Jeep Tour and flight to Cambodia - Day 7

Up early again, which makes sense given I was asleep by 7:15pm last night.  I woke up at 3:30 and then dozed until about 5am.  We need to be up and out in the lobby for our tour today by 8am so we got up, packed up 99% of our bags so that when the tour is over at 11am we can be ready and down in the lobby for 11:45am for the departure to Cambodia today.

Breakfast - the fruit here is so fresh.

lol, this is Jo.  Jo knows Brad D'Ornellas who is a local real estate agent as well.  When we were talking about where we were from they knew that Brad was from somewhere around Uxbridge (Port Perry) and works in real estate as well - so today I took a photo of Jo and I and sent Brad a message saying "I'm on vacation with PJ's parents!".  Small world.  Jo is an absolute riot.

When we got downstairs we ran into Timi and I said I needed to get her number so that I can let her know if we're grabbing food or a drink or anything and she said she's been thinking of us too and wants us to go visit her in AZ this winter when it's cold out!

We gathered in the lobby and then were hustled out to the street where 5 Russian Jeeps were waiting, open air but with cloth tops.  Our main Guide introduced himself as Chung "but you can call me..Tony".  He went through some rules and then said my main job is to bring you back alive.

We were in a car with Timi, Cheryl and Steve.  Our individual Jeep's Guide was named Ben.  Ben spoke very good English and I asked him at one point how long he had been speaking and he said about 3 years.  3 years!?!  I asked how he learned to speak so well in just 3 yrs and he said "Netflix". OMG. He said now, for the last 6 years, English is now taught at the schools starting at age 8 (Grade 3).

This is a motor scooter battery swap station.  It takes 5 second to swap out your battery and Tony pays $2 a month for unlimited swaps.  It lasts him about 3 days.

Our first stop of the tour is Train Street where you sit on the edge of the track at a cafe while the train goes past (which it seems to about every 30 minutes starting at 8:50am.

My complimentary drink I chose a Vietnamese Salt Coffee w Ice

As we were waiting, we arrived about 25 mins before the train, we were introduced to local sellers.  There were printed canvas bags, cut out pop-up greeting cards and women selling magnets.  Seems they do an ok business there as a bunch of people were purchasing.

Tony said before we leave you can use the washroom at the cafe "but its' not the best".  Mom said she didn't need to now but would there be washrooms later on in the tour? and he replied "they're even worse".  He wouldn't recommend those ones as they're Asian Squat toilets.

The traffic here is insane, I've mentioned it before but essentially no one ever stops.  If you're turning left, if you're turning right, if you're going straight you just keep going (slowly) but never stop. We have commented a few times that we haven't seen any accidents yet so asked Ben if they're common and he said "you'd have to be very lucky to see an accident".

We went off the beaten path to an area for local for shopping for scooter parts.

This little guy was so cute.  He was beside us at the stop light prior and all smiles (his Mom noticed us smiling at him and took down his mask).  Timi passed him one of the colourful magnets that she had purchased on Train Street and he waved at us as we drove by again.

During the drive I asked Ben about the fresh fruit we have had at all our meals because it's all so good.  Is it all grown here in Vietnam and he said yes from the watermelon to the grapes and dragon fruit it's all grown here.  Except maybe apples if we have apples and they're large they're from the US.

Two reasons I took this photo.  1) the electrical is a nightmare and 2) the speaker on the top of the building broadcasts the national news in the mornings early.

Tony took us through this residential area to the home of Mrs Tinh.  4 years ago he came to this area and asked a number of residents if he could bring tours through and she was the only one who said yes.  Here we are in her home - this is everything, this one room is her bedroom and living room. 

Her kitchen is outside and used to be communal as is her washroom, which also was communal but she is the only one now who uses it as everyone else now has kitchens and baths inside their apartments.

Mrs Tinh is 87 years old.  She receives 650,000 dong from the Government in assistance payments per month and her rent is 2,000,000 dong.  The rest comes from her family.  Her son gives her 2M and her daughter gives her 2M per month and that is what she uses for food and rent.  Her rent hasn't been increased by her landlord in 20 years because she used to babysit the owner. Her children live just 1Km away and have a camera set up in the corner to keep an eye on her.

Tony said his job is to keep her from smoking but Timi said "I saw a pack outside"  He looked at Mrs Tinh in shock and she looked a little chagrinned and waved him off.  Busted.

Kitchen, out in the courtyard

After visiting the local home we went for our last stop to try traditional Egg Coffee.  On the way there Ben was asking about Canada.  He asked about Moose and we told him yes, we have moose but I've never seen one (I think he was disappointed), he asked about Bears as well.  We talked about the weather and how cold it is in Toronto today (I think it was 12 degrees) and he said that in Vietnam if the weather is colder than 10 degrees they don't have school because there is no heating.  So as a boy he would wake up, check the temperature and if it said 9 degrees he would go back to sleep.

    

Egg Coffee

Egg Coffee is a Vietnamese specialty made with egg yolk, sugar, honey and vanilla.  In 1946 the inventor, Mr Giang, was a barista at the Sofitel Hotel (where we are staying) and he wanted to make a Vietnamese version of the cappuccino.  In 1890 the French brought coffee to Vietnam and they had cappuccinos, but most Vietnamese don't have milk.  So he took egg yolk along with the sugar, vanilla and honey and whipped it until it was frothy and then pour strong coffee over it to create a cappuccino without milk.  Honestly, it was delicous.  But its' 8:45pm and I'm still regretting my life choices today.   Between the Salt Coffee and Egg Coffee I felt jittery and had anxiety all day.  It's probably been 15 years since I've had a caffeinated espresso shot and I had multiple today (I think the Egg Coffee was probably a double shot and strong).

