Lunch at the Chow Hall Mui Ne

 Rick and TR at lunch

Rick on the beach at Mui Ne

    We went to see the "Military Leader of Vung Tau" this morning. We were well received as they went up the chain of command before he greeted us. An attitude somewhere between cordial and stern. Unfortunately we could not locate an English speaker so I was unable to find out the information that I was there for. Oh yes, saw our first AK47, this trip, at the military headquarters
    The bus from Vung Tau to where we are staying now, Mui Nem, was packed to overflowing with cargo and people. Everyone is exceptionally friendly. As Americans, we are something of a novelty. Lots of Russians, Europeans and some Australians. Once the word gets out, I am sure that many more will visit from the US.
    We had a great seafood dinner of red snapper and fancy embellishments  Ridiculously cheap.  TR

Bummer! Unable to surf at all. My shoulder hurts too bad.. Not acceptable. I will be getting it fixed when I get home. Fortunately it did not impede beer drinking so we did that instead.

This afternoon I found the squadron villa where I lived here for a year. I thought it had been torn down, but it was just hidden behind a new building. It looked a little better than it had looked forty years ago.

Since we have been in Vietnam, we have yet to see a single gun, police car or a sign of the military. There are thousands of motorcycles. Those that are parked are never locked. The people seem much more prosperous than before and quite happy.

Following a Buddhist custom, I bought a little caged bird from a street vendor near a big temple and released it.

A goal today was to try and find a former Viet Cong from here and find out if it was true that, like the Americans, they used Vung Tau as an R&R center. Supposedly that was why we did not get shot at here. It did not work out this evening, but we are set up to go visit the "Military Leader of Vung Tau" tomorrow.   TR

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Vung Tau is completely unrecognizable after 40 years of tremendous development. Went by the place where I lived and it had been replace with new, modern structures. 

We are in a nice hotel with an ocean view ($48).

Wow! the surf is even better than I remember! 5 foot waves, nicely shaped, even with a fairly strong afternoon on-shore wind, innumerable beach breaks left and right, sand bottom, no one surfing! Should be incredible tomorrow morning with an offshore breeze.

Riding the hydrofoil here from Saigon, enjoyed a very pleasant conversation with a politically astute young women from Hanoi. In the three days we have been here, we have yet to sense even the sightest animosity.

Heading out to drink beer and find a surfboard.  TR

We were on the Cu Chi tunnel tour.  The Viet Cong lieutenant, now Cu Chi tour guide, was about the first Vietnamese I noticed who was old enough to have been a VC. I asked our tour guide who confirmed that he had been.  I asked him to introduce.  The former VC was almost exactly my age.  He had a shoulder wound scar from a bullet from a helicopter gunship that looked much like Rick's shoulder wound.  I called Rick over, they compared scars and we all got along spectacularly.  The lieutenant had been operated on and patched up in the Cu Chi tunnels. TR

Saigon:
Minus the US military and related, Saigon seems much the same. Not as hot and poluted as I remember, but even more motorbikes.  The roads look like a flowing river of them.
Prices are about 1/3 of those in the US.  The people are friendly.  The bureaucrats are like bureaucrats everywhere, but not a problem.
Yesterday we walked around the city and specifically toured the Reunification Palace (where the NVA tank broke through the wall; the scene that symbolizes the end of the war) and the War Remnants Museum.  The latter was a very emotional tour for me and, I believe, for Rick.  More than once, we (I cannot really speak for Rick) had to go sit down, out of the way, and collect our emotions.  I determined before I started this blog that I would avoid discussion of the politics and morality of the war.  That greatly limits what I feel like writing this morning.  Suffice to say that I did not see or learn much that I had not already known.  However, it was powerful to see it through the eyes of the Vietnamese.  TR

.
Hong Kong
    In a lifetime spent in airports, this is definitely the most spectacular. The ultimate in huge, modern, efficient, high tech and with more fancy shops, restaurants, etc. than any mall I have seen.
   The 16 hour flight from Newark on a 777 was comfortable enough. My seat turned into a flat bed. Flight attendants steadily plied me with offers of food and drink. I will meet up with Rick after the last leg to Saigon - oops! Ho Chi Minh City.
   Almost forty-three years ago, things were quite different. My mood then was one of great sadness, knowing that I would not see home and loved ones for the next year. Intellectually I knew that a lot could happen in a year in the combat zone, but fear was not one of the emotions. Bad things would no doubt befall many of the 200 or so GI’s with whom I was packed tightly into the smoke-filled bright yellow Braniff 707. In the first of the letters that I would send home every day for a year, I wrote, “It seems strange to be going to war in something that looks like a banana.” At twenty-two I was invincible.   TR