Happy St. Patrick’s Day
Today, we visited Vietnam for the very first time. During this segment, we will visit two ports of call in Vietnam. Today, we visited Da Nang, Vietnam. The ship docked in Chan May Port, which is, located approximately 30 miles from Da Nang.
The ship also docked close to Hue allowing passengers to visit this imperial city. Hue, which is pronounced “hway”, served as the Vietnamese capital from 1802 to 1945.
There are a variety of places to visit from this port of call. In addition to Hue, there is China Beach, the Marble Mountains and Cham Museum. We visited the latter three on our tour.
If we think back to the period anywhere from the 1960’s to say mid-1990 we never would have imagined visiting Vietnam in our lifetime. Yet, here we are in Vietnam today. Of course, the same could be said about those from America’s generation from the 1940’s when they had the opportunity years later to visit countries such as Japan and Germany. This demonstrates how time can heal great pain and conflict between nations and those who are your enemies today can be your friends tomorrow. We know that this country still had a ways to go and that the people who live there do not enjoy the benefits that people in certain other areas of the world enjoy. For example, the government owns the land, rather than its people.
Since we set the clocks back one hour last evening, we awoke even earlier this morning as we also needed to get ready for a relatively early shore excursion. We each worked out in the Fitness Center on the machines that we have become accustomed to use each and every day. A couple of the other regulars such as Mary and John also worked out this morning. As was the case yesterday morning, the Fitness Center was fairly full of passengers by the time we finished up. With a great percentage of younger people on this segment of the World Cruise it’s nice to see more passengers utilizing the equipment in the center.
Towards the end of our workout, as daylight occurred, we realized how foggy it was outside. As a result of the fog we could not see the ocean from the Fitness Center.
After our workout we went back to our room and as we were walking down the corridor we could see the room service steward (the Butler does not come on duty until 7:00 AM and it was 5:50 AM) right near our door getting ready to bring our breakfast to our room. He was a few minutes early and this turned out to be perfect time. We enjoyed a very nice breakfast in our room and after a little while we could see the ocean from our room even thought it was still fairly foggy outside.
Our ship arrived in port at around 7:00 AM. There is no fog on land. From our verandah we could see some stalls that were being set up where the locals sell merchandise. We could also see a long stretch of hills full of trees. There were some members of the military on the pier.
During Captain Glenn’s morning announcement he shared his thought of the day which is “Opportunities are made not found.”
We met our tour at 8:30 AM. We knew a few of the couples on our tour including our Travel Specialist and her husband.
Our tour included Da Nang and China beach so it represented both the “ancient” and the “new”. We were transported on a bus from the pier to the city of Da Nang. The drive took over an hour. We passed by a variety of small towns and a variety of structures from buildings in disrepair to nice looking buildings. During our drive into the city we drove thru the longest tunnel in Southeast Asia. If we remember correctly it is 6.5 kilometers.
During our drive to and from Da Nang, we were impressed with the overall roads. Overall, they were in better shape than we expected. There are very few automobiles on the road. Rather there were mostly buses and trucks and as we got into the city a vast number of motorbikes and some bicycles. The school children mainly ride on the bicycles.
Our first stop was the Cham Museum, where we viewed a variety of artifacts and our tour guide provided a good deal of information about what we would see.
We were then taken to an embroidery factory and from there we walked over to the Han Market. At the market a variety of items were sold from fruits and vegetables, to flowers, to a variety of packaged and bulk candies, to other food items, to thousands of shoes, to purses along with lots of other items. As we walked back to the bus, there were street vendors trying to sell us their items.
Afterwards we were taken to the village at Marble Mountain. The mountain is shaped like a dragon and is a series of marble and limestone formations. There was a store adjacent to the mountain, which sold marble items from little boxes and jewelry to very large items such as marble tables, benches lions and Buddha’s. Some of us, including Keith walked up the mountain. It was a beautiful walk and ended with a walk into a cave. We were told that during the Vietnam War that the cave was used as an emergency medical facility.
We then proceeded to China Beach. It served as a place for military personnel to find some rest and relaxation during the Vietnam Conflict and today is used by Hollywood to shoot a variety of movies. It is also home to a variety of five star resorts and there are plans to build many more over the coming years. We were taken to one resort for cold beverages including local beer, sodas and waters. The beach was beautiful as was the resort and if you didn’t know you were in Vietnam you may think that you were at a tropical island such as Hawaii. The setting was breathtaking.
As we drove back to the ship other areas were pointed out including an areas that was used during the war as an American Landing Strip.
Our guide shared lots of information to us about Vietnam. Interestingly, whenever he spoke about Ho Chi Minh City he referred to this city as Saigon. Keith asked him about the name and he said that the older people still think of it as Saigon and that the younger people also prefer to call it by its shorter name; Saigon.
We thoroughly enjoyed our tour. Our tour guide had a nice sense of humor. There were times that we knew he was pulling our leg.
When we arrived back to the ship there were lots of locals selling items along the pier. There is no question that the sale of items made in Vietnam to tourists and the export of items around the world is a contributor to their economy. They are also trying to drive their economy vis-à-vis tourism. We realize there are other areas of their economy from the fishing industry to the export of rice to the outsourcing that is now coming into their country. It is still a rather poor country but our observation is that it is on the right path, which should pay dividends over the long run. We found the people to be very friendly.
We pre-ordered lunch before we left the ship in the morning so that it would be ready when we returned back to our room. After lunch, we looked at the items that were being sold on the pier (we didn’t purchases any but had a good time looking at them) and then we took a nice walk on the Promenade Deck.
The weather was delightful today. We had expected it to be very humid and that was not the case. We would guess that the highs were in the low 80s. It was a perfect day to be visiting this area of the world.
This evening we dined at the Silk Road Japanese Specialty Restaurant. We dined with Herbert Doppler, the Hotel Director of the ship and with Walter Pietschnig the Food and Beverage Manager. As Hotel Director, Herbert Doppler has responsibility for all personnel associated with the operation of the Hotel portion of the ship including all of the Stewardesses, Restaurant Personnel, Bar Staff, Entertainers, Cruise Director and his staff, the Front Desk, including Shore Excursion, Concierge, and Reception Personnel, the Pursers office, and just about everyone who is not involved in the operation and technical support of the ship. At the same time, Walter Pietschnig has responsibility for the Food and Beverage areas of the ship, including the restaurants and the lounges. We had a very enjoyable dinner with them. The food, service and of course the conversation was outstsanding.
St. Patrick’s Day was recognized in the Main Dining Room of the ship with some items that were on the menu in spirit of this holiday. This included Cream of Spinach Soup (green), Irish Lamb Stew, a couple of Desserts such as “The Dubliner” which consisted of Molly Maguire’s Bricoche Breat and Butter Pudding with Whiskey-Banana Caramel Sauce and Guinness Ice Cream (no calories ☺ ) and the “Irish Rain” consisting of Apple Fritters with Spiced Grapes and Crème Brulee with Guinness and Toasted Almond Ice Cream.
We each wore some green this evening in honor of St. Patrick’s Day.
Tomorrow, we have a sea day as we sail to Ho Chi Minh City.
Keith & Anne Marie
