Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh...City

Having not planned on flying into HCM City (we decided 2 hours before the flight) we were a bit unprepared. Due to Tet (Chinese New Year),the city was taken over by flowers, banners & streets full of people. Our hotel was in a little alley and we found that that is were the locals live. Sitting in the alleys, cooking, drinking, talking, sleeping, playing dice and just watching the crazy foreigners walk around with big eyes.

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) land of scooters, red flags and
tons of flowers.

After settling into our hotel we went out for food and an
overwhelming display of flowers and people.

   

This was the day after Tet(Chinese New Year) and we found
that it lasts many days after (10-12 days).  It was a treat for us
to have all these festivities.

 

   

While passing through a downtown park we found, bonzai
tree competition, more flower displays and more photo
posers.

Chúc Mừng Năm Mới......Vietnamese for Happy New Year (Year of the Snake)

Patriotic flower display



Photographers & posers everywhere

statue of Ho Chi Minh explaining the principals of Marxism,
 I think the kid fell asleep

seed sculpture among the gardens

By the time Tet was over we finally became comfortable saying Chuc Mung Nam Moi....figures.....

Cool round door and one of the Chinese temples

More posers & flowers

Becky gave the posing a try...

 

Siesta time....looking comfy

We enjoyed Ho Chi Minh City so much that going to Museums about the American War didn't seem very appealing. The Vietnamese look forward (too much pain in the past) to the future and I think that's a good approach. So we minimized our input of propaganda (ours & theirs) and it was good.

Sticky Rice! Colored special for Tet!

A walk through China Town in HCMC - masks and costumes for sale.

Stretch inside a temple with coiled incense illuminated from an overhead skylight.

All the incense burning made it hard to breath and see!

The temples here had a whole different look from those we've seen in our travels.
 Cool dragons on the roof - always a male and a female so they don't get lonely!
 Who knows which is which.

Here was a church with a temple like structure out front with
 a stature of Mary. A blend of religious architecture styles.

Dinner river boat, just when you thought you'd seen everything.....

 

 

Then it lights up at night!

 

Street vendor  -  sweet smile.



HCMC at night from the top of the Hilton, where we went to watch the sunset.

 

Headed out of town on the sleeper bus: 3 rows stacked 2 high.
12 hours, overnight to Nha Trang.....Beach time here we come!

A Thousand Sabai dees

Sabai Dee is Lao for Greetings or Hello. While traveling we tried to learn the most basic pleasantries to interact with the locals. When we decided to bike the almost 400 kms from Luang Probang to Vientiane on Hwy 13....We had no idea how often we'd be saying it...Every village, every kid (visible to us or not) and most adults, shouted this out as we biked by. Naturally Becky & I responded to every greeting and it seemed non stop.

Nice that a beer company sponsors the road signs

Sabai dee Sabai dee

Sabai dee

Road side Petanque court (Bocce) pretty popular in nothern Thailand and Lao

Our first day out was long, especially considering it was all up hill and we
 started in the rain. So with about an hour more riding to go, I decided it was
 time for a ride in the support vehicle while Stretch and Lee pedaled on.

 

Sabai deeeeeeeeeee
The terrain become more varied after the first day.  I began feeling like
 we were a parade, waving and shouting greetings back to the locals.

Road side huts on our second day as with ran the ridges above the
limestone mountains.

Beautiful country - we rode down hill  about 12K to the right side of the
 peak you see on the left. Here we found bungalows and warm 
springs to soak in. Ahhh 

We bicycled into a  small town one day for lunch. There was a carnival
 set up: darts & balloons, a music blaring  merry-go-round, and we were
 the "faranga" side show. This kid took a picture of Stretch with his phone,
 but was a little more reluctant when Stretch wanted to take a shot also.

Many villages set up roads side stalls to sell what ever they were harvesting from
 their fields, the forest and streams. These folks had all sorts of concoctions
 they'd brewed and various birds and fish.

Even a couple of fresh rats...They're great lightly toasted!

We began seeing graveyards along the way. The tombstones were styled like
 small colorful stupas, which were different from the other Buddhist countries where
 tombstones were simple stones on family land. Graveyards became more frequent and
 larger, a reminder of the "invisible war" here during the Vietnamese/American war years.

Sometimes it just got too hot and a vacant road side stand offered the 
shade we needed.

  

Wallowing with the buffalo would have felt good too!

Locals getting around by whatever means they have.

Our bike riding over, we had a look around Vientiane which was anti-climatic,
 it has only been the capital since 1975 and only had a small French
 colonial area. The rest was over-powered by Soviet style building and
 striking Lao & Communist flags.

But we spent a hot day walking around to various temples
 and structures.

These young girls were on school lunch break.

A delicious bowl of Lao noodle soup was our lunch treat. 
A small family run place, with lots of locals. A good indicator
 that this was THE place to eat.

We traveled by overnight sleeper bus down to Paske, then on to the 
Mekong river area known as 4,000 islands.
We took this boat from the mainland to Don Det, one of the
4,000 islands. As we approached the beach this water
 buffalo wasn't going to make room for us, so we all
 splashed ashore while the buff continued his bath...

Mekong falls

Local homes along the river.

An oven for making charcoal. The charcoal is then bundled and sold 
to use for cooking.

Large wheel barrow

These young girls were  shucking the tamarind seeds to get the sweet/sour paste
 inside, used in many Laos dishes.

As I biked by a school on Saturday, I heard a lot of noise coming from inside
 and went to have a look. I met these young people who knew a few words
 in English. I pulled out my Point It book and showed them where I was from,
 along with some Alaskan postcards.  Then one of them did a math problem 
on the board for me. Being a teacher, I of course praised him for his good work.

Out looking for the rare(almost extinct) Irrawaddy dolphins 

You couldn't see the dolphins all that well, but you sure
could hear them when they surfaced to breathe....Very Cool

Evening on the Mekong...Yet another sunset

The local women were always carrying something

Guess we were one of those.....@ Pakse 

This one one of the VIP Sleeper Buses that we didn't get to
ride on. Ours was a little more low rent, but still double-decker.

We had wanted to go overland from Lao into the highlands of Vietnam and start our wanders there. Unfortunately the start of our visa was the day after Tet (Chinese New Years) and the Vietnamese take it very seriously for about a week or more. Turns out that the buses weren't running for 3-7 days because no drivers were available (sober). So we flew from Pakse Lao to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).....1 hour.