fish and birds and farewells...

Many times during this trip we have seen birds of various kinds and we have the opportunity to learn a little about them from people who know more than we do. Once before we had red footed boobies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-footed_Booby flying along the ship, and today we learned that the ones that we had seen were the brown morph. Today we saw several of the white morph variety. These birds move along the ship because of the sea creatures that are stirred up as our ship passes through the water. Some types of birds are known to stay to the bow of the ship and others tend to follow along the stern -- it depends on what they want to eat. There were dozens today right outside our window and they were chasing the flying fish. It was fun to watch them swoop and dive and occasionally catch a fish in flight.

We learned a couple of days ago that we will be saying goodbye to about 40 of our crew when they leave us in Hong Kong to return for a few months to their families. Many of these folks are people we never see -- engineers or maintenance people from the engine room, or butchers and bakers in the kitchen, but two of the fellows who are leaving have been very good to us, so we went to see them today to say farewell. It's sad to see them go, but we have to be happy for them that they are returning to their families. Today was also our cabin steward Linda's birthday so we helped her to celebrate a little and contributed along with others on our deck to a cake she could share with her friends in the crew.

We passed through the Paracel Islands http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracel_Islands today. They have a long history of disputes over ownership. Ship's time is currently 2215 and our location is:
Latitude: 19 degrees 53.3' N
Longitude: 113 degrees 6.9' E
Course: 30 degrees

We should arrive in Hong Kong in just under 10 hours. We participated in Earth Hour on the ship along with much of the rest of the world by turning off most of the lights, including the outside ones. I have to say it did give me pause to think about traveling at 22 knots on a nearly moonless night with no lights!

mekong delta trip and leaving vietnam...

Current location at 2315 ship time...

Latitude: 12 degrees 53.0' N

Longitude: 109 degrees 59.4' E

Course: 20 degrees

We are advancing clocks one hour tonight so we will be 12 hours ahead of EDT, 13 hours ahead of CDT, 14 hours ahead of MDT, and 15 hours ahead of PDT.

We continued to enjoy our time in Vietnam, and I did go to the Mekong River Delta http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mekong_River_Delta on Wednesday. About 80 of us left Ho Chi Minh City by bus at 8:00am and it was already very hot and humid. We encountered the same heavy traffic as we traveled south of the city for two hours. We headed through Lang An Province http://www.wompom.ca/vietnam/vnprovinc808.htm and stopped about an hour into the trip at Ben Luc district to visit a Cao Dai Temple and a local market. Cao Dai http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cao_Dai is a relatively new religion, established in 1926. The Cao Dai temples look very similar to one another and are quite beautiful. The nearby market was very busy and full of colorful fruits and vegetables, but we had to walk quickly through the fish and meat on such a hot day. I had to laugh at the number of students who decided they would be vegetarians for lunch when our guide took a count right after the visit to the market!

We drove into Tien Giang Province http://www.wompom.ca/vietnam/vnprovinc810.htm and on to the city of My Tho. There we boarded covered wooden boats to tour the Mekong River and the four islands in the center of it: Tan Long (Dragon), Quy (Tortoise), Phung (Phoenix), and Thoi Son (Unicorn). The Mekong River begins in Tibet and flows through China, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia before entering Vietnam, forming the delta and emptying into the South China Sea. The Delta area is beautiful with palm and tropical fruit trees. We left the covered boats and had an opportunity to sample the fruits from the area -- jack fruit, pineapple, mango, grapefruit and others. We then moved into canoe type boats that were paddled by local island dwellers through some of the canals that flow through the delta. The channel where we entered our boat was very narrow and muddy at low tide, and I was reminded of Humphrey Bogart pulling the African Queen along -- I didn't think we'd ever get out of there! Fortunately our rowers (one pictured above) had more experience than I had confidence. The heat was sweltering, so it was a relief when we finally got along the channel enough to get a nice breeze. We did see many of the places where the river people live up on the banks. It's not surprising that the main occupation in this fertile area is agriculture, and that it is a big rice producing area.

