MARCH 7: Today was not a perfect day, but then perhaps not every day is perfect in Paradise. I don’t mean that it was a really bad day; after all no one lost a wallet, no one missed the ship, no one slipped and broke an ankle, and no one was called a “slut” by Russ Limbaugh. But it was a boring day.
We docked in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia where we had a pre-arranged tour with 8 others to Mount Kinabalu, a UNESCO world heritage site. This is the highest mountain in Southeast Asia, protected because of the many rare types of plant life. The bus took two hours to reach the mountain and we then spent hours listening to our guide explain the plant life; mostly orchids. He was incredibly enthusiastic about the rare orchids, almost none of which were in bloom. Answers to questions about, politics or social life got quickly diverted to plant life of the region. I think Botany and Boring are linked by more than alliteration.
Our tour included lunch in a Chinese restaurant where the natives were eating unusual looking, but perhaps tasty, items. However, our group was served a selection that could have been ordered at the Moonlight Restaurant in Antigonish.
MARCH 9: Today is the first of our five days in Vietnam. We got up before dawn to enjoy the sail up the Saigon River to Ho Chi Ming. Saigon is a section of Ho Chi Ming Province (not City; that is a bad translation from the French). The central area of Saigon is quite lovely, but walking is difficult as the streets and sidewalks are covered by a plague of motorbikes (5.1 million registered in Saigon). Many bikes have 3 or 4 riders and the bikes carry everything. We saw a guy holding a small refrigerator as he weaved through traffic. It is not uncommon to see a mother, father and two kids riding on one small motorbike.
We spent most of the day on a tour of the Mekong Delta (the huge agricultural area south of the city). We drove through rice paddies with lots of peasants under coulee hats working in the almost 40 degree sun. We took a boat ride on the Mekong River where we stopped for lunch at an outdoor restaurant that served us such delicacies as Elephant Ear Fish. Before returning to the ship we went to a show at a water puppet theatre. This was much better than I had expected.
A quick shower and a glass of wine got us ready for a dinner through which I had trouble staying awake.
MARCH 10. Again we got up early and our bus bullied its way through the morning motorbike traffic as we crossed Saigon on our way to the village of Cu Chi. This was an area of heavy fighting during the Vietnam War (or American War as it is called here). The Americans were unable to defeat the Viet Cong who fought from a huge network of tunnels. Now there is a lovely jungle walk to see examples of deadly traps for the GI’s. I turned down an offer to fire live rounds from an AK-47 but I did crawl on my hands and knees through one of the Viet Cong tunnels.
On our way back to the city the 10 of us voted to skip lunch in favor of extra site seeing. I did, however, spent one U.S. dollar for an ice-cold beer from a street vendor. Before visiting some interesting museums we spent an hour in a huge market where Betty left more money than would have been spent by one with better bargaining skills.
I recommend to anyone that Saigon is a must for your travel bucket list.
Earlier in this blog I joked about missing the ship. Today one couple did just that. We had been originally scheduled to sail at 6:00 p.m. but departure got moved to 4:00. I doubt the couple were planning on seeking asylum; rather they perhaps simply didn`t attend to the notice of departure time change. Since it was 98 degrees F. outside I expect they had nothing with them besides shorts and sandals. We heard that (1) one of the pair was quite elderly, and (2) the ship officials left their passports with port authorities (whether or not they would know enough to check there is another matter). If they were like me most of their cash and perhaps some or all of their credit cards would have been left behind in the safe in their stateroom. As tomorrow is a sea day this unfortunate couple will have to find hotels for two nights as well as figuring out a way to travel to our next port of call which is Da Nang (a long distance from Saigon).
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