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I’m combining these two days and they’re not real highlights of the trip so if you are just reading a couple of posts, I would suggest going down to Day 20 and before or go to the Moscow entry (Day 24). My itinerary had two days with no guides or real plans. Vientiane is the capital of Laos and doesn’t have the gritty feel of Hanoi, the cultural feel of Luang Prabang, or the European feel of Saigon. I would describe its ambience as French colonial and Stalinist “grace” mixed with native Buddhist and native Laotian culture.

At first I was wondering why I had left myself two days here with little to do but then I remembered that it seemed like a good idea to recover and get ready for the crazy last 4 days. I found a company that would pick me up at 8:30 AM to go for a boat cruise to a waterfall with a lot of driving. I would return around 4:30, which would leave me just a little time before the guide was picking me up at 5:45 for the airport to Hanoi. That trip seemed like a good idea but I was still tired from the excursions in Luang Prabang and this one sounded similar to what I did on Nov. 11.

When you travel, it’s always a struggle between doing something every possible minute you have and taking time to recuperate. I had taken a couple of partial days to recuperate here and there, but for the most part I was on the side of squeezing in as much as possible.

My first visit was to the Lao National Museum, formerly the Revolutionary Museum that I missed coming in from the airport because it was closed. I wasn’t too interested in the first two parts — pre-history and early dynastic history. The other two parts fascinated me — the “liberation wars” of 1945-1975 and the post-revolutionary era.

Laos had in common with Vietnam that there were the revolutionary forces on the one side and a pro-American government on the other side. The peasants and most of the people in Laos were on the side of the Pathet Lao, the revolutionary forces, but the pro-American side controlled the larger towns and highways, especially during the day. The museum was clearly on the side of the revolutionary forces since they form the government today. This picture is captioned “Mass rally to greet the victorious outcome of the Geneva Conference in 1954.”

This picture’s caption is “French officers and soldiers are preparing to fly out of Lao from Vientiane Airport after the defeat in Indochina.”

1954 could have been the end of the SE Asia wars. The colonial power, France, had decided to go home. The wars were very unpopular at home and a social democratic government had just been elected. The new prime minister promised to get the troops home and he succeeded.

As a patriotic American, I am not proud of what the US did in Indochina. The US was the only country in the Geneva Convention who was belligerent and working behind the scenes to stop any peace agreement. The decision later on to move troops into SE Asia was one of the worst American decisions of the 20th century.

The Pathet Lao revolutionary forces used a large set of caves as a headquarters and for living space for up to 23,000 people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viengxay_caves. These pictures are of a meeting of Panthet Lao leaders and of a cave school.

Women shooting an anti-aircraft gun. The pose of the woman on the left is typical of that era.

The caption below is “These weapons were brought to Laos by the American imperialist for use in their expanding special war.”

I’m not going to go into the whole history of the American war in Laos but this map fascinated me. I had been to the massive former US military base in Khe Sanh, Vietnam (see Nov. 7 blog entry). My guide there had commented about how important this base was not only for the US war in Vietnam but as a center for attacking Laos. The Ho Chi Minh Trail was located just inside Laos and was the main supply route from North Vietnam to the fighters in South Vietnam. This map shows how the US attacks came from Khe Sanh into Laos.

This shows the routes of the final battles of the Laos war that the Panthet Lao revolutionary forces won in 1975.

On a lighter note, I got a chance to talk with and have my picture taken with a set of school girls and with a Buddhist monk who were also visiting the museum.

For dinner, the center of Vientiane where I was staying was filled with pseudo-European places. There were many options for foods like spaghetti, French pastries, and sanitized Laotian food. There was a square filled with such restaurants around this large central fountain.

I avoided these restaurants and ate in a very simple place that had only Laotian people in it. I wouldn’t have done this at the beginning of the trip. I’m getting more brave (stupid?) as time goes on. I had ginger chicken with rice, soup, and Lao beer. It cost probably about $5. It wasn’t very memorable but I liked the simple ambience.

The next day, I took  a 10 minute walk from my hotel to Wat Si Saket, a beautiful Buddhist temple built in 1818. Apparently, it’s in the Siamese style which kept it from being destroyed by the Siamese since they used it as a headquarters in the 1820’s.

There were 2000 statues of Buddha, which again struck me as overkill. Each wall had Buddha after Buddha next to more Buddhas. Here are a few along one wall.

Tuk-tuk’s are motorcycles with a passenger area body built on top. They’re all over in India, Laos, and Cambodia, among many other Asian countries. They’re banned in Hanoi since the traffic just couldn’t handle them. I had ridden a rickshaw in Hanoi and a tuk-tuk at the Taj Mahal  four years ago but no tuk-tuk on this trip. Unfortunately I found what turned out to be a shady character hanging around Wat Si Saket who offered to take me around on his tuk-tuk. It turned out his tuk-tuk was not in great shape. Several motorbike riders held their noses from the fumes while going by us. It wasn’t really comfortable either.

I wanted to see the Thai border so we started out going to the Friendship Bridge. After driving a while, I realized it was an hour each way, which didn’t seem like fun especially since I was starting to get a headache from the fumes. We turned around and went to the Laotian version of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, called Patuxay.

There was a very unusual description on an official plaque, which says it was “built in 1962 but never complete due to the country’s turbulent history. From a closer distance, it appears even less impressive, like a monster of concrete.” Usually, official plaques try to hype the monument, not put it down. It was impressive but some other parts of Vientiane, it was European colonial style and not worth spending more than a few minutes to see.

Several monks and others enjoyed sitting at the monument.

I ran into this distance tree after being free of the tuk-tuk. Paris was under attack right around then with over 100 killed. It was 9,237 km (5,749 miles) away. New York was 13,476 km (8,374 miles); Thailand 1 km; Capetown, South Africa 10,587 (6,578 miles); Brisbane 7416 km (4,608 miles); and the North Pole 8,014 km (4,982 miles). So Australia, Paris, South Africa, and the North Pole were similar distances.

I had a little bit of time before they were picking me up to go to Hanoi and another of my goals was to have a massage in Laos. There was one just a 5 minute walk from my hotel that had good reviews, called Champa Spa. When I went in they had me take off my shoes and socks and sit in a chair that had a small built in sink for feet. They gave me a short foot massage then took me up an elevator to a private room with a mattress on the floor. The woman was great. She gave me a full body massage in one hour including briefly climbing on my back. No funny stuff was included in case you’re wondering.

My visit to Vientiane was not a highlight of my trip but it did end well. I went for a walk to a park along the Mekong to see the sunset. Many people were doing the same thing, including the woman who did my massage but mostly teens.

The sunset was spectacular. Once again, I needed my friend Michael Bronfenbrenner (see Facebook — Through The Lens Stories) to capture it like it should be done. Thailand is on the other side of the Mekong here.

I’m sure that if I stayed longer in Vientiane I would find more that I would appreciate. Maybe I’ve gotten spoiled and expect too much. If I had to pick one highlight, it would be the museum since the biggest theme of this trip is the Vietnam War. I will be posting soon an overall summary of my feelings about the war although it’s not hard to get the gist of how I feel from the entries so far.

Now, I’m on to Hanoi overnight then on to Moscow tomorrow morning.

If you’re planning to read only a couple of blogs, this is a good one to skip. Nov. 10 and Nov. 11 were much more interesting days in Laos. Today I left Luang Prabang and flew to Vientiane, the capital of Laos. I asked at the airport how much it would cost to fly business class and they just gave me a business class seat for no charge. There were 16 business class seats on the plane and I was the only one in them except for 5 Lao Airline employees in uniform. The flight was in the air for only 35 minutes and was about 250 km (150 miles or so). Driving would have taken 9.5 hours and was about 400 km (250 miles).

