I woke up this morning at 5:30am to a murder scene. (I know what I mean, and this is for my memories so IYKYK)
I have laundry sheets here so last night I did a wash in the sink of all my underwear except one clean pair to wear today (thank God, because it's so humid here nothing is dry yet!) We have laundry on the next ship but that's not for another 5 days and because it's so hot and humid here you're doing a top down change at least once a day because you're sticky. I usually overpack underwear and I severely underpacked (but knew I could do sink laundry so it's fine).
Mom had a shower, we got dressed and went down to breakfast. When we were waiting in line for the hostess a woman walked up behind us and she asked "Are you here with Uniworld". Yes we are! We chatted for maybe 30 seconds before the hostess came and I turned to her and asked her if she was waiting for anyone, she wasn't, so I invited her to join us for breakfast. Her name is Timi and she's from Tempe Arizona and she's here on her own. Originally, she was coming with a friend but her friend cancelled and she decided to still take the trip as a single.
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I eat so much more here for breakfast than I would at home (which is a protein iced coffee)
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After breakfast we had a few minutes to go up to the room and grab our bags (water, wallet, phone, etc) there is a Tour Briefing now that the entire group of 66 has arrived and then we leave from there on our Tour for the day. We've been split into 3 groups and we are in Group 1 (Timi is Group 3). When we get in there I saw Cheryl and Steve so we went and sat behind them and left a space for Timi in case she wanted to join us, then Jo, Suzie and their husbands sat behind us and when Timi came in she went and got her bags which had been placed in another spot and brought them over and sat with us. In the next 5 minutes Cheryl had already asked Binh, the Cruise Director, to move Timi into our Group. They went to the Train Street yesterday and had a couple of beers at a cafe while the train went by. I want to do that too so we decided we could go today after our City Tour, the train literally comes down the middle of the same street you're on eating.
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| I took this photo today but this isn't the part of the street with the cafes. |
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Here is a visual representation of our trip - white is land, orange is ocean.
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The briefing was worth going to, informative and explained all the housekeeping. One thing Binh said is to ask for anything and if they can do it they will, if they can't they'll explain why not. So I asked if we would be able to have NA beer on the next segment in Cambodia and on the ship and he said for sure on the ship he will ensure they have it and if they can do it in Siem Reap at the resort then they will try as well.
He still has ahold of our passports but explained why for all of the Customs and transfers between Vietnam and Cambodia and arranging for names on our flights to ensure that the names are the exact same as the passports, etc. He also said "we are a communist country - We give you the choice, but no option” meaning you can choose to hold your passport but your life will be difficult bringing it to him every 2 days as we have different checkpoints or waiting 2 hours in immigration at the Cambodia airport rather than handing it over, getting on the bus and the passports all being delivered later in the night to the hotel by airport staff once they have time to review and stamp everyone.
After the Briefing we hopped on our bus and started driving. First stop is the Temple of Literature, which we had seen from the Hop on Hop off bus.
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| There is a real mix of architecture and shopping here, from the Train St to Tiffanies is not that far. |
Today is Women's Day in Vietnam so there are women of all ages dressed up in traditional dresses and getting their photos taken, a lot with professional photographers, and there are flowers for sale everywhere. They also celebrate Mothers Day and International Women's Day in March.
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 | | We are in pants and shirts with sleeves because we are going to a Temple |
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We arrived at the Temple of Literature - this is one of the first national universities in Vietnam. It was originally built by King Ly to worship Confucius - at a Temple you celebrate a person (a real person) not a god. There are the sacred animals at the gate - Unicorn (which is what they call the half lion and half duck), Dragon, Pheonix and Turtle.
Note that there are characters written on the entrance. This is Chinese. There was no written Vietnamese until the French came in 1858 (left 1954) and used our Latin alphabet letters, until then there was only spoken language.
The Circle here in the Square is to symbolize "square earth and round sky" how they believed the world was shaped early in history. This is the Literature Pavillion.
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| Pheonix standing on a Turtle and a Shrine for Offerings. |
Hieu asked if we knew why there was a big lip to step over to get into the entrance of the Offering room. Several guesses were offered - because of flooding and to keep evil spirits out were correct. Because of flooding is a practical reason, in the rainy season it can rain quickly and in the concrete courtyard water didn't drain quickly but the water would never reach as high as the entrance. To keep evil spirits out because it was believed that they floated on the ground and could not jump over the higher barrier and the third reason is that when there is a large barrier you have to step over you look at the ground (as though you are bowing) and when you place your front foot down you are pitched forward (as if in reverence).
After the Temple we got back on the bus and made our way to the Hoa Lo Prison, which we also went by on the Hop on Hop off bus. Hoa Lo means "fiery furnace" because this use to be the ceramics community before the French took it over and built the prison in 1896. And they named it Central House "Maison Centrale" the Court was right across the street and there was a tunnel for them to transport criminals underground from one to the other.
