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Vietnam Trip - 2007 |
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By Noreen
Haines |
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Jan
14 & 15: Depart from San
Francisco, USA - Arrive in
Saigon |
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We all arrived in San
Francisco, CA to depart on our 10
day journey. The group consists of
Walt and Joy Reed, their
daughter, Cindy Reed; Ken
Bouche and his son-in-law, Mike
Mann; Ken's brother's, Dennis
Bouche and Frank Bouche -
along with Frank's wife, Michele
Bouche; Mike Maurizio;
David Lindsey - Jim and Mary's son;
Gary Boggs; Ron and Pam
Decktor and their sons - Alan
Decktor and Dovey Decktor;
and Roger and Noreen Haines.
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We flew via Cathay
Pacific Airlines leaving at 12:10 AM on
January 14th from San Francisco and
arriving on Monday, January 15th at 7 AM
to Hong Kong International Airport
(Flight time: 15 hours).
(Please note: Jerry and Karen
Peplinski were the lucky ones and got
the farewell phone call from the San
Francisco airport - what time was it in
Wisconsin then???) We had a
layover at Hong Kong of two hours.
We then departed from Hong Kong to Ho
Chi Minh City (aka Saigon) arriving at
10:30 AM. (Flight time: 2
hrs, 35 min). The food served on
this flight was excellent for being
airline food! |
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After we arrived, we
went to get our Visa's into the country.
This was done in a group manner with all
forms being filled out before our trip,
which made the process go very smoothly.
We, then, picked up our luggage (all of
us, except Gary - who didn't see his
luggage until Wednesday) and had to go
through Customs. After getting
through Customs, we met our tour
organizer, Doug Reese. Doug
is a Vietnam Veteran, who now lives in
Vietnam. He organizes these tours,
working through vietnam.com.
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We left the airport.
One of the interesting things leaving
the airport was all of the people lined
up outside of the airport. I'm not
sure if they were waiting for someone to
arrive or what they were doing, but
there certainly were a lot of people
waiting outside. Right then, one
thing I noticed was that many Vietnamese
people smoke cigarettes! We
were taken by van to our hotel.
Our luggage was loaded into a truck and
was taken separately to the hotel, where
it was delivered to our rooms. The
"control freak" part of me felt a bit
uncomfortable with leaving
our luggage
in others hands! Doug had arranged
to have a Vietnamese interpreter to
explain things to us. We all
called him the "My Family Guy" as
one of the things he repeated often was
"My Family". At first, I didn't
quite understand why he was talking
about his family but then came to
realize that each time he said "My
Family", he was addressing us. He
called our group - "My Family". He
was a bit hard to understand at times -
they work hard to learn English but with
their accent, it can still be difficult
to understand.
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Getting to our hotel
rooms was interesting.
The hotel was very nice. Roger and
I had a difficult time at first when we
got into our room as we attempted to
turn on the lights. There is a
small box by the door that we had to
insert our room access card into to get
the lights to work in the room.
All lights are controlled by a box on
the bedside stand! |
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After checking into
the Sofitel Hotel in downtown Saigon, we
exchanged US currency for Vietnamese
dong. $1.00 of US money buys
16,031 of Vietnamese dong. This is
the only time in our life that we will
all be millionaires - we all had over a
million in dong! |
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After we settled into
our rooms, we met to go on the bus to
tour the Presidential Palace.
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The tour was very
educational to say the least.
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After we were
finished touring the palace, we drove on
and toured the Vietnam War Museum, which
had many photos taken by journalists and
others during the war. We stopped at a
church and the post office also.
From there, we went to dinner.
Interesting fact: Dinner costs
were around $7.00 each for a very tasty
meal. |
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Jan
16: Depart from Ho Chi Minh City
(Saigon) |
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After
a huge, very tasty breakfast buffet at
the Sofitel, the group boarded the bus
to go back to the airport, where we flew
on Vietnam Airlines to Danang. The flight on
Vietnam Airlines was interesting with the fact that we
witnessed our take-off and landing on
the monitors on the plane.