The guide was not at the level of Pawn from Luang Prabang. His English comprehension seemed to be not too good. If I asked him something he would often just nervously laugh or say yes or move on to something else. I realized how good the quality of the guides has been up to this point.

The guide did get very excited and effective when he talked about the myths behind the sculptures at the Buddha Park, our first stop. This was a bizarre collection of many dozens of sculptures, each telling a story with a moral to it.

The most striking piece was this massive pumpkin shaped model of the world. You can see people at the top. It had 4 levels inside, each representing a different phase of grace. At the bottom was the fiery depths of hell while the higher levels were of grace for those who had lived better lives. It sounded similar to  fundamentalist Christianity.

The scary part was climbing the winding and narrow steps to the top. I went ridiculously slow and had to be semi-rescued once. I had many opportunities to bang my head and hit my knee. Here is the guide going into the stairs from the top.

The stories were fairly long and mostly interesting but I couldn’t follow them totally . I did take notes for one, so here goes.

The process of life begins when this cupid-like person shoots an arrow from a man to a woman. There’s an arrow on the ground to make it clear where it’s going.

The arrow points to four sculptures around a central statue. The first of these represents being born.

The second statue is of us getting old.

The third is for when we get sick.

Finally, we die. I’m not sure if that’s Buddha standing on the dead person.

There statues are placed in a circle with statues of people who are keeping track of whether we have been living a good life.

In the middle of the four parts of life is an all-seeing three-faced multi-leveled statue. The top layer represents the highest level of good and each layer below is worse until the skulls, which is the very worst. Below the skulls are 3 faces which are also checking out how you have lived.

There were so many weird statues, each with a story just as detailed.

I think the guide said that the park was built by someone who wanted to get people to life a good Buddhist life with the fear of afterlife being a strong motivator. It seemed like this was the intention. I need to know more about the Buddhist religion. I don’t think of it being a fear-based religion at all.

I had heard that there are two types of Buddhism, one that started in India and moved to many countries including Laos. The other started in China and moved to many other countries including Vietnam. I had also heard that one type venerates Buddha as a God-like being while the other sees Buddha as a great teacher but is not as much into the intense worship of the person. Obviously, for me the second type is more appealing. I like the feeling of forgiveness, simplicity, and peace of Buddhism. I’m not a fan of reincarnation or worshiping a person.

The itinerary had us going on to Pha That Luang, “a gleaming golden stupa which is perhaps most important national monument in Laos” and then to the Lao National Museum. Unfortunately, it was 4 PM and both were closed. We could still go to the stupa but we could not go inside.

The guide explained that if you have a bad dream, you can see a monk who might suggest that you build one of these with lots of offerings at each level. The worse the dream, the more levels you should build. Seems cheaper than psychoanalysis and possibly as effective for some.

I had some time at the hotel before they picked me up to go to dinner and see a dance show. I was reminded of one reason I don’t like to go on organized tours that include meals. There were several tour groups here and consequently the food had to be bland yet seemingly from the local country. It tasted a lot like a Chinese buffet in Indiana, PA.

The dance and the music were quite good but there was something about the ambience that hit me the wrong way.

I can’t tell if the trip is starting to get to me making me too critical or if it was something else. The Buddha Park is one of the most unusual and almost surrealistic things I’ve seen. It probably was very effective if its goal was to scare believers into leading a more pure life. For me, I was reminded that I am probably destined for hell in many if not all religions.

If yesterday was maybe the most memorable, today was my most exhausting day. It rivals the day I went to the market in the far north of Vietnam for the most exotic day. But first I have to start with the heart-warming story of my guide. Today was her 40th birthday. I asked her to take me to a European-style convenience store the hotel told me was nearby so I could buy her a box of chocolates. The driver and I sang Happy Birthday. She seemed touched since no one had done much for any of her birthdays.

Her name is Khamchan Khouchalearn but she thankfully uses the nickname Phown, pronounced like the word “pawn”. Her last name means gold moon, a combination of her mother and father’s last names. She was the best guide I’ve had among the 8 or so I’ve had on this trip. She grew up in a tiny village in an ethnic minority area of Laos. Her family moved into Luang Prabang where she worked as a housekeeper. A foreigner saw her potential and paid for her to go to school. She worked as an unpaid intern in the Elephant Village. She was so intelligent and hardworking (she would never say that) that she got hired full-time as a guide and worked there 4 years. Again a foreigner paid for her this time to go to the government guide school. For the last year, she’s been a freelancer, working mostly for the company that has been providing guides for me on this trip.

Pawn is an example of a woman overcoming great odds through her intelligence and very strong work ethic to make it in very much a man’s world. She was the first female Elephant Village guide. I’d be surprised if my company (or any other in Asia) has many female guides in any of its many Asian countries. What made her the best guide was her creativity in terms of coming up with improvements to the itinerary and her thoughtfulness.

Back to my day. We saw a logging elephant alongside the road. Pawn was sad for the elephant, saying she could tell it was not happy. She’s guessing that the elephant’s owner was using the elephant in illegal logging.

After a few hours, we took break at the village of Pak Mong, Laos. About 110 miles to the left is China. A little less than100 miles to the right is Vietnam. It’s only about 175 miles to Dien Bien Phu where the French were defeated by the Vietnamese.

I had a coffee and my guide bought lunch for her and the driver of frogs, crickets, and sticky rice.

Here’s a closeup of the crickets. Maybe I should have warned you about this first for those who are easily grossed out.

Frogs and crickets that have been sitting in a display case without refrigeration in close to 90 degrees is not tempting to me. This made me think of where I draw the line in “going native” when traveling. For example, I have avoided eating western food for lunch and dinner but I don’t like Asian breakfasts, which are basically the same as Asian lunches and dinners. A thick Pho (soup with meat and vegetables) or a ginger pork stir fry just don’t work for me for breakfast. I’m willing to be a European for breakfast and have crepes or an omelet. I prefer seeing where Asian people are living and working rather than hanging out in the European areas in Asia. However, I’m OK with staying in European style hotels. I like the comfort and features of a hotel similar to what I’m used to. Maybe the biggest line I draw though is that I’m willing to go to “exotic” places like this in the first place.

Also from the crossroads village of Pak Mong — Garlic and pig fat (in the bottles).

Water buffalo,

We left the main road to Vietnam. This ethnic minority woman was tiny but my guide said she is very strong.

A highlight of the day was stopping at a ethnic minority primary school in Ban Thalinua (spelling?) village, Nam Bak District, Luang Prabang Province. Pawn thought probably none had ever seen a European before.

Third graders.

The guide suggested an amount of money to give to the school, which she said would be used to buy a soccer ball and more. We went to the director’s office where the treasurer or maybe she was the assistant director carefully recorded my name and how much I had given in an official looking ledger.

The graphs on the wall were of test results for the past 10 years or so. the first 5 bars are grades 1-5. Each set of 5 is another year starting with 2003 and going to much better scores in 2014. I wonder if the teachers are teaching more to the test.

The director is to the right of me in the picture and the assistant director is on the far right in the back.

A pineapple field on the side of the road.

We finally reached our goal, the village of Ban Nayang, where the ethnic minority Thai Lu people produce cotton and weave silk. Pawn is explaining the process of making the cotton.

They weren’t in full swing as it was rice harvesting time and most were in the fields.

