After all that walking in Singapore, we really enjoyed resting on the sea day. In the morning there was a beginning bridge class, a clearance sale and in the afternoon our Cruise Critic group has been given a dining room for our use from 2 PM to 4 PM for games, so I am learning to play Mah Jong. That was the first night I was able to stay awake after dinner, but the entertainment was not up to par, so it wasn’t even worth the effort.
We had a ship’s tour to the sea coast town of Vung Tau since we didn’t want to make the 2 ½ hour trip to Saigon where it was supposed to be much hotter. We didn’t see anything that we hadn’t seen before (temples and a colonial mansion) and were glad to get back to the ship after 4 ½ hours because the heat and humidity were so debilitating. We dragged into dinner and then went to bed immediately after again. But the next day more than made up for a disappointing day in Phu My.
Villa Franche
Vietnamese Bathing SuitNha Trang is a beautiful seaside tourist destination and was the cleanest place we had yet seen in Vietnam. This was to be our first Cruise Critic tour and the ship was surprisingly accommodating. They gave us a private dining room to meet in and, since this was a tender port, they sent someone to escort our group to a tender at the time we requested. Our tour was divided into two busloads – one including a visit to a spa for massages and other treatments and the other going into the countryside. We chose the countryside tour.
Our first stop was an embroidery factory where they embroidered elaborate pictures using iridescent silk threads. I was especially impressed by the landscape scenes. I found a floral picture with butterflies for only $43 which included double matting and a carved gold frame. The gold frame and matting alone would have cost that much at home. And then they gave me a give of a DVD showing the history of embroidery. The girls up in the workroom all wore the traditional side-split dresses over loose pants and they alone made a pretty picture.
Explaining History 
Embroidery Detail Our next stop was the Pagoda Orphanage where street children could be left to be raised by the Buddhist nuns. We had brought all kinds of toys and I gave each of the teachers a package of colored pencils. We also had gathered cash donations at our Meet & Greet and presented those to the nuns. The kids were lots of fun and it was a madhouse like our Christmas with them trying to run from one person to another to see what goodies were the best. I ended up giving the packages to the teachers because the boldest were getting everything and I wanted the younger ones to get something. Some of the total group had bypassed this tour because they thought it would be depressing, but the kids were happy, well-fed and generally delightful. As we left the orphanage, we passed a house with long grass drying on the driveway. A woman came out and I asked “Wicker?” and she said “yes, yes” but then held up a colorful sedge grass mat that they sit on to eat their meals. Another woman came out and cut a banana leaf that I assumed would be cut in sections and used for a plate like Jai said they did in India.
Pagoda
ClassroomsSince we tend to always be the last ones trailing behind the group, we had lost sight of the rest and were happy to find our guide who motioned us to a trail between the houses. There we found the group and they were at a house where the ladies were making those mats. They had one lady who split the grass into like-sized strips and another was at a loom where they were being woven with strips of colored grass. Several of the group tried their hand at it but I didn’t think I could get up again if I knelt down to do the weaving.
Sedge Grass Mat
Mat WeavingFrom there, we got back on the bus and traveled down very narrow roads looking at the houses of the everyday people. There were very nice houses mixed among the very basic, poor houses and our guide said the difference was that the better ones belonged to those who had relatives among the boatpeople and the others who made it out to Western countries and they were receiving money sent home from them. Some of the driveways and edges of the roads had tarps laid out with unhulled rice laying on them to dry in the sun.
Our next stop was the Ancestors’ House where tables were laid out with trays of fruit which included watermelon, mango, dragon fruit & pineapple. This was accompanied with a pot of very fragrant hot tea with a hollowed out coconut as a tea cozy. If you wanted beer or soda, those were both $1 per can. The house itself was a little shrine, but it also showed the layout of a traditional house. I loved the furniture they had in the patio that was carved from different free-form polished pieces of wood. And it was almost comfortable sitting there under the fans.