We had a very nice lunch featuring local cuisine -- lots of rice, vegetables and fish, then went to other boats to continue the tour of the area. We visited a place where they make coconut candy from the water coconuts in the area and had an opportunity to shop before returning to the buses for the ride back to the ship.

We had thought we were leaving Vietnam last night, not realizing that we had to wait for high tide in order to make the long trip back down the Saigon River and back to the South China Sea. We left this morning at 6:00am and should arrive in Hong Kong day after tomorrow on Sunday morning. Happy Birthday, Martha!

the cu chi tunnels

We left by bus at 7:00am yesterday going northwest of Ho Chi Minh City to the Cu Chi Tunnels. I included the wiki link in the last blog, but the Vietnamese have set up a site at http://www.cuchitunnel.org.vn/index.php. The drive was most interesting in terms of moving through the traffic. The little video that is attached was taken from the bus window -- you can see that we are not moving very fast, but the motorbikes are progressing well. Note that some of them move up to the sidewalk to get around the slower traffic. I suppose a few years ago these would have been bicycles.

It took about an hour and a half to travel the 70 kilometers to the site of the tunnels. Our guide, Jimmy, gave us some information about the tunnels on the way, then once we arrived we hiked down a path through trees and brush to a model of a tunnel opening. Jimmy picked one of the smaller young women in the crowd and invited her to step into this opening so that we could see how really small it was -- it was of a size to accommodate the small Vietnamese people, but not the larger American soldiers who were enemies of the Viet Cong. This was a model of the real openings, because the real tunnel openings in the area have been enlarged in order to accommodate the bigger people who come to view them now. We moved on to see samples of the sorts of booby traps that were set up around the area and sometimes inside the tunnels in case the enemy got too close. These were the sort of traps the Vietnamese had used for hunting in other times and involved lots of sharpened bamboo. Pretty gruesome. There were many samples of underground rooms -- meeting rooms, hospitals, eating areas and so on. And we had the opportunity to experience the tunnels for ourselves by climbing down into them. I did go into one of the shallower ones, climbing down about 3 meters, then moving along the tunnel until the ceiling became so low I would have had to crawl and where it was getting quite dark. At that point I decided it would not be a good idea to go further, and I turned around and came out again.

The tunnels are certainly a testament to the patience and ingenuity of the Vietnamese people. A few of the tunnels originated with the French occupation, but many more miles of tunnels were added during the war with the Americans. We were told that four people would work on a tunnel at a time -- some to dig, some to carry dirt in baskets, some to run to dump the dirt into the nearby Saigon River. This area was heavily bombed during the war and there are still a couple of large B52 bomb craters, but most of those are gone since the bombing had destroyed the trees and erosion filled the craters. Until a few of the students went into the craters it was hard to appreciate how big they are, since all of the vegetation has returned. At the end of the tour we were shown a film that had been distributed in the 60's by the Viet Cong to the South Vietnamese people. It was very interesting to see the messages people were receiving.

Current relations between the US and Vietnam are very good, of course. Although there was a lot of talk from a few professors about the war in the days before arrival, these students are actually two generations away from this war. The tunnel trip did give a feel for some of what happened during those years, but as the guide said, the Vietnamese people feel that the past is the past, and now they love Americans and are very happy they come to Vietnam (and happy Americans spend so much money here!). What we have seen of the country is very beautiful. The city is very green with lovely plazas and parks, and it is also very clean and well kept.

Following the tunnel trip John and I decided to spend a couple of days at a nice hotel in the city. This has given us a chance to have a bit of a break from the ship, use faster internet, and be closer to things in Ho Chi Minh City. It has been very warm here -- in the mid 90's and above (sorry, Calgary!), but we move slowly and take lots of breaks. We will return to the ship tomorrow. I will be doing a Mekong Delta trip, so will write on that in the next couple of days.

ho chi minh city...