This is their homemade cotton dyed with local indigo plants.

A loom.

Sandalwood (?) had been used to create this color.

I was amazed at all the colors used in this loom.

I bought this piece made by this woman. She asked for a little less than $4.  It  would not have felt right for me to try to negotiate the price down from there.

Most of the homes were built on stilts so that they could have their animals underneath them and keep their cooking wood dry.

The home where I bought the piece was the only one I saw that had a shrine of sorts at the top.

It was a beautiful but dusty village. with spectacular scenery.

Some of the many people I said “sabadee” (hello) to.

We then had over an hour drive to get to the riverboat. I had a picnic lunch from the hotel, including this fruit which I’m not sure I should have eaten. The rule is not to eat any raw fruits or vegetables since they may have been washed by the unhealthy water. I was hoping not to get sick.

Beware, behind my fruit are the crickets and frogs for the guide and driver. Pawn’s mother doesn’t know how to use chopsticks. Chopsticks and a spoon are the standard silverware in Vietnam but the Laotians prefer to eat with their hands. They have spoons but only for soup.

We had to walk down a long trail to get to the riverboat. The captain was very experienced. He knew the Nam Ou river well.

The boat ride took over 3 hours. There were frequent one-person fishing boats, rapids, beautiful mountains, and peaceful moments.

When I got back to the hotel, I was not just tired, I was more tired than I had been at anytime during this trip except perhaps after the 16 hour flight to China. We had gone through so many paths, climbed so many hills, and spent so many hours in the car and boat that it was hard for me to move. My plans for walking through Luang Pabang to find an interesting place to eat were gone. I could barely get myself to order room service. Surprisingly, the hotel food wasn’t bad — red chili ginger pork.

The trip to the village was very similar to the village trip in northern Vietnam. I feel like these people may indeed have very happy lives. They work as a community with their art and with their farming. They didn’t have iPhones or cars but they had what seemed to be comfortable lives and beauty all around.

Today has to be one of the very best of the trip. When I saw my itinerary included getting up before dawn to give alms to monks, I was not excited. However, once I got here and my wonderful guide strongly recommended I do it, I could not say no. I really respect the Buddhist religion, maybe more so than others. I like its focus on peace, forgiveness, and inner tranquility.

I had a question to my guide that I hope didn’t offend her. She told me that Buddhism does not require a tithe but that people are free to give whatever is in their heart. She said that whatever you give will be waiting for you in the next life. My question was whether it is selfish to be generous if the reason you are generous is to have a better next life.

Having said all that, I loved giving rice and other treats to the monks. The tour company had set up a rug for me with a stool and container of rice. I also bought some biscuits from sellers nearby. The guide put the sash on me. She told me to stand to give the alms but women are supposed to sit.

The monks came in groups of about 20, starting at 6 AM. Each group was led by an older monk followed by mostly young boys.

I was reminded of my 2 years on the assembly line in Montreal when I was in my 20’s. The monks came  quickly and I had to hustle to get clumps of rice to give each one. Occasionally I was too slow and a monk would close his bowl. They didn’t stop.

This is the only meal of the day for these monks. I’m guessing that it’s a good meal since there were plenty of tourists around. We then went to another street where there was a line of Laotians giving alms to the same monks.

I was surprised at the young age of the monks. Most looked to be early teenagers. Apparently, the older monks take the boys in and only a few decide to continue. They would have to be celibate if they continue.

I didn’t find this to be a spiritual or religious experience for me. I loved the pagentry of the ritual but it did not make me feel closer to any gods. This was a way for these monks to get food for the day. I’m sure it’s spiritual for others and if I was a religious person I might have sensed some higher meaning. None of that takes away from my pure enjoyment of experiencing this ceremony.

We went into a temple, with dozens of Buddhas in it. My guide prayed and I took pictures.

Although it wasn’t on my itinerary, the guide brought us to the morning market. This did not look like Giant Eagle in Indiana, PA. There were many types of rice to choose from.

There were many colorful delicacies.

I wish I could bring back some of these spices.

These are frogs.

Edible flowers, I think.

Birds for sale in the cages.

Fish were for sale at many stalls.

They sent me back to my hotel and gave me until 8:30 to have breakfast and recover. I was shocked to channel surf and find the replay of the Steelers – Raiders game. It looked like the NFL Network’s rebroadcast, since they skipped through most of the huddles, timeouts, and commercials. The US announcers could be heard softly in the background but there were two Laotian commentators. I loved hearing the occasional English word, such as “false start”, mixed in with the Laotian. Just a few minutes before I had to go, the Steelers kicked a field goal with no time on the clock to win 38-35.

Next stop was the Elephant Village. At first, I was disturbed about sitting on an elephant. Wouldn’t that be abusive to the elephant? In today’s news, they announced that the whale shows would end to a certain extent at Sea World. Was my trip here going to be just like a whale show?

As far as I can tell, it’s legit. The history they showed at the site said that Laos used to be known as the Land of a Million Elephants but there are less that 1000 that remain.  Many of these were used in the logging industry and are no longer needed. Since they had been domesticated, they could not easily return to the forest. This rescue group, called Elephant Village, has protected them and given them work with humans, much like horses are used in our culture. These elephants have a very close relationship with their Mahout, or handler, and are given full medical care. According to my guide (who worked here for four years previously), the elephants like the work of carrying humans, that it’s easy for them and almost feels like a massage.

The mahout for my elephant had been with the same elephant for over 10 years. The elephant belonged to his father who owned her and was her mahout before. The relationship is very close, much like someone who has a long-term relationship with a horse in our culture.

I felt a little nervous climbing on top of this massive creature but it was evident that the Mahout knew what he was doing. We started by going down a path, which was a little crazy because the zig-zagging made the side to side movement worse. The path was going towards the river and I assumed we were going to go along a path on the side of the river.

Imagine to my surprise, we started plowing through the river! They told me later that the elephant loves to go in the river to cool off and to be able to drink as much water as she wants. The elephants also liked the light rain we were having.

Elephants eat about 250 kg (550 lbs.) per day and leave about 65 kg (145 lbs.) as waste. They drink about 75 liters of water. They are also very intelligent creatures. And very beautiful, I might add.

Going in the water was a total surprise but I had a much bigger surprise coming up. When we got to a small island, the Mahout got off the elephant and asked me to move forward so I was sitting on the elephant’s neck. I had to ask him to repeat himself a couple of times to make sure I was hearing him right. I had to put my shoes on her neck then slide forward until I was fully sitting on her neck with my feet protected by her ears.

The sensation when she flapped her ears was bizarre. My legs felt a sudden strong draft of air when the ears opened then a sense of warmth as the ears closed again around my legs.

A scary moment was when he asked me to get back on the bench and I couldn’t get the leverage right. I needed to lift myself from behind to pick my body up and then sit up closer to the bench. I was only able to do it with the help of a Mahout from another elephant who was right nearby. I’m sure I would have gotten it eventually but it was a little unrattling.

From this view, I had been sitting just in front of where my shoes are here with my legs snuggled underneath the elephant’s ears.

It felt so safe now to be with a seatbelt and safety bar on a wide seat. We continued out of the water and these school children waved at the elephant and me.

When the hour ride was up, I bought 3 bunches of bananas for 20,000 kip (about $2.50) to feed to my elephant. They told me to keep the peels on and put 2 bananas at a time in her mouth. At first, i was hesitant, but they assured the elephant wouldn’t bite and I really enjoyed it.

