March 19, 2012—Ho Chi
Minh City
We got up early this morning since we were scheduled to meet
for our tour in Club Fusion at 7:45.
After getting dressed, we went up to the buffet for coffee. The line to the buffet was really long today
since most of the people on board planned to get off early. Since all I wanted was coffee, I was able to
avoid the lines and went out to the Lido Deck with my coffee. Although it was warm, it wasn’t as humid as
it was in Bangkok .
As we approached Phu Muy port, I watched the Queen Elizabeth
cruise by alongside us. The Diamond
Princess had to dock in Phu Muy since the port at Ho Chi Minh was too shallow
for large cruise ships. The Queen
Elizabeth also docked next to us.
We met in Club Fusion, was assigned to Bus 2, and were led
off the ship and to our assigned bus.
The ride into Ho Chi Minh City
took 2-1/2 hours. Although many of the
people in Thailand were very poor, the country seemed more modern and cleaner;
by contrast, Vietnam was poor and there was trash all along the roads—a lot of
trash. Traffic was very unorganized with
no discernable lanes on the road to Ho
Chi Minh City .
The majority of the people drove motor scooters and we saw very few cars
until we reached the city—even there, most of the traffic was commercial
vehicles and thousands of motor scooters.
Our guide explained that cars were too expensive. I saw entire families on one motor scooter with
the father driving with a child in front of him, a child behind, and the mother
behind the second child. Many of the
women had cloths over their faces. But
unlike in the middle east, the women here covered their faces to protect their
skin. Our guide explained that in Vietnam , the
men found fair-skinned women more attractive, so the women tried to protect
their skin from the sun.
Our excursion was actually to Saigon—our guide explained
that Ho Chi Minh City had several areas and one of those areas was Saigon. Our first stop was at the History Museum of
Vietnam which traced the history from pre-historic times through the
1940s. Some of the exhibits were very
interesting. One in particular was an
exhibit of Ying and Yang, male and female, and consisted of a deep hole and
next to it, a large “phallic” statue. My
Mom started giggling when she saw it and said I needed to take a picture—my Dad
actually took the picture of me standing next to it and everyone was
laughing. Even our tour guide laughed, and
when he explained it symbolized Ying and Yang, he tried hard to do so in a
serious tone of voice.
We then stopped at a lacquer factory where we learned how
the lacquered items were made. There
were three types: some had inlaid mother
of pearl, some with inlaid eggshells, and some were hand painted. They were really beautiful!
 |
| Lacquer factory |
 |
| Handpainting style |
 |
| Inlaid eggshells |
 |
| Mother of pearl |
 |
| Handpainted |
Our bus then took us on a city tour and we passed by the original American Embassy where the last helicopter took off at the end of the Vietnam war—it was now the American Consulate since the embassy was moved to the Vietnam capital of Hanoi. We also drove by the original Presidential Palace and took pictures, and Norte Dame Cathedral for more pictures. We passed by the
Lunch was at the Saigon Palace Hotel and was another buffet
similar to the one we had in Bangkok
with both “western” food and Vietnamese food.
During lunch, we were entertained by a show of traditional Vietnamese music
and dances. The women doing the dances
were dressed in very beautiful costumes.
After lunch, we had free time to wander around and shop. Unfortunately, as soon as we stepped outside the hotel, we were inundated by people trying to sell us “three shirts, only $10” or “four for $10” lacquer boxes (although our guide said not to buy these since they were very cheaply made and would fall apart as soon as we got home). One man kept asking me if I wanted a shoe shine even though I had on sneakers!
At 2:30, we got back on the bus for the long drive back to
our ship and arrived at 5:00; all aboard time was 5:30 and sailaway at
6:00. It was another long
excursion. Cruises are a good way to do
a quick visit to several different ports just to get a taste of the different
countries—there’s not enough time to see everything, but you can at least
determine if you’d like to come back for a longer visit. Personally, I wouldn’t go to either Thailand or Vietnam for a land vacation, but I
know some people on board loved it and would come back again. Still, I’m very glad I had the chance to
visit.
For dinner, I had the grilled calamari with fennel as an appetizer,
and the rack of veal for dinner. The
veal was very good (as usual). My Dad
had the beef stroganoff; unfortunately, he didn’t like it—it really wasn’t what
I thought of as beef stroganoff, but more of a Hungarian goulash on egg
noodles. My mother has been having red
wine with dinner every night, which is really unusual for her, but she seems to
enjoy it. We finished off the bottle, so
tomorrow night, I’ll need to get another bottle of red since she really doesn’t
seem to like the white.
Tomorrow we visit Na Trang.
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