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It’s our last day in Vietnam. We had another great breakfast at the hotel buffet. At the omelet bar, they make the eggs solely with chopsticks, including flipping the omelet over. Very impressive.
We had a little time before the tour bus came so we wandered the streets around the hotel a bit. It’s harder than you might think. The sidewalks, where there are sidewalks, are made of pavers and often are very uneven or broken. But you really can’t walk on them that much anyway because what they really are is scooter parking. Or people are camped out having breakfast. Or in some cases, alternate scooter routes when the street is full. So you end up walking in the street where you have to be alert for passing scooters or cars. Meanwhile you’re trying to look around and God help you if you feel like stopping for a photograph. It’s pretty exhausting. We felt like generally the people were giving us the stink eye too. I’m not sure why. We are polite and friendly and smile. But with a few exceptions, not happy looks. This was not the case in the South and certainly not in Cambodia where the people were friendly as all get out.
We did see one nice man who had a puppy that looked like a St Bernard puppy. I can’t imagine it was. The biggest dog we’ve see on this trip would be considered small by most standards (terrier sized at best). But the face and coloring were like a St Bernard. Anyway, we paused to look at it and the man smiled and pointed to it in a ‘yeah, isn’t he cute’ sort of way. So that was nice.
We had passed a woman with one of those poles with the baskets on the ends. She was selling fruit. We declined. Then she said ‘photo’? Which I didn’t really understand until Marion explained later. I was thinking it might have been interesting. But we moved on. But when we came back to the hotel she was there and accosted us again. We said no but she put it on Marion’s shoulder and put one of the pointed straw hats on her head and at that point it was kind of too late. So I got a picture of her and as I was doing it, her partner in crime came up behind me and put one on my shoulder as well. And they are heavy! (It gave me a new appreciation for the people who carry them around). They took a picture of the both of us. So then of course they wanted money, which seemed reasonable. And she said 100,000 which is around $4. So ok. But no, they want 100,000 each, which in the flurry of excitement and noise we handed over. Still, it’s a great photo and worth 8 or 9 dollars. But we’re keeping our eye out for them (and watching our backs!).
We saw a bunch of museums today. The first stop was the History Museum. A beautiful building built by the French to be their Far East Center or something like that. 3 floors of Vietnam history from the early 1000’s to today. It was interesting to see how advanced some of the craftsmanship was in the early years of this millennium. There was stuff from the 1000’s into the 1900’s but it all kind of blended together. We mostly were looking for interesting pieces and found a few. There was a nice little museum store as well and everybody (but me) bought something. Marion is the shopping instigator, but the other ladies don’t need much encouragement.
From there we went to the Hoa Lo prison, famous (to Americans anyway) as the Hanoi Hilton during the Vietnam War. But how it’s presented to the Vietnamese is as the prison used by the French in the early 1900’s to jail political dissidents and the like. The signage was shall we say a little slanted. The valiant patriots gloriously maintaining their optimism for the revolution in the face of the oppressive and cruel imperialist French. That sort of thing. Similarly, in the one area where they even mentioned it was used to house American airmen, it was pretty much presented as a day spa. They played volleyball and basketball and decorated for Christmas and were treated by Vietnamese doctors, given clothing when they left. They couldn’t have been nicer to them. It’s not the way I heard it but it’s their country, they won the war, and they get to write the signage.
Then it was on to the Literature Temple (which has other names). This temple was built to honor Confucius. Then it became a university (for PhDs). You had to pass rigorous testing to get in but if you did, then you were set for life (assuming you passed). It ran from the 1400’s to the 1700’s, then became a temple again. The gardens were lovely. There were five separate sections because that’s a lucky number and odd numbers are for the spirits and the 5 elements – metal, wood, fire, water and earth.
The doorways (and I’d noticed this in other temples) are not flush with the ground. You have to go up a few steps to get over and in. I finally asked our guide why and the reason is two-fold. One is so they can have an odd number of steps which helps keep the bad spirits out (odd numbers for God spirits) and two, so you have to concentrate and look down (bow) as you enter. Clever.
We walked to lunch, taking our lives into our hands to cross the street. At least as a group we made a more formidable block and we all managed to make it across unscathed.
We had lunch at a place that is a training school for at risk or low income kids. They teach them a skill and send them off. A nice thing. And pretty good food too. On the way we passed a store called the Craft Link which caught Marion’s eye. So we headed over there after lunch. And everyone bought something there too (Marion is doing wonders for the Vietnamese economy). Her fellow travelers love shopping with her because she finds all sorts of interesting things they miss.
Next on the museum hit parade was the Fine Arts museum. This museum was not on the original itinerary. We were supposed to go to Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum. But no one wanted to do that. So we talked the guide into the fine arts museum. It’s another very nice looking building in the French style. There are three floors with pre-historic stuff on the bottom working up to modern on the top. The bottom stuff was very much like the history museum (not surprising really). The middle floors had a lot of lacquer art. The top floor was modern art and it was interesting to see the variety of styles. It looked like they tried to copy a lot of different European artists (in some cases). There was more army and “noble worker” pieces than you might want but that’s their thing. Some nice pieces anyway and more fun than trying to wander the streets.
We never did get to see Ho Chi Minh which is a little unfortunate only because I was looking forward to saying Howdy Ho.
And lastly, another dinner of 15 items. It was very good (except for the eggplant, ugh) but too much food.
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