Upon our arrival
in Danang, we again boarded a bus to go
to our hotel room in HoiAn, while
following our luggage in a truck.
Here we met our interpreter for the week
- Flower!
It was raining
slightly when we arrived but actually
felt good as we had left the very hot
humid weather back in Saigon.
We stopped at
Marble Mountain and toured the marble
factory. Everyone working at the
factory and showrooms was very friendly
and showed us their best. We
were hardy shoppers and most of us ended
up buying and taking some of the
finished products with us. Some of
us even purchased items that will be
shipped back to the states. |
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A vote was taken and
we came to the conclusion that we may
have found one of Jerry's kids!!
He is our bus driver for the week.
He doesn't speak our language but we
drew our conclusion by his looks.
The Palm Garden
Resort, which was to be our home for the
next five days, was another pleasant
surprise. We were greeted in the
front lobby with a warm wash cloth and a
cup of ginger tea. The rooms were
everything and more than we had expected
them to be.
After checking into our rooms, we were
taken by the bus to the village of Hoi
An to tour and do a bit of shopping.
We witnessed many crafty people at work.
It was very interesting to see young
ladies embroidering table cloths with
silk. It was hard to pass them up
and some of us ended up purchasing them
to bring back as souvenirs. The
workmanship is outstanding!
After a while, we
stopped by a restaurant in the Village.
Doug ordered a number of entrees for us,
which we all shared. This allowed
us to taste a variety of Vietnamese
food. We had a hard time deciding
which dish was the best as they all were
very tasty. We walked back to our
where our bus was parked in the Village
and then were taken back to the Palm
Garden. |
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Jan
17: Trip back to yesteryear |
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Wednesday morning, we
left by bus at 9:30 AM to drive to Que
Son Valley. Upon our arrival, many
left the bus to cross the field where
they stood at the bottom of the hill and
looked up at a War
Memorial, which had been placed there
after the war by the NVA. At that
time, the guys were sure that this might
be the place where they had their camp
during the War. But, after walking
up the hill, they saw that this was not
the right place. They returned
to the bus with a lot of red clay mud on
their boots and shoes. They
decided to look further and found that
the hill up just a bit further looked
more like the area they had been at in
1968. As
it turned out, the guys realized that
this was the correct area. They walked back up
the hill to find the area where their
base camp had been located on the flat
part above the hill. This was the entry
to the valley where many vehicles were
damaged or destroyed while many injuries
were sustained. In turn, much
damage was inflicted upon the enemy
here.
Leaving this spot,
we drove down the road a bit further.
We crossed a bridge to where Gary
believes he was located back in '68.
While Gary and others were out walking
in the area, a gal who spoke English
came up to the bus. She told us
that she now lives in Georgia (and she
was back in Vietnam visiting her
parents) but her father was here during
the war and that he knew of a soldier
who was shot in this area during that
time. This gal asked us if we
wanted to come to her father's home and
talk to him as he may know something.
Since Doug had asked Bill (a fellow who
works with the POW/MIA organization in
Vietnam looking for POW's or remains of
those still missing) to go on the bus
with us that day. So, Bill and
some of our group went to talk to her
father. We are hoping that this
will turn out to bring some closure for
a family of a missing soldier after
many, many years. |
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After a satisfying
day of seeing some of the things
that we came here to see, we rode
the bus back to our hotel.
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Jan
18:
The group splits up for the day |
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Thursday was the day
to travel to Chu Lai and Hawk Hill or spend time in
the Village of Hoi An. Either of
the choices made for another interesting
day. Those who went into Hoi An
were on a mission to get some clothing
tailored. Time spent in the
village was productive and ended with a
trip back to the Palm Garden with five
people in a very small taxi!!!
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Those who traveled to
Chu Lai and Hawk Hill had a long day but enjoyed the
trip.
There,
once again, they found another war
memorial, which was built after the war
by the VC. They drove up to the
top of a large hill and looked across
the way to see where the Americal was
set up during the war - which was
between Highway 1 and the South China
Sea. Both Chu Lai and Hawk Hill
were much like LZ Ross as there was
nothing left to indicate that the
Americans had been stationed here.