My elephant didn’t like having the bananas put on the end of her trunk but the one next to her did so I tried that.

I gave some of my bananas to this child and he was very afraid but eventually tried it.

I felt a kind of spiritual connection with this beautiful animal, more so than with the monks although that too was a wonderful experience.

We then walked to a beautiful lookout to have lunch. On the way we passed a small boat made out of a US bomb shell. You can’t get away from the war even in this tranquil setting.

My guide on a swinging bridge.

I spent close to an hour just chilling at this spot. This was one of the best moments of the trip.

This is the view from that spot. There are three elephants in the second picture where I had been before. The island where I got on the neck is on the left.

On the way out, we passed the veterinarian’s station and saw information about my elephant. She was born in November 1975, which coincidentally is the same month and year that my guide was born. She weighs 2.432 metric tons, which is 5,362 pounds. As the guide said, humans riding on elephants’ backs are not a burden.

We moved on to Ban Phanom, which according to my itinerary is “a village steeped in traditional textile making with all the families in the village working their looms to provide goods for sale at the night markets. The methods, techniques and patterns used today are still those of past times. Some of the families work from their own small workshops with the whole village operating as a co-operative supplying to a handful of manufacturers.”

I got a demonstration of the weaving process and of the fabrics used, which I’m sure someone who knew something about this would have been able to understand more fully.

This young woman asked 50,000 kip (about $6) for this whatever it is. I asked my guide to ask if they would give me a discount and the price went to 40,000. I said 30,000 (about $3.65) and to my surprise she said OK. I felt bad as I always do because the price seemed so low for something handmade that was worth much more. They said it takes three days to make something like this.

I was back at the hotel by 1 PM from a day that started at 5 AM with breakfast, feeding monks at 6 AM, riding an elephant, and sitting with one of the most beautiful landscapes I’ve seen. When I’m home in the US, by 1 PM I have gotten up around 11, eaten breakfast and slowly had my coffee, then spent maybe an hour taking one of my MOOC courses or planning a trip. I guess there is a difference.

The theme for today was the Vietnam War. When they instituted the lottery for choosing people to be drafted during the Vietnam era, they put a ball for each of the 366 days of the year and mixed them in a hopper. If the first ball that was picked was your birthday, you would be chosen first for the draft. My birthday came up as number 341 out of 366 in the 1969 lottery so I felt comfortable that I would not be chosen. However, it turns out that I was not eligible for that lottery. I was a year younger than most of my friends so I had to wait until the next year’s lottery.

My number for the 1970 lottery was 214. In 1969, they went up to 195 so I was worried that I could be called into the military. I had already decided that I would not go into the military if drafted. I was a student at McGill University in Montreal, Canada and would have applied for Canadian immigrant status. If I had been drafted, I probably would not have been able to visit the US until amnesty was declared by President Ford several years later. It turns out they only drafted the first 125 birthdates that year. By the way, the first lottery was flawed in that people with later birthdays (Dec., Nov., Oct., etc.) were more likely to be higher on the list and called early. This is well known by statisticians and I ran statistical tests myself. Please contact me if you would like to know more. I did apply for Canadian immigrant status anyway in 1973 but it was not because I was trying to avoid the draft.

Back to Vietnam today. The first stop was very intense emotionally. We stopped at a school that was a site of an important battle. They have rebuilt almost everything but they left this school how it was, along with a handful of other structures. You can still see the bullet holes.

What made this stop amazing was this man, who appeared with an entourage at the same time as me. He was a North Vietnamese soldier who had fought in this battle. His good friend died here and he is slightly injured from the battle.

This is the man who came to pay his respects to his fallen comrade who died here.

They asked me to join them in their ceremony to respect the dead and I did so. It might be hard to see in the photos but the man who had fought in the battle had impaled a cigarette on one of the sticks of incense. I asked my guide about this and he explained that ancestor worship includes a belief that you can pass worldly items on to the dead through ceremonies like this. He was giving a cigarette to his dead comrade.

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More than once, guides mentioned how the Buddhist faith encourages forgiveness and looking forward not backwards. They do not hold hatred for soldiers who fought against them. I mentioned to this man that I had protested against the Vietnam War. My guide said that it was not important to say that. It didn’t matter to this man whether I had been a soldier fighting against him or a protester against the war. All that matters is that we live in peace today and respect each other. I really liked this point of view and it makes me respect Buddhism even more. I told this guide later that a sister of my grandfather had been killed along with her husband at Auschwitz. He asked me if I can forgive the German people and of course, I can.

The area of Vietnam we were in is just below the former De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) that used to separate North Vietnam from South Vietnam. As such, there were many important military sites. One of the main ones was called the “Rockpile.” The only way to access it was by helicopter. The guide mentioned stories of wild parties including hookers imported from Thailand held up there. I remember a movie that showed crazy scenes from here. The hill in the background is the Rockpile.

When I left for this trip, I promised to be super careful about what I ate. I would only eat at the tourist hotels so that I could avoid spending my time in bathrooms. It had now been about two weeks and I felt fine so the ban on local food was long gone. We were at  the city of Khe Sanh, almost at the former US base when we had lunch. The guide, and the driver and I ate at a roadside restaurant that had probably never or almost never had an American eat there. What I loved about it was that the cooking was done outside by the street so I could watch what was going on.

If you’re not into cooking, please skip below to what was a very intense visit to the Khe Sanh airbase. First she threw a pile of noodles in the Wok.

Then she added some sauce.

Then she added the green onions.

Next came the sprouts and the cabbage that had been boiled separately.

She put it all together with some of the broth on top.

Next she threw all of it into the Wok again. I’m not sure she meant to have this much of a flame.

She stirred it all together and put it on the plates for the three of us.

Here is the view from the street of the restaurant.

On our way up to the Khe Sanh base, we passed a monument to all the dead from the village.

There’s a brief article about Khe Sanh at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khe_Sanh_Combat_Base but it was a defining moment of the Vietnam War. My guide considered it to be America’s Dien Bien Phu. Den Bien Phu was the critical battle that the French thought of in 1954 as their ultimate stand against the Ho Chi Minh forces. It was a major disaster for the French and led to them retreating from Vietnam.

Khe Sanh was an important base because it was close to the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which was the main supply route for materials from North Vietnam to support the troops fighting the US in the South. It was at high elevation and near both Laos and North Vietnam. The main battle here took place in 1968 following the Tet Offensive, the most important military action of the Vietnam War. US B-52 bombers dropped “more than 75,000 tons on the People’s Army of Liberation”. The living conditions for the US troops was terrible during this siege. The US forces abandoned the base on July 5, 1968.

Here is a crashed US aircraft at Khe Sanh.

These are tanks sitting on the abandoned air strip.

Here are some other abandoned US military items displayed on the site of the former US base at Khe Sanh.

This is a worried President Johnson looking over a map of Khe Sanh.

These are personal items from soldiers.

These US bombs were designed to bore into the ground and to look like trees. They were actually listening devices.The stem at the top is a radio transmitter.

This was the point I got very disturbed.  Two Vietnamese came up me to with competing trays of souvenirs from the war. I took a picture of a dog tag from a US soldier. It has his name and  on it. There are two reasons I’m not posting it. One is that his social security number is on it. The other is that it’s disturbing that these people were trying to sell the very personal effects of people who went through such a tragedy. I googled him and found his name at this site along with hundreds of others so I’m not divulging anything by giving you the link — www.atroop412cav.com/A%20Troop%204-12%20Cavalry%20Vietnam%201968-1971%20Roster.html

The person on the dog tag is one of the many who is listed as LOC or “Trooper Located”, which I think means he survived. I have no idea if the dog tag is authentic or not but it really brought home the fact that 50,000 plus US soldiers died along with many more Vietnamese in this war. I still feel emotionally disturbed several days later by having seeing this.

