Vietnam Revistied

Day 11, March 16, 2017
This trip has run very smoothly...until.. we arrived at the Tan Son Nhat Airport in Saigon. We were all just breezing through customs until two of our group presented their passports for entry. This is a communist country and travelers coming here are required to have a visa prior to entry. I think you can guess what happened next. No visa, you can't come in. You can imagine the dilemma that presented itself. So at 1:30 am, they were trying to get a visa. We had a long day yesterday and we were going to have a long day today. We waited for two hours. Limited progress. Finally our bus took us to the hotel. We finally got to bed around 4:00 am. Our day was scheduled to start around 0800. We pushed it back to 0930. Our hotel was the Pullman, a 5 star, very nice.

We headed for the Mekong Delta on this day's adventure. Our destination was My Tho,.. a provincial capital. While Saigon has shown a vast improvement since my last visit, the rest of the country did not appear to have changed very much. As I mentioned previously, I was flooded with memories, some good, some bad.

We had a full day of activities. We visited the Vinh Trang Pagoda, and then rode a river boat down the Mekong River to reach an island to experience the Vietnamese lifestyle. On the island we rode a sampan (very small boat) on one of the many canals, rode a little horse drawn wagon, ate honey that was locally produced, ate native fruits, and had lunch. Linda did not tell her mother we were going to Vietnam, only that we were going to China. She did not want to worry her. She will tell her when we get home and she can see the pictures. If her mother had saw her on the sampan, she would have had a right to worry.
We saw a big fish, called an elephant fish. We named the fish Fred. I think we had Fred for lunch. Pictures of Fred posted.

Afterwards we returned to our hotel for a two hour respite and then went out for a river cruise and dinner in Saigon. Entertainment was provided by a local string instrument band. The highlight of this activity was when Jerry Hankins and Damien provided backup to the band on the tamburines.