1896 built by the French for political prisoners until 1954 when Vietnam defeated the French
1954 - 1964 it was then used for French prisoners (karma's a bitch)
1964-1973 it was used to hold American pilots and crew and dubbed the "Hanoi Hilton" until the end of the war when all US prisoners were brought here and then all 687 US prisoners were released. (they put American pilots here in the Central Prison in hopes that it would stop the bombing of the City).
1973-1990 used for regular crimes by Vietnamese.
1990 it was closed and now is approx 1/5 the original size and is used as a museum.
It was touted as being "so secure even an ant couldn't get out" with glass on top, electric wire, rock and cement.
The prison, while the French controlled it, included a male, female and death sentence section. It had a prisoner capacity of 800 but the most recorded was 3000.
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| The original front entrance |
These 13 prisoners were staff for the French and sentenced to death after trying to poison the French inside the prison with poisonous eggplant. Unfortunately the eggplant wasn't potent enough and they were caught. When you were sentenced to death you had 3 years to serve until your death so that you had time to suffer but also time to claim and prove your innocence. These prisoners were executed after 3 days and then their heads were removed using a guillotine and mounted on the walls as a reminder not to work against the French.
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| Prisoners had ankle restraints |
The most famous prisoner was John McCain who's plane was shot down over Hanoi and parachuted into the lake in the middle of the city. They found out later that his father was powerful and said that he could leave but he decided to stay and said if not everyone is leaving I'm not leaving. He later went on to become a Senator.
And just like everywhere else in the world you have to go through the gift shop to leave. lol.
From here we went back on the bus and drove up to the lake to see the political buildings around the lakeside.
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I said to Annette - "that's cool, eh" as we were both taking pictures of the monument with the gold.
She said "I like that you say "eh"" |
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| This is a monument for John McCain who parachuted into the lake. |
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| Fully loaded scooter! |
From here we went to lunch as a full group of 66. It's a set menu Vietnamese lunch. At the hotel portions of our stays we typically get buffet breakfast and one meal and then one meal is up to us to arrange. This was lunch and so Mom and I likely won't have a big dinner, we might just go down to the pool restaurant again and have a snack
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| Tilapia - I skipped a few pics by accident - so you missed the salad which was excellent. |
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| Beef in a Bamboo Pipe |
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| Was served with Rice and Veggies |
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| Creme Caramel |
We sat with Conrad, Jo, Suzie, Chris and Timi for lunch. I was sitting with Conrad for a few minutes during the tour and asking what he does - they've got a property in Creemore and live in Oakville. He runs the family business (which mostly now his sons run) which is in adhesives and his 94 yr old mother still comes to the office a few days a week. They produce mostly adhesive labels (like for ketchup bottles or to close Sleeman's cases were 2 of his examples), they have a factory in Mississauga and a son who lives in Texas so they've just opened a second factory there and the Texas son runs it while the California son does sales in that State to increase their market share. Timi worked for Honeywell but also taught at the University of Arizona as well as was in the National Guard so has been all over the world with the US Military. She retired before 50 but it's because she worked 3 jobs until then in order to be able to retire (with pensions I'm assuming) and be able to travel. Chris if I remember correctly did something to do with HVAC before he retired and Suzie was doing commercial real estate. Today I think Chris might have said he now has his real estate license in retirement for something to do as well. I was talking to someone else when the conversation was happening.
After lunch we came back to the hotel with the intention of going down to the pool to read, relax and I'd work on the blog. But the pool was full, no chairs in sight and so we sat at a table near the pool to skulk until someone moved but missed out twice because someone happened to be walking by (skulking in closer proximity than us) and so after about 15 mins when no one came and asked us if we wanted a drink or anything I said to Mom I'd rather be up in the AC in the room than hot sitting down here if we won't be sitting by the pool. So we came back up here and have been cooling off, me writing the blog and her reading her book and every now and then snorting herself awake.
It's just before 5pm now and I'm done writing up the blog. Because this one had so much information by the time I got back up to the room and really got started on it it was probably at least 3pm so I was working on it for a couple of hours. I took a break from doing it for several years (I think maybe 3-4) because it was so much work but I do love to go back and read them and see the pictures of where we were. And I retain so much more information because I'm hearing it, then writing it in my notes during the day and then reading it again and usually re-writing it as well because it's just quick notes. Today when Hieu talked about Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma Ma again I could remember 4 out of the 6 Ma's (Horse, Ghost, Mother, Which is Something) and forgot 2 but now I remember it was Grave and Baby Rice Plant.
Tomorrow morning we do the Open Jeep City Tour. I think that this is more of an 'off the beaten path' down smaller side streets kind of tour and Hieu said that we would go to the Train Street and see the train so we decided not to do that this afternoon. After the Tour we'll have everything packed up and have some lunch before we leave for the airport and our flight to Cambodia.
Neither of us were hungry after the 7 course lunch so we skipped dinner.
I was so tired last night reading my book I said to Mom "well, if I'm going to be up at 5:30am anyway I might as well go to bed at 7:15pm". So I turned off my light and went to sleep. I woke up at 3:30am and then just dozed restfully unti 5pm when I got up. Paige called about 5:30 and Jay called at 5:40am so its good I was awake!
But, the rest of today will be in todays blog and now this is yesterdays.
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