The next stop was to cross the bridge from the former South Vietnam to the North. The bridge is painted yellow on the South side and blue on the North side.

Both sides used megaphones like this one to yell propaganda at the other side.

The guide is pointing to where we were on a map. The red lines are the boundries of the two sides of the DMZ. Instead of the DMZ being fixed at the 17^th parallel as originally planned, it followed the river. We were very close to the Pacific Ocean on the right of the map.

The area just north and east of where he was pointing was our next stop. This area was heavily bombed by the US forces since it was a major route for supplies to sneak across the border. The residents often did not have time to retreat to bomb shelters so they built living quarters underground. The underground tunnels Keith and I saw near Saigon were used for the soldiers not primarily for families like these.

Here are some American bombs of the type that drove people to live underground.

My guide is getting ready to go into the tunnel. I’ll follow him.

I’m next to a model of a resident of the tunnels.

More pictures from underground.

When I was in Paris in 2003, Margaret, Keith, and I climbed up the narrow staircase to the top of the Sacre Coeur Church in Montmartre. About halfway up I had a panic attack. I hadn’t realized that I get panic attacks in small spaces before then. I have mostly forgotten about that incident until being in these tunnels. About halfway through I felt the world closing in on me. I asked the guide if it was quicker to go back or forward. He told me about a side exit that overlooked the ocean, which I gladly went to. The bad news was that I would have to return to the tunnels to get back. I skipped a side tunnel to the large meeting hall and didn’t really pay attention to several of the models of rooms. Somehow after the break outside I felt better and was able to get to the other side without another panic attack. Here I am celebrating the fresh air.

I stopped to use the outdoor facilities when the guide pointed out that we were around rubber trees. In the second picture, he’s snapping a piece of rubber from the tree.

The guide asked me if I wanted to join them for dinner. He said the food in the hotel is not great and he knew a good place. Usually, the guides drop me sometime between 4 and 6 and I do my own dinner. I was very tired from a very full day but I couldn’t turn down his offer. The specialty dish of this street restaurant was this “sticky rice”, crispy, pancake-like thing made with egg and pork shavings

I had wanted to get a feel for the Vietnam War sites we heard about every day on the news in the 1960’s and early 1970’s. I certainly got that today. I was harshly reminded that these are not Disney-like fun replicas but the all-too-real thing. The person whose name tag I saw and the North Vietnamese soldier giving his cigarette to his dead companion really brought that home to me.

I had four down experiences today. I almost fell when I got tired of walking on the stone walkway at the tunnels and slipped on the clay next to it. The guide said he was going to mention this to me. It wasn’t the guide’s fault. He was a wonderful companion and had so much to tell me. Another down experience was the very long day in the car with over 6 hours of driving. We went from the Pacific Ocean to just a few miles from the Laotian border. The other down experiences were the panic attack and the big one, the feeling at Khe Sanh.

In spite of these down experiences, I wouldn’t have traded this day for anything. I have wanted to see these places for myself for decades. Of course, I did not want to see these places during the war. My favorite part of the day was the idea of forgiveness and looking to the future.

The highlight for me today was my guide’s story about his grandfather and father. Fortunately, I took notes on my iPhone as we were driving (thank you autocorrect).

• His grandfather worked for the Vietnamese monarchy well before WW2.
• He joined Ho Chi Minh’s forces that were fighting against the Japanese during WW2 and was one of the people that freed the rice that the Japanese had stolen from the Vietnamese. Many Vietnamese had died of hunger because the Japanese exported Vietnamese rice to Japan.
• In 1945, Ho Chi Minh got the king in Hue to abdicate. He then declared the foundation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
• In 1947 the French came back after surrendering Vietnam to the Japanese during the war.
• His grandfather was part of the revolutionary forces and was fighting to get the land back from the foreigners.
• His father was born in 1931. He moved to the jungle with his grandfather in 1947 and joined the revolutionary Viet Minh forces.
• The Geneva Convention in 1954 set the 17th parallel as the boundary between the Ho Chi Minh forces in North Vietnam and the US-supported forces in South Vietnam. Elections were supposed to be held in 1956 but the US cancelled them when they realized Ho Chi Minh would easily win.
• His grandfather and father were living near Hue, just south of the 17th parallel. They were afraid to stay in the south in 1956 so the two of them moved across the border to the north.
• He had two uncles who were too small to join the revolution so they stayed in the south with relatives.
• His father became a Viet Cong soldier. but his uncles were conscripted into the pro-American South Vietnamese army during the “Vietnamization” era when the US decided to replace US soldiers with Vietnamese soldiers.
• After the Ho Chi Minh forces defeated the US supported-government in 1975, his two uncles were arrested and sent to reeducation camps.
• He also has an aunt who also stayed in the south but didn’t join the war.
• The two uncles weren’t in the re-education camps for long since they were not high-ranking officials.
• One of his uncles was a technician for the South Vietnamese navy. He stole a boat after leaving the camp and tried to get to another country. My guide does not know what happened to him after all these years.
• The other uncle is still alive and working as a guard for a military airport.
• His father is 83 has earned many medals as a fighter for the Ho Chi Minh forces. His mother died at 35 years old in 1976. The guide feels she would have lived if medicine was available but during that chaotic time it was not possible to get good medicine. The war was supposed to be over but fighting was still going on.

What a story! In the picture above, my guide is standing next to a hemispherical boat that is made of simple materials easily available. It’s used for shrimp fishing. We were at the beach just as they were processing the shrimp for sale.

Women in Vietnam work very hard and seem to be very capable. I liked the helmet of this woman with “Girl” on it. She carried two massive bowls of shrimp and a large basket on her motorbike.

I had to keep my tradition of touching water, this time the “Red Beach” on the Pacific near Danang. Near here is where the French landed in 1885 and where the US military landed in 1963.

We went up Marble Mountain that we were supposed to go up yesterday but the guide wisely postponed it due to the monsoon. My guide joked that we should take the elevator up instead of walking. I often make this comment when there’a big climb.

To my surprise, he wasn’t joking. There really is an elevator.

The views of the Danang area were great from the top.

There were several beautiful temples at the top. This was has 7 levels, which I think is reserved for someone who has reached the 7 levels of Buddhism. I believe only Buddha has reached this level.

I’m more into the War stories and there was another fascinating one here at the top of Marble Mountain. The guide had recently taken a group of US veterans jointly with veterans from Vietnam. One of the Vietnamese had hidden in this cave at the top of the mountain. It has been made into a small shrine. It;s hard to see but a picture here shows that the cave actually goes fairly deep.

The man who hid here was captured by the US forces in 1968. He had been shot with an American AR 15 rifle and flame throwers destroyed half of his face. He had no food or water when he was captured. He was released in 1975 when the war ended.

This mountain has a lot of marble, which explains the name. I bought this little marble turtle to weigh down my overcrowded suitcase.

We stopped every so often to take pictures during the drive up the “Cloudy Pass”.

We stopped for Vietnamese drip coffee (served with sweetened condensed milk on the bottom). I had a pleasant conversation with a woman at the roadside stand. Pleasant until she started to beg me to buy one of her bracelets to help her feed her family. I was unable to fight and paid too much for a bracelet supposedly made of Water Buffalo horn.

