We survived Saigon -- the heat, the noise, the fumes, the blaring, blazing motorbikes that never stop! What a crazy city. Crossing the street is a survival skill that must be learned at your peril. Marti and Nathan have joined me. Over a year since we have seen our son. Eating pho (noodle soup), drinking beer (50 cents) and sweet ice coffee.
Left the chaos of the city for the Mekong delta, an agriculturally rich area of rice paddies, vegetable gardens and fruit plantations. Boat trips down the tributaries, some peace and relative quiet at last (but the motorbikes are even on the narrow lanes on the little islands). Then dugout canoes along a canal through the jungle. Dinner by the riverside, watching the Vietnamese enjoying Friday night eating seafood hotpots under the night sky. In the morning, off to the floating market -- all sorts of boats loaded with bananas, coconuts, pineapples, vegetables. And do you know how they make those ubiquitous noodles? We saw the age-old process, still carried out without modern technology. Soaking the rice several times, grinding it, boiling it, spreading circles of batter on bamboo frames to dry in the sun, then cutting the strips into noodles. Incredible!
Back to Saigon to visit the War Remnants Museum and the Cu Chi Tunnels. Witnessed the amazing system of how villagers thwarted the Americans for years, living underground, soldiers moving and ferrying arms and supplies from the north.
Next leg, the all-night sleeping bus to the seaside town of Nha Trang.
