Seabourn Pride, South China Sea, off the Viet Nam Coast between Saigon and Danang
I’ve been remiss in not sending this dispatch sooner, but we have been busier than all get out, and I just haven’t had the chance to sit down and send an update. I’m sure most are principally interested to learn whether we’ve encountered any pirates or experienced any mishaps. I’m happy to report that things have been relatively quiet, and the worst things that have happened is that I got sick after the 1st day, and we got ripped off by a taxi driver in Saigon.
Our cruise has been pretty smooth, with only one night (two nights ago) somewhat rough, but it never bothered Pinky or me. After heading north from Singapore we arrived in Bangkok after two days at sea. Since Maureen Marston has been in Bangkok many times she served as our tour master for our two-day visit, finding us places to see, a restaurant to enjoy wonderful Thai food, a master tailor and a master jeweler, and she led us on miles of adventure through one crazy city. The traffic is absolutely bizarre, and traffic engineers would have a field day and unlimited work resolving the congestion there. Besides using our feet, we accessed the Skyway (a well-run above grade metro) a couple of taxis, and tuk tuks, which are motor cycle contraptions with seating capacity for three and very noisy. You really get close and personal with the traffic riding around on a tuk tuk.
The Buddha temples are incredible. Buddha’s are everywhere. Most famous is the “Emerald Buddha,” made of jade. One Buddha was made of gold and weighed hundreds of pounds! We also traveled by long boat up the Chao Phraya River and enjoyed seeing activity lining the river. A highlight occurred when a small boat stopped at our long boat and sold us all a beer – and it was only 10:30 in the AM!
As we left on the Pride on 17th, we passed under two absolutely breathtaking cable-stayed bridges over the Chao Phraya, and needless to say I over-photographed them. One, the "Mega-Bridge," (2006) is actually two bridges, 702 & 582 meter long spans, respectively.
The next day we enjoyed a laid back day at a beautiful calm beach on Ko Kood, a Thai island off the Cambodian coast, (cavier and champaign in the surf!), then made our way to Saigon, renamed Ho Chi Min City in 1975 but still called Saigon by just about everybody. Pinky and I took a tour of the tunnels outside the city, build by the Viet Namese during the war with France and continued during the “American War.” These caves were used by the VC to hide during the day and spring from at night to make raids against the American troops. The caves’ network extends many miles, and they are 10 meters and more below the ground’s surface, 3’ high and less than 2’ wide.
The second day in Saigon took us to the Mekong Delta, where we took a 3 hour boat excursion along rivers and channels in the Mekong. I can’t imagine how the Americans ran a war there – rivers cris-crossed all over the place, and it would be easy to get totally disoriented without GPS. One dinner out at the Mandarin was absolutely fabulous! We’re now back in the South China Sea en route to Danang, expecting to arrive tomorrow morning.
Hong Kong
No comments:
Post a Comment