Saturday, February 4, 2012
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
Friday, February 3, 2012
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
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
Thursday, February 2, 2012
.
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
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
Monday, January 30, 2012
We are ready to go: visas (very easy, efficient process), hotel in Saigon (oops! Ho Chi Minh City) for the first couple days and a very loose plan for the time after that.
After packing, with each of us under 30 lbs. for a three week trip, we independently had the same revelation. Last time we made this trip it required a lot less thought and preparation. All we had to do was show up. TR
After packing, with each of us under 30 lbs. for a three week trip, we independently had the same revelation. Last time we made this trip it required a lot less thought and preparation. All we had to do was show up. TR
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