We stopped at a bunker site at the top with amazing views.

I needed to go to the bathroom but my guide discouraged me from going to the WC here since they would just try to sell me stuff and we would be delayed. We pulled off on a side road and he told me to go here but to be careful of the Water Buffalo droppings, which were everywhere. He also told me not to leave the road since there may be unexploded landmines around. Message received and fully obeyed!

I haven’t shown a  picture of the large advertisizing posters for the upcoming party congress or something like that. These posters are everywhere.

I had lunch in Hue and ordered what were supposed to be specialties of Hue. One is Banh Nam, which is “Rice Flour, Shrimps, Pork, Steamed in Banana Leaves and Fish Sauce”.

The other Hue specialty was Bun Bo Hue, “Traditional Rice Noodle Soup, Pork, Beef, Crab, and Hue Noodles”. I’ve had many dishes in Vietnam that are similar to this — soup with noodles, meat, and vegetables. You eat it mostly with chopsticks but also with a spoon for the broth.

Our next stop was the featured attraction for the day (even though the story of the guide’s family was my highlight), which is the Hue Royal Palace, which reminds me of a smaller version of Beijing’s Forbidden City.

This was where the ruling Nguyen dynasty ruled from 1802 to 1945. In 1945, Ho Chi Minh got the King to abdicate.

I took this from Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huế). “During the Vietnam War, Huế’s central location very near the border between the North and South put it in a vulnerable position. In the Tết Offensive of 1968, during the Battle of Huế, the city suffered considerable damage not only to its physical features, but its reputation as well, due to a combination of the American military bombing of historic buildings held by the North Vietnamese, and the massacre at Huế committed by the communist forces. After the war’s conclusion, many of the historic features of Huế were neglected because they were seen by the victorious regime and some other Vietnamese as “relics from the feudal regime”; the Vietnamese Communist Party doctrine officially described the Nguyễn Dynasty as “feudal” and “reactionary.” There has since been a change of policy, however, and many historical areas of the city are currently being restored.”

There are bullet holes everywhere but the beauty comes through.

We went on to the Thien Mu Pagoda (“Heavenly Lady Pagoda”), which has only 6 levels so it’s for someone who was as enlightened as is possible, short of Buddha’s 7 levels. My enlightenment level could be represented by a tarp on the floor.

At times, I enjoy displaying the obnoxious tourist that I am. Notice how I’ve messed up my imitation of the Buddha.

the last event for the day was a boat ride on the Perfume River here in Hue. The woman running the boat convinced me to buy a silk shirt. She accepted the amount I wanted because the boat was landing. However, I probably was offering way too much. I am still a terrible negotiator.

On a day that is supposed to be about the beautiful sites of the mountain, the Hue Citadel, and the temple, we were still dominated by the war. It’s impossible to get too far away from the war, even though it was essentially over 40 years ago. Tomorrow will be different in that it will be almost solely about the war.

When I got off the overnight train from Lao Cai in northern Vietnam to Hanoi, I was surprised to see my Apple Watch said I had exercised more than half of my day’s goal. All I had done since midnight was sleep. Of course, the train shook so hard that I was being pushed around, which made my watch mistake it for exercise. All I need to do now is ride two trains a day and I won’t need to exercise at all.

It was easier to sleep on the way back since I was more used to the train but the 4:45 wakeup for the 5:20 arrival came as a big shock to my system. I had maybe 5 hours of sleep and had a busy day coming up. A guide was at the train station to take me to downtown Hanoi for a couple of hours then off to the Hanoi Airport.

The first stop in Hanoi was to see the morning exercise. There were three large groups — the mostly elderly Tai Chi people, the young women doing aggressive aerobics, and the old but not quite as elderly people dancing like they were at a US wedding. Somehow I couldn’t resist joining in just like when I saw the Pope at the Vatican I joined a group of Polish people doing a circle dance.

This was before 6 AM. I’m sure this is the most exercising I’ve done before 6 AM if not in my life at least in decades.

We then went to the wholesale fruit and vegetable market. Market people buy their goods here very early and then take them to their own markets. This was definitely not like the market in northern Vietnam from yesterday. That one was slow paced with time for people to socialize and meet old friends. This market was fast paced with motorcycles, women moving incredibly heavy loads, and aggressive buying and selling.

I liked these fruit carved as Buddhas.

For breakfast I had Pho, Vietnamese noodle soup with chicken and vegetables that you eat with chopsticks and a spoon. It seems to be typical in Asia to have the same food for breakfast as for any other meal. I stick to Vietnamese food all the time except breakfast. I still like eggs, bread, yogurt, and breakfast meats. Vietnam doesn’t have its own cheese or milk.

I believe that in foods and in life, every so often you should try things that you’ve decided you don’t like. You may surprise yourself. Usually not but it’s fun to try.

The flight to Danang was short. Our first stop was the Cham Museum with beautiful sculptures from nearly 1000 years ago. the Cham brought Hinduism to Vietnam. 80% of Vietnamese are now Buddhists, most of the rest are Catholic and Hinduism has for the most part disappeared.

This statue represents the intelligence of the elephant on the top with the strength of the lion on the bottom. Next to that in this picture is someone with the intelligence of a donkey and the body of Buddha.

Danang had probably the most famous air base in Vietnam. It’s also where the French landed their invasion ships in the 1880’s. Here are storage areas from the American base that are still standing.

The Danang area was also famous for “China Beach,” the recreation area for US troops made famous by a popular TV show. It was rainy and cold (70 degrees is cold) so all I could do was pretend to swim.

I remember a friend of mine telling me how awful Venice was. He said it was extremely hot, people he met weren’t friendly, and the food wasn’t good (or something like that). It brought home the lesson to me that people’s impressions of places and maybe of anything else may be based on quirky events. He might have come back another time and had the opposite random events happen to him and he would have talked about how wonderful Venice is. The essence of Venice is less important than the random events that happen to you that day.

Something similar happened to me in our next stop, Hoi An. How An is a beautiful ancient preserved town with a mix of Japanese, French, Chinese, and Indian architecture. The main pedestrian area is filled with historical buildings that normally would be something I would love. (By the way, when they say “pedestrian” in Vietnam they include motorbikes that are weaving in and out all around you).

Today it was hard to appreciate Hoi An. Later on, I listened to the BBC talk about the monsoon that hit the central coast of Vietnam. I can attest to that. The winds and rain were heavy. My rain jacket, jeans, socks and shoes were soaked by the end of the day. An umbrella would have helped a little but not much.

I’m looking wet at the “Japanese Covered Bridge, constructed in the 1590s by the town’s Japanese community to link them with the Chinese quarters across the stream” (from my itinerary).

I really enjoyed this mansion with a store in the front and living quarters in the back. It was a center of activity in support of the Ho Chi Minh forces against the French, Japanese, and American forces. The patriarch of the house is behind Ho Chi Minh in the picture.

We had lunch at the Banh My Phoung restaurant Anthony Bourdain recommended (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUMlwNHNXp0). The French baguette is very crispy and fresh, then they put lots of stuff inside including mayonnaise and their own sauces.  I had the number 9 with pork, ham, and pate, which was one of the two he supposedly recommended the most.

The guide warned me that there might be a possibility of flooding in the area my hotel was in. They could evacuate us to another hotel at higher ground. Fortunately that didn’t happen.