Free-Form Furniture Back on the bus again, we began driving through the countryside on roads so narrow that branches were often scraping the sides of the bus. There was a young man accompanying us whose job it was to jump out and direct the bus driver when he needed to back up to maneuver around a corner or to go around anything - like the load of sand that appeared in the middle of the road after we had just come around a corner narrowly missing a corrugated iron roof extending from a shack. In this case, he and the guy working there had to shovel the sand enough that the bus could get one side on the firm road and roll over the pile on the other side and not get stuck. Here in the countryside, folks liked to have their ancestors near them, so there were cement tombs in their yards or in nearby fields. We also passed by a fish factory where they were drying fish on flat trays in the sun for that stinky snack we saw in all the markets. I wondered about the little temples and pagodas scattered all over the place and then recalled that people here would need something within walking or bicycling distance for their devotional needs or shopping. So within a short distance, you could find lots of little shops & stands or a small temple or shrine.
The rice paper noodle factory was our next stop and I was amazed at how very primitive it was. The batches of rice were cooked in Dutch ovens on a little clay fireplaces directly over a wood fire. When cooked, it was made into dough that was kneaded by hand, then dusted with flour and laid on racks in the sun to dry. Then it was put through a noodle making machine that cut it into strips. Before cutting, the rolled noodle panels were drying on racks on both sides of the roads with clear on some trays and saffron-colored on others. You have to wonder about the pollution and dust raised by motorbikes on the road, not to mention flies and other insects.
Noodle Drying PanelsBy this time, it was about 1 PM and we were more than ready for our lunch stop. We walked up a narrow lane to where there was an open patio restaurant next to the river. Here we had a delicious meal of spring rolls, and fish. I thought it was funny they didn’t have any rice with all the rice drying all over the place, but what I thought was the meal was only the appetizer. Next came a platter of mounded rice with stir-fried vegetables and then the most delicious fish stew. I bought a bottle of Saigon beer to bring back to the ship since I was drinking soda but wanted to taste the Vietnamese beer. Little did I realize that we were not going back to the bus but taking a river cruise directly from the restaurant and I was stuck carrying that bottle for the next couple of hours.
Patio RestaurantThe little boats could only carry 12 but we squeezed 15 in so that the entire group could go at the same time. We only went a fairly short distance to Coconut Island where we stopped at the most primitive of all the places we had seen. In Vietnam, you are limited to 2 children unless you work for the government and then you can have 3 children – unless you are a farmer. A farmer may have as many children as he wants. In the case of the farmer who was our host, his family consisted of 14 children. We sat in his very dusty yard with the scrawniest, almost featherless chickens running all over the place. We were served coconuts from the palms around us with the top cut part way off and a straw stuck in. We had determined in Vung Tau that we didn’t care for the coconut water, so spent the time taking pictures of the others with their drinks. Then one of the teenage sons climbed the coconut tree, cut the coconut and then brought it down by jumping down a few feet then clamping his feet around the trunk, then repeating all the way down the trunk. The bottoms of his feet must be calloused beyond belief.
Coconut Palm ClimberBack on the boats again, we came down the river to where it ran into the sea. At the mouth of the river, we saw the ancient ruins of the original civilization here. Across from the ruins, we went through the fishing boats and saw the little round basket boats they use as dinghies. We watched as some of fishermen were going along in one of the boats and they seemed to be rowing with one paddle in a circular motion. Another fisherman was rowing a regular wooden boat but he was rowing with his feet while he was using his hands for fishing. The color scheme for all the fishing boats was the same – bright blue with red trim. Our only mishap of the trip happened when we were trying to get off the boats. You had to climb over the narrow bow to get off and one of the guys fell and gashed his leg in two places. He got up smiling though, and refused the use of the wheelchair to get to the bus.
Round Basket Boat
Next, we went to the market for ½ hour of shopping. I wanted to get some lacquer panels with Mother of Pearl inlay like I had seen outside the ship in Phu My and I found them in a little shop tucked away in one of the back rows of the market. They were marked $20, which was much cheaper than they were the day before, but I wanted different colors. When I asked if he had more panels, he thought I didn’t like them and brought the price down. Every time I hesitated, he brought the price down again until I finally paid only $16. But I only had a $20 bill, so I asked what I could get for $4. I found some boxes the size of a pack of cards with the back view of two Vietnamese girls that sold for $3. I was bargaining for 2 for $4. But he didn’t think that was good enough, so he gave me larger boxes and one of them had a top that was completely covered in Mother of Pearl. I had told Bill that was all I was going to buy so I went back to the bus, but with bargaining like that, I’m sure I could have found some really good buys.
That was definitely the best day of the cruise so far.
