VIETNAM – North to South

After our New Year celebrations, Ha Long Bay was explored via a junk out to the beautiful carsts. If you have seen the magical Chinese paintings that show carsts like these erupting from out of solid ground, you will realize they truly exist – especially when you see them here rising out of the water. Haru and Larkin got to walk into a cave, Dau Go, that was remarkable with tons of stairs and no rails…glad I stayed behind and enjoyed her photos! You can see the junks that a few of us waited in, in the background of her photo from the cave landing above the entrance.

Michele (Michael), from Italy was on this junk and Larkin got to practice her Italiano! We also sat with Ning, Weiwin, Paul and Sherrill. The bridge below was under construction in 2006 and finished when Larkin and I visited at Thanksgiving in 2007! The bridge links different sides of the city together – our boat is in front of the bridge. Sailing away that evening was eye candy through all the carst!

Interesting, with our entire cruise down the coast of Vietnam and seeing many of the same things we saw in the 2000’s, I realize I miss the food trip Michael and I took to Vietnam – same food, less people, more interesting junk boat trips. The food as always was, and is, some of my favorite food – I love all the Asian flavor profiles. We started with a junk, sadly generic and NOT wooden with no sailing potential. No fish market to visit and have lunch on the junk after buying seafood, as they have been moved to the city. After seeing a little boy pee off the dock in 2006, the understanding as to why is obvious even though it takes some of the charm away!

Next up was the “central coast” as we Californians would call it! The whole two days was strangely out of sync as we stopped north of Da Nang at My An on Chan May bay and we were supposed do an excursion to Dang Nang that first day with way over an hour of driving south, yet the next day we were docked in Da Nang and they had a trip to Hue going north for way over an hour driving past where we were the day before! At least they had interesting boats at our first port tiny there!

For the first time, the next day from Da Nang, Larkin and I went on an excursion to see the Cham civilization ruins called, Mỹ Sơn. The World Heritage ruins, are a cluster of abandoned and partially ruined Hindu temples in central Vietnam, constructed between the 4th and the 13th century by the Kings of Champa. Mỹ Sơn is located 69 km southwest of Da Nang. The temples are in a valley roughly two kilometres wide that is surrounded by two mountain ranges.

From the 4th to the 13th century AD, the valley at Mỹ Sơn was a site of religious ceremony for kings of the ruling dynasties of Champa, as well as a burial place for Cham royalty and national heroes. At one time, the site encompassed over 70 temples as well as numerous stele bearing historically important inscriptions in Sanskrit and Cham. Mỹ Sơn is perhaps the longest inhabited archaeological site in Mainland Southeast Asia, but a large majority of its architecture was destroyed by US bombing during a single week of the Vietnam War.

Most of the temples at Mỹ Sơn were made of red brick, and only one temple was made of stone. Even the decorative carvings on the Cham temples were cut directly onto the bricks themselves, rather than onto stone slabs inserted into brick walls. To this day, the construction techniques used by the Cham builders are not completely understood. Issues that have not been completely resolved include issues about the firing of the bricks, the mortar between the bricks, and decorative carvings found on the bricks. A scale model of the former temple created by Japanese researchers is exhibited in the Museum of Cham in Da Nang which was our next stop. Michael and I had seen this Museum and I remembered many of these statues. Haru and my little hippo Smudge, enjoyed their days too!

The evening after the Cham excursion, we had a fabulous World Cruise event which started with many party boats on the river at Hoi An and our choice of three dining venues. We chose the one on the river and had a wonderful evening. The colorful lights lit up the river! A couple of the boats could pull along side and visit.

Delicious food, drinks and entertainment by the kitty cat as he tackled the tag! The yellow photo at this amount of zoom looks like a dessert, but it was the center of a flower on the table!

Saigon awaited us and our mission; find a tailor and get Larkin a tuxedo type suit made for a wedding she’s in next summer. She’s on the grooms side! We found a tailor called Trish and Verona and they were located approximately 15 minutes walking from the Ben Thanh Market where our bus dropped us off. Larkin and I chose fabrics and got measured. Why you ask was I being measured? Well, when you pack for a world cruise you can leave a few of your absolutely favorite things at home, like nice slim black pants (and my favorite pair of black flats). Since I had to go back in the evening for a final fitting so I could pick them up the next day, we started walking to a hotel on the absolute other side of the market where Quynh’s wife Nhung was suppose to be after flying in from Hanoi. (Quynh was our wonderful local guide twice in Vietnam and we saw him once at our home in California. We have met the entire family and of course his kids are grown up now and attending University). However, I totally misread the email as Nhung had fallen in Hanoi and wouldn’t fly into HMC the next evening late. So there we sat in this quaint boutique hotel, where I had to walk up steep steps and proceeded to plop on a couch to cool off. A lovely fan would grace us with its breeze as it rotated, while the ladies in the hotel called Nhung. We had a nice chat with the family and afterwards Quynh made reservations for us near our tailor at a restaurant called, Vietnam House by Australian/Vietnamese chef, Luke Nguyen who of course wasn’t creating food that night because it was the first day after everyone’s New Years vacation…

The next morning we had a taste of Saigon Street Food. As usual it starts out with walking the stalls in the wet market. From incredible citrus fruits, fresh coconut milk, Garlic and fried onions and garlic, any kind of egg, fresh stripped pineapple read to take home and etc, to fresh meat, dried fish or fresh fish – there is everything one needs for dinner!

The market itself has so much more but as you get outside of the main building, you need to watch for bikes and scooters in the narrow alleyways, and yes they wear the conical hat…its not just to bring home as a novelty!

Next up was a walk to our street food venue. We passed many colorful buildings on our walk to this destination. Street vendors to make it safer for locals and tourists, set up a building where each individual has their own area to present their foods.

The bathroom stalls in the ladies room were quite interesting! Imagine using a few other fruits and vegetables!

Everyone was obviously still in the middle of celebrating the Tet Lunar New Year! Nha Hang Ngon was a place Michael and I found in 2006 before we joined our Culinary cooking class! We arrived early and found this gem…each area with its own stall for their specialty and we ordered what we wanted to be served at our table. Since we were on an excursion that day, lunch was set up for us upstairs. It was quite crowded by the time we left!

After the Street Food tour, we headed back to the ship. Lucy and Chris joined us for the trip back to pick up my pants, Larkin trying on the unfinished tux, AND enjoy the Vietnam Kitchen once again. Lucy and Chris were very patient! Our only true bowl of Pho on the trip was at this restaurant. One can’t visit Vietnam and NOT have authentic Pho! The food and drinks the second night were just as memorable…and yes, I’d go back!

The next day, we left Saigon by 1 p.m. to make it down the river in the daylight hours. We enjoyed seeing not one, but two bridges being built. Its always interesting to wonder how they align each side to connect perfectly. They engineers would know! JJ is loving his time in Idaho – even in the snow!

Up next – Singapore