One of the advantages to having a private guide is the lack of drama for mundane tasks like finding the hotel, getting from the airport, and so on. Today there was drama getting to the hotel. They started to get me checked in when they realized they had the wrong hotel. They drove around for a while and seemed to not know where it was. I looked up my itinerary and gave them the address, which was 40 on some street. We found the street and went from 10 to 20 to 48 but no 40. I used google maps and showed them that 40 came after 48 for some unknown reason.

The room seemed great and I laid my clothes out to dry and was about to jump in the shower when I saw significant water leaking from the air conditioner. I put on a robe and called the front desk. They came and after about 20 minutes were starting to redo some of the wiring so I called for a new room. I was in my bathrobe carrying soaked clothes with the help of staff to another floor.

Around 5:30 PM I took a nap and woke up around 4 AM. I had skipped dinner but felt great. I was refreshed and ready for another intense day.

I could say I didn’t like Hoi An because of the weather and problems with the hotel but I won’t. Hoi An is a beautiful place and in other conditions I would have loved it.

The minor adversities today reminded me of how spoiled I am that things like this don’t happen more often. I’m spending a lot of money to travel as drama-free as possible. I feel wimpy sometimes but I can live with it. Most people my age are not out doing this kind of travel at all.

In every trip I’ve had there’s been a day where I was almost scarily far away from home. I was truly out of my comfort zone and in another world today. In my April 2015 trip to Europe, that day was when I was on the road to Mostar in Bosnia-Hersogovina. There were bullet holes everywhere and signs of ethnic clashing around, such as the cyrillic (Russian) alphabet being scribbled off by anti- Serbian Muslims. In my trip to Korea, China, and India in 2011, it was when I was at the De-Militarized Zone between North and South Korea. I was in a hut that straddled the line and was able to go into the North Korea side of the hut. In my trip to the Middle East, it was when I was in the Golan Heights (which is often closed to tourists) at a base used in the 6-day war on a mountain with a sign saying Damascus, Syria was just 60 kilometers away.

Today was that day for this trip. There was very little I experienced today that was similar to home. The transportation, the dress, the foods, and the scenery were not at all familiar. Maybe there will be another day this trip as wild as today but I doubt it.

I have three pictures of unusual and potentially disturbing foods that I will put at the end of today’s blog entry so that people who are squeamish can skip that part. The day began at 8 AM from the Victoria Spa and Resort in Sapa, way up in Northern Vietnam. We had a several hour drive to get to the Cao Sun market, which only happens once a week. The scenery was beautiful.

The road was outrageously primitive although sort of paved. There were massive potholes and it was very windy with cars and motorcycles weaving around people walking. Occasionally, we encountered animals such as these water buffalo fighting.

The people were the ethnic Hmong and Dao. Here are some women taking a breather.

There were times we had to go so slow that my app called Moves, which is always keeping track of where I have gone, thought we were cycling. I got exercise credit for those times. My honesty got in the way and I changed it.

After a couple of hours, the guide got a call from his office that the road was blocked by a mudslide. He considered an alternative route but decided that the market would be finished by the time we got there.

Here’s where we had to stop. It turned out a truck carrying tea had gotten stuck. They used the bags filled with tea to shore up the walls. Many people were milling around watching.

Motorcycles could get around the truck so my guide tried to negotiate with young motorcyclists to borrow their motorcycles for a fee. They insisted on charging what he through was an exorbitant price. They wanted 200,000 dong (about $9) to take one of us on the back of their motorcycle to the market, which was 6 kilometers away (about 4 miles).

We found this boy who agreed to let the three of us ride his motorcycle for 400,000 dong ($18), which was the same price. The guide didn’t like the other people’s attitude and really liked the boy. He also felt I would be safer riding with him than with the young kids.

It was scary riding three on a motorcycle with no helmets through this unpredictably torn up road. When I told Margaret that I had agreed to this she was not happy. I should have shown better common sense. However, it was an unforgettable experience.

My guide took this selfie of the three of us on the motorcycle. We would have been instantly arrested in the US for no helmets and three on a motorcycle.

The guide did drive very carefully and as slowly as he could. I was not relaxed and the thought did come up to bail. The 4 miles took about 25 minutes and needless to say I was glad when we got to the market.

The market was wonderful. I’d like to just show some scenes without commentary.

I love this shot oaf the mother and baby sleeping.

I bought the first item that will weigh down my suitcase too much but I got swept up in the moment.

Here are some boys shooting pool.

Even in the remote highlands of northern Vietnam, cell phones are important.

I ate a fried sweet bean cake which may not have been a good idea. Fortunately it didn’t bother me.

It was explained to me that the market is not just for selling clothes and food. It’s also the weekly socializing point for people who may live in even more remote villages. Boys and girls strut their stuff. Families and friends get a chance to catch up. I loved every minute of being here.

I believe I was the only non-Vietnamese there since the sane people turned around at the mudslide / truck barricade. The people were not overly friendly to me but I never felt in danger.

I was quite a bit less nervous on the 25 minute return on the motorcycle. It was good to see the truck again and know I would have an inside seat with a seat belt.

The road had been cleared out some with the bags of tea used as fodder.

We stopped for the beautiful views a couple of times.

Here was a soccer match along the road at a larger village.

Another wonderful part of this day is that my guide had us stop the car and go for a 45 minute walk through a village and farm area. First step was to go over this shaky bridge. I got the guide to go in front so I could hold on. If I was at home, I wouldn’t have felt the need but here in the wilds of Vietnam, I wanted to be extra careful.

I got a brief lesson in picking rice grass for use by the animals.

Water lilies in a small pond.

A banana tree.

Lemon tree.

Even way out here people can afford a satellite dish.

A small school.

We ended the tour in Lao Chi, the bigger city where the train is. It’s right on the border of China.

Here is the border crossing. The rectangular arch in front is in Vietnam while the triangular building behind it is in China. The high rises are also in China.

I had to wait for several hours for the overnight train that left around 9 PM for a 5:15 AM arrival back in Hanoi. This was an exhausting and exhilarating day. I wasn’t going to have a comfortable night’s sleep but I have always loved to be on a train so I can’t complain. My guide was amazed that I had a cabin meant for two people all to myself. On the one hand, I fee like I’m pushing myself to make it through these days but I’m also traveling in ridiculous luxury compared to locals and to how I travelled when I was in my 20’s.

I promised to have the questionable food section at the end so here it is. First off, in the Lao Chi market, the sign here has the word “Cho” in the middle of it , which the guide said means dog meat. He said they don’t sell dog meat in the restaurants but they do eat it at home.

Here is a pork head.

Finally, chicken feet. There, that wasn’t so bad after all.

After the 8.5 hour Victoria Express train ride from Sapa, it was a good feeling as always to have a guide waiting for me. We were just 1 mile from the Chinese border in the extreme north of Vietnam. He took me up to the Victoria Resort at the top of a hill overlooking the town. I assume this was a colonial relic of the train company having a resort at the end of the line. The guide asked me how long I wanted to take to have breakfast and get set up in my room. I knew if I had too long, I would jump right into anything resembling a warm and comfy bed so I said I could be ready in 1 hour. This barely gave me enough time to have breakfast and be ready but it definitely would not have worked out to take any longer.

For breakfast, I had a Rice Pancake, which is a traditional Vietnamese food. It wasn’t bad but It’s always better to get something local that’s not bad than something I know I’ll like but is available everywhere in the US.