Early this morning we left the South China Sea and sailed up the Saigon River, arriving in Ho Chi Minh City at 0800. It is always exciting to arrive in a port, but this morning was extra special because a parent trip was planned for Vietnam, and some of the parents had come to meet their students and go on with them to Cambodia. We had our usual diplomatic briefing, picked up our passports and landing cards and were on our way. John and I were on a City Orientation tour with several others from the ship and it was very enjoyable, although the weather was very hot and it was best to stay out of direct sun. As we have found in the other Asian countries, the traffic is fascinating. We had been instructed that if we need to cross a street, it is best to start slowly and walk deliberately without ever stopping once you start. If you stop or go backward, you confuse the drivers who will avoid you if your behavior is predictable. Fortunately we did not need to walk across any streets today. In HCMC most of the drivers are on motorbikes. There are few traffic lights and it does all seem to work. Traffic is very crowded, but not very fast and people are always in control.

We first visited the Thien Hau Pagoda located in HCMC's Chinatown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thien_Hau_Temple,_Ho_Chi_Minh_City. This temple is dedicated to Thien Hau, a goddess of the sea, known in China as Mazu. Thien Hau is said to ride the ocean on a mat and travel in the clouds wherever she wants, allowing her to help people in trouble on the high seas. Strangely there are worshippers gathered, lighting incense even as tourists wander through. The incense takes all forms including giant spirals of it that are mounted overhead and that will drop ashes on you if you aren't careful.

There are a variety of religions in Vietnam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Vietnam. Later in the trip we visited Notre Dame Cathedral http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saigon_Notre-Dame_Basilica, which we were told is modeled after the one in Paris, although I found it difficult to see the similarities.

Following the temple visit we had a wonderful Vietnamese lunch at Maxim's Restaurant. If you have never had lotus root, you should give it a try! I wonder if we can even get that in North America?

We also stopped at Reunification Palace http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reunification_Palace, the symbol of the South Vietnamese government until April 30, 1975 when communist tanks crashed through the gates to take over what had been the Presidential Palace. The living quarters and presentation rooms are ornate, but the basement has a network of tunnels and old telephone, teletype and radio equipment as well as map rooms that are interesting as well. Much of the war planning took place in the dreary offices in this basement.

Although there was one more stop to the History Museum that included a water puppet show, John and I were pretty zapped by the heat, and decided to wander off on our own to a little coffee shop where we had some iced Vietnamese coffee. We were refreshed after that break then came back on the bus with everyone else. A bit later we got together with our friends Maggie and George for a very nice supper at a restaurant alongside the ship. I have a trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cu_Chi_Tunnels starting early in the morning, so I will sign off for now.

attention ship's company!

It happens once or twice a week and it starts with an announcement from one of the officers: "Attention ship's company! Attention ship's company! For exercise! For exercise! For exercise!" And what follows is some sort of practice drill for the crew. It might be a "code blue" in one of the cabins, or a "code bravo" in a hallway. Yesterday it was a "man overboard, starboard" drill. When we heard it, I knew this would be an interesting one to watch if I could get close enough. So I went out on the lifeboat deck on the starboard side and the crew was assembling from all over the ship, including the kitchen. They were carrying rescue equipment and a stretcher and all headed for the same area on Deck 5 near the lifeboats. All the while the ship was executing a 180 degree turn, generating a large wake, and our new heading was west as the crew searched for the "man" that had gone overboard, a florescent orange "body" that had been thrown in the water before the announcement.

It took less than ten minutes for the ship to reverse course, and another few minutes to locate the "man". During this maneuvering a small lifeboat was being prepared for launch and as soon as the "man" was located, the lifeboat was ready. In the photo you can see the crew in the lifeboat picking up the "man" who went overboard. With the rescue complete, the ship again reversed course and we resumed our eastbound travel. The entire operation took less than half an hour. I was very impressed!