354 miles, 2 flights, 1 museum, 1 temple, 1 bamboo circus in the opera house, 2 boat rides, 1 crawl through a VietCong tunnel, 1 hammock hang after lunch, 1 Eco Village homestay and approximately $102 UNDER budget.
This week was a mixture of war sites/museums and modern tourist attractions. From a beachside resort on Phu Quoc Island, north to Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City and a quick trip back southeast to Vietnam’s sixth largest city, Can Tho, we toured lots of cool stuff.
There isn’t much to say about Phu Quoc Island except that it was oceanie, breezie and oh-so-relaxie. We made new friends from The Hague, Linda a writer of children’s books, and Frits, an artist. These two early risers are absolutely charming people who were kind enough to save beach recliners for us as we “slept in” until 8/8:30. The ocean was ridiculously calm and as warm as bath water. Tempting as it was to hang out in the water all day, we wanted to avoid sunburn more. We had to be content with floating/cooling off every couple of hours, then returning to our shady respite under the palm trees.
Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City was educational, hot and altogether entertaining. We returned to our 12,000 steps per day habit as we followed our tour guide from interesting place to interesting place. Thank god our guide, Nam, taught us how to cross the street so we felt equipped to walk to the circus and dinner. First rule: DO NOT RUN!
After the heat, noise and busy tourist days of Ho Chi Minh City it was nice to take a brief tour southeast of the city to Can Tho and a Eco Village homestay. Vietnam’s version of the Garden of Eden on the Mekong Delta produces fruit, vegetables, herbs, flowers, chickens, cattle, nuts and of course rice in abundance. Everything you need to survive is here ~ if you can take the heat.
Next week ~ Bali and the end of our Southeast Asia leg with the beginning of the Australian/New Zealand leg! Crikey!
Leave a Reply