We had flown out of San Francisco Airport on December 29th and crossed the international dateline. After a two hour layover in Tokyo, we flew in to Saigon at about 10:30 at night. I'll never forget stepping in to the airport that night, because they were playing a lovely song, "Happy New Year," over the intercom and it was just beautiful. We met a really great fellow in the Tokyo Airport who was originally from Vietnam, had left as a Boat Person, now lives in Half Moon Bay, and was now returning for a visit to his uncle. He offered to help us find a room in a nice hotel, since Doug was having trouble finding a vacancy before our departure from America. We all cabbed over to his uncle's beautiful home and one of his nephews telephoned around and found us accomodations at the Oscar Hotel for the night.
We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City on December 30th very late at night. The next day was New Year's Eve, which is also our anniversary. For some reason we didn't take many photos of Ho Chi Minh City - I suppose we thought we would get some at the end of the trip and at the end of the trip we forgot and thought we had taken lots of photos at the beginning of our trip. In any event, we don't have many photos of the first few days of our trip. For those of you who don't know, Ho Chi Minh City is the name for Saigon now under the socialist regime.
On New Year's Eve every Vietnamese in Saigon was out on a motorbike, which is the favorite method of travel in Vietnam. We thought is was cute to see three people riding on a motorbike - the maximum we saw on one motorbike was 6! Christmas and New Year's are the most popular times of the year to get married in Vietnam. This photo was taken in front of the Oscar Hotel in Saigon. The Oscar is a very popular place to get married and there was always a wedding taking place there throughout our stay. We used the Oscar as a home base during our month in Vietnam.
We planned to stay at the Oscar until January 2, then leave for Nha Trang. We spent one week in Nha Trang, then returned to the Oscar. By that time I was quite sick with the flu and was laid up for three days. We finally checked out and took a two day boat trip up the Mekong Delta, staying overnight in the small town of Chou Doc, then departed Vietnam and went to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. By then I had strep throat, but once Doug bought me some over-the-counter antibiotics upon our arrival, I was better within a few days. We stayed in Phnom Penh for three nights, then went to Siem Reap to visit Angkor Wat. After four days there we flew back to Saigon and stayed for two nights. We flew to Phu Quoc Island, off of the southern shore of Vietnam and Cambodia, and stayed for six nights, then returned to Saigon.
When we arrived back in Saigon at the Oscar Hotel for our final packing before we left the country, they gave us a beautiful suite of rooms with plenty of room for us to lay out our goods and pack them - all for the regular price they had always charged us, $40 per night. By the way, the $40 per night price included a fantastic breakfast each morning, which is customary in Vietnamese and Cambodian hotels.
We flew home and we were glad to see our house and family again, but we loved Vietnam and plan to return there again next year. We hope our friends enjoy looking through our little travelogue here - and if you have any comments, be sure and drop us an email.