We were in the middle of the Black Hmong tribal area. We started in a traditional village called Cat Cat, that is also a tourist area for a handful of people like me. We drove to the top of the village and went down probably hundreds of stairs. The weather was in the low 60’s and misty but not raining. The steps were slippery, especially at certain areas, such as the one I slipped at. Fortunately, I didn’t get hurt at all. I was going quite slowly but after falling, I took the guide’s offer of going arm-in-arm with him. Soon after, he started to slip a little and I held him up but for the most part I felt much better holding on. A bad fall could have serious consequences for me such as ending the day or ending the trip or even ending all trips.

I really appreciated the village. There were pigs and water buffalo all around. In other words. I wasn’t the only pig around for once. I like the second picture here with the rice field in the front and villagers working in the corn field in the back. The rice had already been picked for the year.

I spent quite a bit of time at a Hmong hut that was open for us to walk through.

I found a piece of embroidery that really appealed to me and bought the red one below. The person who made it is in the second picture below and it’s not me. The 3 medallions near the top and the 3 at the bottom are meant for good luck since three is a lucky number for the Hmong. Each medallion has the 12 signs of the Chinese Zodiac. The back of the piece is dyed with indigo. The embroidery in the front is silk, which is not native to the Hmong so they buy it from nearby people.

Here is a vat of indigo, which they use as the base for several colors.

My father loved to bargain when we traveled and at home. He was a professor at Cornell University but he clearly could have made a lot of money in business. He loved the process of negotiating. I think he liked the drama, the give-and-take, and the battle of wits. A family story is that he almost missed a boat when our family was going through the Suez Canal in 1954 (just before the Suez War) because he lost track of time while bargaining.

I did not get the bargaining gene. I’m terrible at it. It didn’t help here that the guide was urging me to accept the price they asked for. They offered two for 800,000 Vietnamese Dong, which sounds like a lot but it’s actually about $36. I countered with 300,000 for one ($13.50). The woman below with the baby, who I assume was the daughter of the woman who made the piece countered with 400,000 ($18). I countered with 350,000 and she countered with 400,000. I countered with 370,000, she countered with — you guessed it, 400,000. Bottom line, I paid what she wanted, 400,000.

I totally lost the bargaining but on the other hand I got an amazing piece that took amazing artistry and untold hours for $18. This woman clearly outsmarted me but maybe the guide was right that I should just pay what they want.

They had more than one of these water power rice husking machines. The abundant water from springs and from rain run-off causes the chute to lower. When the chute fills, the water falls and the chute goes up again. This causes the hammer on the other side of the chute to break up the rice.

Here are a couple of scenes of Hmong people. The woman on the bottom is selling roasted sweet potatoes and roasted eggs.

This is me thinking of living with the water buffalo.

I saw this guy with a Pittsburgh Penguins jersey so I had to get our picture. A minute later he got it filled with wet paint. My guide warned me about the paint just before the same thing happened to me. I’m not sure where he was from but we were about as far away from an ice hockey rink in Pittsburgh as you can get.

They had a dance and flute show at the bottom of the steps.

Also at the bottom of the steps was this beautiful waterfall and this scary bridge that moved a lot as people walked on it.

Hard to believe but the green thing behind this girl with the yellow and red stripes is a very young child.

We then moved to an even more isolated village called Sin Chai. This village did not have the tourist currency coming in and was much poorer and even dismal to me. I said to the guide that I imagine these people to be quite happy for the most part since they have their families and the land and he agreed.

Here is a duck pond for the native foie gras. The picture on the bottom is Margaret and me having a fight.

The local school was on its lunch break but we were able to come into the grounds and take a few pictures. Hopscotch is everywhere in the world.

I walked into a second grade classroom where these few children were working on some problems. Maybe they had to stay after school, not sure. The math problems included to add 37+45, subtract 68-42, 45 kg – 21 kg, and to insert either <,  >, or = between 19+4 and 26. These were second graders so what they were doing was very similar to what US second graders would be doing.

The playground equipment was primitive but looked like it was fun. The fourth grade classroom just had a few girls playing.

On the way out, we passed some hemp plants, which were used in some of their fabrics. Hemp is closely related to marijuana but he said people don’t smoke the hemp. Should i believe him?

By 1 PM, I had exercised the second most since I got my Apple Watch in May. The day I exercised more was at my nephew Ethan’s wedding with dancing. The guide offered to take me on an added tour for extra money. I was exhausted from not sleeping well on the train. I have to be on the road tomorrow at 7:30 AM for a day that would continue until 9 PM when I will get on the train for the 8.5 hour ride back to Hanoi. I will get to Hanoi at 5 AM and then fly to Danang at 8 AM.

As you can guess, I declined his offer. It would have been a great trip but I still have two weeks to go. I have to keep some energy reserve. This was a great day. I had a rare opportunity to enter a world just about as far from me as is possible. What I saw today makes the hassles of traveling worthwhile.

The driving in Ho Chi Minh City was a major step crazier than Cambodia, which was already quite crazy. The driver was totally fearless. He did not stop at intersections. He commanded the road and demanded that others yield. Of course, the other drivers were the same way. Somehow it worked.

Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City was much faster paced than Cambodia. It was also much more developed, more like America. We stayed at a classic French hotel with an amazing view of the Mekong from the breakfast terrace.

The morning excursion was to Cu Chi, a real site where villagers created tunnels to hide from the US forces. They were supporters of the National Liberation Front but acted friendly to the Americans in the day.

The hole in this mound is a camouflaged ventilation hole for a tunnel underneath.

An unlikely pairing — NLF women soldiers and US tourists.

Our guide explaining about the shells dropped in the area.

A map of the 4 levels of tunnels. At the far right the tunnel goes into the Mekong river.

I’m climbing out of the only tunnel I went in. This is just after bumping my head. I would not survive as a Vietnamese tunnel resident.

Showing us how they put leaves on top of the tunnel cover for camouflage before they climbed in the tunnel. Just a second later, he is below the leaves.

He reappeared at the other end of the tunnel.

Keith tried to go in that tunnel but this one is only for professionals.

A model of a trap. If you step on the grass, you fall into spikes. There were several other types of traps shown.

Keith is at the end of this tunnel. He went through half a dozen or so tunnels.

These tunnels were all over Vietnam. It shows how difficult it was for the US and its allies. The US had superior technology but the Vietnamese knew their land and how to use it for their advantage. It’s reminiscent of how the US used its knowledge of the land to defeat the superior British forces in the Revolutionary War.

After lunch we returned to Ho Chi Minh City to the Presidential Palace. I have seen pictures of this with the Vietnamese tanks mowing over the fence on the day that Saigon fell.

Elegant sitting rooms for the South Vietnamese government. The palace is now a museum.

Communications equipment in the bunker of the Presidential Palace.

This was a reconstructed jeep like the one that took the President of South Vietnam to his surrender speech on April 30, 1975.

US military equipment seized by the Vietnamese. I associate the Vietnam War with these US helicopters. By the way, in Vietnam, the war is called the American War.

A table showing the number of troops of the US and its allies each year.

• In 1964, there were 514,000 South Vietnamese and 23,310 US troops.
• In 1968, there were 820,000 South Vietnamese and 536,000 US troops.
• In 1972, there were 1,048,000 South Vietnamese and 24,000 US troops.
• By 1975, all the US troops were gone and the war was over.

Keith and I both really enjoyed the Museum of War Remnants, housed in the former U.S. Information Service building. It was filled with photos of the war and of protests from journalists around the world. Here is the famous picture of the girl running after being attacked by a napalm bomb.

The day was centered around the war from the Vietnamese point of view and how they fought against the US government and its allies. I’ll give my full point of view in another post.

We only had one full day in Saigon, which was not enough, but we needed to see Hanoi and Halong Bay before Keith left.