I didn't know Timi was taking this but she sent it to me.

I'm not sure what's going on with the formatting above but I don't care enough to fix it.

Tony thanked us all for coming and said it was because of American and European tourists that they can keep working so he really appreciates us because "Asian tourists only care about drinking, women and strong wifi".

We got back to the hotel, packed up the last of our things and headed down to the lobby to get the bus for the airport.

Once through security we were hungry so stopped at Popeyes and had lunch, lol.  I've never had Popeyes before but imagine it tasted how it's supposed to just twice as expensive because it's at the airport.

The flight was only about an hour and a half long. During the flight I sat with Kevin, from our group, he was here during the Vietnam war working in a local hospital in the Central Highlands. He and his wife, Gretchen, came a week ago and toured around the areas that he was in while he was here.  They're from AZ but originally he's from Michigan.  He was fascinating, he said a lot had changed and in his opinion the Vietnam war was useless.  It was to stop communism from spreading throughout Asia and they got in the middle of a civil war between North and South Vietnam without understanding the underlying history and, honestly, without need.

We landed and, as promised, walked through immigration as a group without stopping.  Once baggage was collected we got on the bus and met our new Cambodian Guide, Nin.  Nin is a far cry from Hieu but he's trying.  He's very monotonous but still provides good information.

He said you can use USD freely in Cambodia and, in fact, ABMs here will dispense USD.  Everyone will accept them from market vendors to restaurants.

There are 3 seasons here, Hot, Warm and Wet.  We are at the end of Wet season (we hope), the forecast has been rain so we have raincoats, umbrellas and waterproof runners.

Tomorrow we go to Anghor Wat, the highlight of the Cambodia leg of the trip.  We have to dress to cover our knees and shoulders and wear good walking shoes. There is a lot of uneven, sandy, walking with some stairs.  Take a visor, sunscreen and bug spray and they'll provide an umbrella for sun protection if you want it (we have ours so will take them, although Mom now thinks she forgot her umbrella and it's red so I haven't seen it anywhere).

The population of Cambodia is 17.2M and there are 25 Provinces.  It's a democratic constitutional monarchy with a King but an elected Parliament, the King is only head of state.  95-97% of the population is Buddhist which is the state religion.  Cambodia was under French occupation for almost 100 years from 1863-1953 so they have a lot of french influences (like Provinces).

Siem Reap is the main City with a population of 300,000 in the centre and 1.2M in the Province.  The primary occupations are agriculture and tourism.  Mainly they grow rice which is the #1 export.  In recent years though Tourism has been the number one economy in Cambodia.

The most common forms of transportation are motor scooter and tuktuk which means "moto-trailer" which can carry between 2-4 people.  Taxi transportation is by tuktuk and he warned us to negotiate the price up front, if you get in and say "Take me to Pub Street" it will cost $10USD for a $3USD trip once you get there.  All drivers speak very good english.

We got to the hotel and it's lovely.  It was about an hour drive but dark out.  Along the road the restaurants and shops remind me of Costa Rica.  They greeted us with a song and dance at reception and had our keys all ready and lined up for us.  We got to our room and it's about 7:30pm, neither of us wanted too much too big for dinner and it's a buffet restaurant tonight (and at our own cost) so we ordered a ham and cheese baguette to share in room service.

There is a special "fill a bag with laundry for $50" so we decided to refresh a bunch of our clothes - I put in a few t-shirts, bras, pants, pjs, etc.  We filled the bag to the top and called reception to have it picked up - we should have that clean laundry back today.  We have free laundry on the ship but we are here for 3 more days and my bras were sour.  It's so hot you're so sweaty and my prosthetics, while cool, are foam so I sweat even more.  You know what's not fair?  Under boob sweat when you don't have boobs!

I worked a little bit, blogged a little bit last night and went to bed around 9:30pm and read probably until about 10pm.  

I got crying calls today from both the girls - Paige had a mid-term in Psych and didn't think she did well even though she studied and Sophie paid to do a practice exam in Economics and didn't do well at it so both of them were frustrated and upset.  University is a lot different than what they were used to in high school.

Hanói City Tour - Day 6

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.

I eat so much more here for breakfast than I would at home (which is a protein iced coffee)

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.

I took this photo today but this isn't the part of the street with the cafes.

Here is a visual representation of our trip - white is land, orange is ocean.

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.

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.

We are in pants and shirts with sleeves because we are going to a Temple

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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Of course at some point we have to do the "reality" shot with all the people.

In 300 yrs (approx 1450-1750) only 1304 people passed the Kings Exam.  The youngest was 13 and oldest 74, who passed after his 3rd attempt.  Only men could take the Kings Exam and it was held every 4 years.  It focussed on strategy and problem solving and you could earn a place as a Royal Advisor if you passed.  Hieu (Oh, Hieu is our Guide today!) told me there is no recording of how many people attempted the exam but only a few passed it. Their names are inscribed in stone with their addresses and it has been named a UNESCO heritage site.

These are called Dragon Tiles, they look like Carp Scales because 
legend has it the Dragons derived from Carp that could make it up the
3 waterfalls and only the strongest could make the trip
and they were rewarded by turning into Dragons.

This is an Incense Burner, a replica of the one used
when the Royal Family would come to pray.

This is what Vietnamese call a Unicorn.

In Vietnamese tradition a bride and groom have their wedding pictures taken in several places with several different clothes in the weeks before their wedding.  Then they'll decide which dress/suit they want to wear on the wedding day.  This is a couple who was doing their wedding photos with a photographer.

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. 

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.

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.

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""

This is a monument for John McCain who parachuted into the lake.

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

Tilapia - I skipped a few pics by accident - so you missed the salad which was excellent.

Beef in a Bamboo Pipe

Was served with Rice and Veggies

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.