The air field and bunkers are the only
reminders. Going north, cattle
stood in the fields and there was
vegetation but all buildings were gone.
The group left Chu
Lai to go onto Hawk Hill. They
climbed the hill where the 1st Squad,
1st Cav maintained base camp during the
war. Again, there were no visible
reminders of an American presence.
As the group was leaving Hawk Hill, they
met a fellow who was 12-14 years old in
1968. He talked to the group and
said that he played outside the gate as
a child and provided information to the
VC. From
Hawk Hill, the group went north to Tam
Ky, where they enjoyed a lunch of
steamed/fried chicken with rice.
After lunch, they continued on toward
Hill 29. Upon their arrival, they
found that this is now a base for the
NVA as it was guarded with concrete
tanks. One member of the NVA came
to meet the group, which in turn sent
the group scurrying back to the bus! |
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Jan
19:
A day to relax and go on our own |
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Friday
was set aside to allow everyone to
choose what they would like to do with
their time. Roger and I took the
bus down to the Village of Hoi An, where
he went to the tailor and had a sport
coat made. We spent time looking
at merchandise at the shops and made
more purchases. By 2:30 PM, we had
enough shopping, so we came back to the
hotel. There, we decided to go
with Dennis and Ken and get our feet wet
in the South China Sea. In the
evening, we had pizza at the bar by the
Sea. |
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Jan
20: Our trip to Hue |
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We upgraded our bus
today for our trip to Hue. We left
at 9:30 AM driving through Danang.
We were in awe with the motorcycle
traffic in Danang and were surprised not
to see any accidents. As we drove,
we passed by weddings being held with
all the bright colored decorations.
From Danang, we motored through a
mountain pass to Hue. Here we
spent time at the Emperor's palace and
tomb. Flower educated us with
regards to the Emperor. He had 104
wives, who were ranked in nine different
categories. The first woman to
give him a son by birth would be the
Queen. Since none of these 104
women gave birth, he would choose his
Queen. After the Emperor died, the
Queen lives at the tomb until her death.
The Emperor would use the front door of
the palace and the ladies would use the
back door. It took 30,000 people
who donated 3 years each to build the
palace. The actual throne was
stolen from the palace as the French
destroyed the palace around 1954.
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Jan
21: Time to go back to
Saigon |
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Today
was check-out of the hotel for our
flight back to Saigon at 6PM. The
hotel was very gracious to allow us to
keep our rooms until 2 PM.
We took the bus back to the airport,
where we said our "good-byes" to our
driver and Flower. Walt, Joy and
Cindy Reed, along with Walt's son, Ron
Reed stayed behind in Saigon to spend
another day. Doug went with us to
Saigon, which eased our minds
tremendously. We arrived at the
Legend Hotel in Saigon for the night. |
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Jan
22:
Flights Home |
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This morning, we had
to say our good-bye's to part of the
group. Ken, Dennis, Frank and
Michele Bouche, along with Mike Mann,
Gary Boggs, Ron, Pam, Dovey and Allen
Decktor left this morning for the
airport. The Decktor's were
traveling on to Camodia but the rest of
that group were flying back to the
States. Mike Maurizio, David
Lindsey and Noreen and Roger Haines
spent the day in Saigon with Doug, as
our flight back to the States didn't
leave until 4 PM. Doug showed us
the Vietnamese version of Home Depot.
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Tidbits of info that
we noticed during our trip:
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Lots of geckos in
Saigon - hanging from the ceilings |
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We saw butterflies in
different places |
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Hibicus plants and
water lilies were beautiful |
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Prickly pear cactus
grows there |
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16,500 dong = $1.00
US Dollar |
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333, Heineken, and
Tiger beer |
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Coke or Pepsi were
available |
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Ginger tea & strong
coffee |
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French pastries |
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Bartering is the way
of life |
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Vietnamese people are
very friendly |
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Young Vietnamese
adults want to learn the English
language and would beg to be helped to
learn it |
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The average income by
2010 is expected to reach $1,000 per
year |
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