron and Tracy and
mother to Atticus, just 6 weeks old.
Bethany was just 19 years old and our world was better for her in it and
the light she gave us. We have great
memories shared with her, one that sticks out is a bike ride Emily had with her
in Gustavus and getting caught in a rainstorm laughing all the way back to
Aaron’s house. She was beautiful.
 |
| We are blessed to have had Bethany Bohlke in our lives |
Day 3
One of my desires on this trip has been to find a tailor for
a couple suits for next session. After
coffee we walked two blocks to the local market and had Bahn Mi sandwiches for
breakfast from one of the small vendors.
When we finished eating we walked through the cramped stalls and endured
the hawkers offering to sell us Nikes, made here. (Irony not lost).
Then I found her, Lien Ha and her sister in a
small booth piled to the ceiling with bolts of beautiful fabric. She quoted prices and measured me for two
suits. One gray and one a blue and brown
pattern, both a blend of cashmere and silk.
They will be shipped and might be home when we get there. Two hand made suits for the same price as a
couple shirts off the rack at a department store in Seattle. We are in no way desiring the start of
another legislative session, the next 6 moths can take their time in passing,
but I will be looking good when it does arrive.
After our morning at the market, we left Ho Chi Minh City heading
north to Hanoi.
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