May 25th – On my way back to Ho Chi Minh City on the last leg of my journey. While I’m incredibly excited to go back home to my wife I find myself saddened to leave the boys to continue on with their travels. To say that these last two weeks have been an adventure would be the understatement of understatements. It feels like the past 2 weeks have been surreal — kind of like a blur.
**Flash back sequence**
May 10 – We started in the north of Vietnam and slowly worked our way south. The differences between Hanoi and Saigon were stark to say the least. You could feel the frenetic energy in Saigon, the restaurants, art galleries, clothing tailors, and the nightlife.
May 16 – Our first day in Saigon was an all day tour starting out with the former South Vietnam presidential palace equipped with the war rooms and command centers in the basement to the residential suites for foreign dignitaries once visited by Richard Nixon.
Our tour guide was a gentleman by the name of Giao Chau from Buffalo Tours who had a strong command of the English language and was able to articulate a lot of the history and culture of Vietnam. Giao made our stay in Saigon very memorable as we felt like we had our own personal valet.
We were fortunate enough to see most of the highlights of the city in our first full day. You couldn’t help but notice the wide tree lined boulevards in and around the town. The center of Saigon kind of had a hint of Paris to it. Get it? Vietnam was once a French colony.
Saigon also had the very hi-end shops, which made Gesy, the Brazilian Princess, feel very much at home. You had shops like Hermes, Ferragamo, Louis Vuitton, and Cartier. (Please ask Gesy for the list of fine shops, she had committed to memory) I’m wondering whether her afternoon shopping spree, or as I would describe it an injection of monetary stimulus into their local economy, will be reflected in next quarter’s Vietnamese retail sales and local GDP figures. It was funny to see that every time she left one of these fine shops Gesy was able to leave members of the staff with a lasting smile. I leave it to Gesy to be a team player and for being a solid supporter of the local economy where ever that might be.
May 17 – we started to make our way to the Mekong River delta about a 3-hour drive away from the city. We were fortunate to have our air-conditioned van equipped with a wifi hotspot, which made the long drive a bit more enjoyable. The scenery was beautiful and I lost count of how many rice paddies we went by.
We arrived at the Mekong River Delta where we boarded our, let’s say, 27-foot very basic floating vessel. I was amazed at the floating villages, open markets, and even local art galleries. One small point their local art galleries are nothing like we are use to in the United States: trust me it adds to the adventure. However, on a small note, I did learn how rice cakes were made.
One of the day’s highlights was when Michael launched his aerial camera drone. The locals were coming out of their floating homes just to see this unidentified object flying through the air — technology like this has never made it to this far corner of the world and my boys were able to create some unforgettable moments for a lot of people that day. The children jumping up and down just waving at the drone not really knowing what it actually was.
We eventually transferred to two smaller boats to take in the jungles of the Mekong. Imagine a shallow undeveloped Venice where there was nothing but lush jungle for as far as the eye could see. After we disembarked from these small vessels we got back into our van where we traveled back to the ‘comforts’ of our Saigon hotel.
We had gone pretty deep into what Vietnam had to offer, but nothing had prepared us for Cambodia. Stay tuned.